Family and Education

Offices Held

Bailiff, Huntingdon from 1595.

Biography

There need be no doubt that the bailiff of Huntingdon was the MP, but his origins are obscure. He may have been a son of Robert Cooke, master of St. John’s Hospital, an almshouse to which was attached the grammar school in Huntingdon; or the son and heir of Simon Cooke (d.1589) of Kingsthorpe near the Huntingdonshire and Northamptonshire border. A Robert Cooke of Huntingdonshire matriculated from Queens’ College, Cambridge, as a sizar at Michaelmas 1583, and graduated BA from St. Catherine’s, Lent 1588.

Little more is known about Cooke. In the year of his death he rebuilt the bridge across the causeway between Godmanchester and Huntingdon as a thank-offering for his escape from drowning there. By his will, proved at Huntingdon, he bequeathed to the poor a yearly rent-charge of £5, issuing out of five acres of land in Godmanchester known as Bridge Close.

E. Griffith, Huntingdon Recs. 102, 103, 105; VCH Hunts. ii. 107n, 286; Rylands Eng. ms 211; Hunts. Wills (Brit. Rec. Soc. Index Lib. xlii), p. 164.

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: R.C.G.

Notes