
I. London Except for the published works which have been discovered, not much is known about John Cooke´s life. We do know that John Cooke was the son of Ann and John Cooke of Fetter Lane, a shagreen-case-maker [i] . He was baptised 1 st August 1765 at St Andrew in Holborn, London, three years before a brother, Stephen William, who also became engraver. He was apprenticed to the bookbinder Mary Cooke, also of Fetter Lane on 7 th September 1779 at the age of fourteen (normal practice in those days). However, he was turned over to William Wells, an engraver, of Fleet Street on 6 th November 1787 “and to John Russell, by whom he was freed the same day” which points to some kind of special arrangement. Russell himself was a well-known engraver and it may be that his influence led Cooke in that direction. Between 1787 and 1812 John Cooke worked as an engraver from a number of different London addresses. Considering that he had a number of apprentices himself during this period, i