John Cooke
Engraver and Publisher: 1765 - 1845
JOHN COOKE – of London and Plymouth
THIRD EDITION
Newly Revised 2024
INTRODUCTION
I am an avid collector of Devon guidebooks and soon became aware that a certain John Cooke had either engraved, or engraved and published, plans of the Plymouth area or of its breakwater which expanded in to an article about Plymouth Breakwater.[1] Over the years I managed to acquire a number of maps and plans depicting this monumental enterprise and Cooke´s name appeared several times. The name John Cooke is certainly not rare. However, there appeared to be two or even three engravers of that name around this time, with two operating from London, the other from Stonehouse, Plymouth, not counting the other Cookes active in the book and printing trades at the turn of the nineteenth century. According to Tooley´s Dictionary of Mapmakers (the most reliable source at that time) there seemed to be a father and son team of John and Charles Cooke[2] in London as well as a possible second John in London and yet another John in Plymouth.
In the course
of my research, I had the good fortune to come into contact with Laurence Worms.
He is one of the leading experts on British engravers and in the meantime had
compiled a list of John Cooke´s work and, like me, was convinced that the entry
in Tooley was incorrect. The first edition of this present work was a result of
the extra input he was able to provide. We were able to prove beyond doubt that
one of the John Cookes of London was also the John Cooke who was responsible
for the Plymouth output.[3] However,
we were not able to piece much of his family life together.
In spring
2021 I was very fortunate that Dr Shirley Atkinson contacted me about John
Cooke shortly after I posted his work on the internet.[4] She is directly descended from John Cooke through
his second son Edward. Dr Atkinson was able to furnish me with copies of many
of the documents that had been lacking when I wrote the first edition. Since
our first contact she has provided me with more information and the second
edition was completely revised to include the new facts – and also less
speculation – about John’s life.
In the course of including Dr Atkinson’s material, I took the opportunity to add new information which had come to my attention since the first and second editions; this included one new map (24A) as well as many more illustrations which have come to light. The interested reader will discover more about the projects which John Cooke worked on both before moving to Plymouth, and his career while residing in Stonehouse, now in Plymouth, but in 1815 a bustling community perched between Plymouth in the east and the important dockyards to the west.
The internet
is becoming increasingly important for researchers, as more and more works are digitalised
and made available to the public. Online retailers and antiquarian bookshops as
well as auction houses are posting more and more information and images of
works in their possession and the patient researcher can discover hitherto
unknown works. Such is the case with this present edition. The world wide web
can be frustrating and surprising: entering the same search requirements five
times can provide five different results; and some lead to sites one had used
but which now reveal something totally new or suggest a new lead to follow up
further. In only twelve months, due to a combination of diligence, fluke and
serendipity I have been able to uncover a wealth of non-cartographic material
executed by John Cooke. These range from an anti-Jacobin caricature produced in
1799 for a London publisher, an early aborted project for an atlas to plates of
fossils executed for a local Stonehouse author.
Although only
one new chart was discovered in this period, the Mercator’s Chart from England
to Greenland (1A), a more detailed look at David Steel´s Elements
of Rigging reveals that John Cooke produced nearly 50 of the plates at an
early stage of his career. Nevertheless, the new material added to that which
we already know about cannot be all he produced in his lifetime: there is more
to be discovered out there.
Any errors in
transcription or interpretation are all mine and where I have taken the liberty
to speculate, I hope I have clearly indicated this. Acknowledgements for
contributions and illustrations are included and I am indebted to all those who
furnished me with details, however trivial.
Kit Batten
Third Edition
Stuttgart, February 2024
CONTENTS
IMPORTANT: To go directly to the individual maps, begin by opening Part IV. Short List. This has a list of all 36 cartographic works with links to each map listed in chronological order.
Click the link (blue) to go directly to the following chapter.
Confusion
John Cooke - London
John Cooke (1765-1791)
John
Cooke of Hendon and Mill Hill (1792-1796)
John
Cooke of Howland Street
(c.1799-1805)
The Ladies Circular Atlas and “Mr
Barrow”
The Rev. Thomas Smith and The
Universal Atlas
John
Cooke at the Admiralty (1802-1805)
Between the Admiralty and Plymouth (1805-1812)
Synopsis of Geography
Stonehouse (1813-1845)
Napoleon
and Cooke´s first Plymouth engravings
The
Copper-Plate Engraving, and Printing Office (1815-21)
John Cooke of Union Street, Stonehouse (1823-1845)
A Summary of John Cooke´s life
Part Two - Cartographic Works
IV. Short list of Cartographic Works by John Cooke
A list of all John Cooke´s cartographic output
V. List of Addresses used by John Cooke
Addresses associated with John Cooke
VI. List of Apprentices taken in by John Cooke
Apprentices taken on by John Cooke
Part Three - Cartobibliography
VII. The Cartographic Works of John Cooke
Maps 1 - 36 in chronological order
Part Four - Acknowledgements and Sources of Material
Thanks to those who have made this possible
Sources of those images reproduced on this website
Monograph: John Cooke - Engraver and Publisher - 1765 London -1845 Plymouth. All rights reserved. Copyright lodged with British Library and other major libraries.
Notes on using my Blog.
1. Maps are numbered in sequence as used in my monograph lodged with DevA, WDRO and BL and other major libraries. See Chapters IV and VII.
Map 24A was originally thought to be by or for Byers and was added later when it transpired it was a Cooke plan.
2. Ignore the dating of individual blog page publication. To run sequentially I had to "fiddle" the published date.
3. If you are aware of further works by Cooke, please let me have details. If you notice any mistakes (there are probably many) also contact me at KitTheMap@aol.com.
Kit Batten
January 2010/Revised 2012/2020
Blog posted October 2020 (First Edition)
Blog updated to Second Edition June 2021
Blog updated to Third Edition from February 2024
[1] See Kit Batten:
[2] See Tooley´s Dictionary of Mapmakers Vol. I; Map Collector Publications;1979; pages 295 and 297.
[3] Kit Batten: Who Were John Cooke? – Finally getting it right?: IMCOS Journal No. 126; Autumn 2011.
[4] This Third Edition will replace it at https://john-cooke-cartographer.blogspot.com/.
John Cooke – Engraver and Publisher
1765 London – 1845 Plymouth
Third Edition
This Edition
published privately in 2024.
Copyright
© 2024 Kit Batten.
A
copy of this book has been lodged with the British Library.
Reference
copies are available at Devon Archives and Heritage Centre, Exeter
And
at Plymouth Central Library.
This work is dedicated to the late
Francis Bennett.
Always a friend and ever generous with advice
and information he also sold me copies of
works by John Cooke.
Without this input I would probably never have
begun this monograph.
An
updated version of this monograph can be found on-line at:
https://john-cooke-cartographer.blogspot.com/
Please
note that the same copyright rules apply to the on-line version,
i.e.,
all images remain the property of the legal owner and cannot be used in any way
without conforming to the standard rules and regulations concerning attribution
of the same copyright.
For a
full list of Kit Batten´s articles listed on-line go to:
https://welcome-to-kits-blog.blogspot.com/2021/12/blog-post.html
All
rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior
permission of the copyright holder.
Any illustrations used in this, on-line version (https://john-cooke-cartographer.blogspot.com), may not be
reproduced without the explicit consent of the copyright holder. A list of
sources for all illustrations will be found at the back of this work.
Hello. Thank you for this blog. I have been researching my family history and have an Edward Cooke born in 1814 in Plymouth - baptised at St Andrews. His father is John Cooke. On Edward's marriage certificate John Cooke is given as his father and is shown as having the occupation of Chart Engraver. On the baptism record for Edward, John Cooke is given as an Engraver and living at Stonehouse, Plymouth in 1816. If this fits with your research - it would appear that indeed John is in Plymouth at this time but appears busy raising a family.
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