THOMAS COOKE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 October 1940, Page 9

THOMAS COOKE

START AS AN OPTICIAN. As a boy he read Captain Cook’s journal, was fired with the desire io sail to southern seas, and, in order to fit himself for his travels, he studied mathematics and science. One day he announced that he was going to sea. With tears his mother- begged him to stay with her, and little Thomas Cooke's ambition was given up for love of her. Instead of going round the world, he stayed in the Yorkshire village set up a school, and made a name for himself as a clever and altogether charming fellow. There was never a man worked harder than Thomas Cooke. He taught, but he also learnt, and having turned his attention to astronomy, he decided to make himself a telescope. He could not afford to buy a lense, so he broke a tumbler and set to work with incred-

ible patience to grind the bottom of it till it should serve his purpose. His instrument was so successful, and his ingenuity was so much talked of, that he found himself being asked to make telescopes for other people. In the end he set up as an optician in York. His business grew. By the time he was 60 he had over 100 men working for him, and nowhere in the world were optical instruments made with more care, greater accuracy, and better finish. / It amazes us to think of the work this Yorkshireman got through in his 61 years. He won European celebrity. He made a 41 inch equitorial telescope, and went on to make one of seven inches, then of 18 inches, and one of 25. This last undertaking—with an object glass of unprecedented dimensions—required endless patience, immense skill, and remarkably fine machinery for its successful production. Thomas Cooke meant it io have the highest possible finish, and took personal care of all its stages, but the anxieties of the commission were too much for him, and he died before the work was complete.