church of Scotland on 13 Aug. 1828, and ordained minister of Laurencekirk, Kincardineshire, on 3 Sept. 1829. From this charge he was translated to St. Leonard's at St. Andrews, on 11 Sept. 1845 (admitted 2 Oct.). On 9 Dec. 1848 he was made D.D. at St. Andrews; and on 19 June 1860 he was appointed to the chair of divinity and ecclesiastical history in that university, which he held until 30 July 1868, having resigned his pastoral charge on 30 Sept. 1863, on becoming one of the deans of the chapel royal. Cook was an excellent man of business, and an able pamphleteer on church affairs. The general assembly (of which he was elected moderator 19 May 1859) made him convener of many of its important committees, e.g. on education (1849), improving the condition of parish schoolmasters (1850), aids to devotion (1857), army and navy chaplains (1859). In 1859 he was chosen an assessor to the university court of St. Andrews, under the new constitution of the Scottish universities. He died on 17 April 1869 in his sixty-second year. On 9 May 1837 he married Rachel Susan, daughter of William Farquar, by whom he had five daughters. A painted window to his memory is placed in the college church at St. Andrews. Hew Scott enumerates thirteen publications by Cook, the earliest being 1. ‘Evidence on Church Patronage,’ Edin. 1838, 8vo; and the most important, 2. ‘Six Lectures on the Christian Evidences,’ Edin. 1852, 8vo. The others are speeches, statistical pamphlets, a catechism (1845), a farewell sermon (1845), &c.
[Hew Scott's Fasti Eccles. Scot.]
COOK, JOHN, D.D. (1807–1874), Scottish divine, born 12 Sept. 1807, was the eldest son of George Cook [q. v.], by Diana, eldest daughter of Rev. Alexander Shank. In 1823 he graduated A.M. at St. Andrews. He was licensed for the ministry of the Scottish church by the presbytery of Fordoun on 17 Sept. 1828, and ordained minister of Cults, Fifeshire, on 1 June 1832. He was translated to the second charge at Haddington on 26 Nov. 1833 (admitted 19 Dec.); and ten years later was translated to the first charge in the same place (admitted 20 June 1843). In common with other members of the ecclesiastical family of Cook, he was a strong supporter of the moderate party in the Scottish church. A sentence of deposition having been passed by the general assembly (May 1841) on seven ministers of Strathbogie, who in a case of patronage upheld a decree of the court of session in opposition to the authority of the assembly, Cook was, on 10 May 1842, suspended by the assembly from judicial functions for nine months, for taking part in sacramental communion with the deposed ministers. His promotion to the first charge at Haddington immediately followed the disruption of 1843. In the same year the degree of D.D. was conferred on him by his university. He was a strong and persuasive speaker, and was looked up to as a trusted leader in church courts. The assembly made him in 1854 convener of its committee for increasing the means of education and religious instruction in Scotland. He was elected sub-clerk of assembly on 25 May 1859, principal clerk on 22 May 1862, and was raised on 24 May 1866 to the moderator's chair. Cook was a man of much public force and great geniality of character. His position as a leader of the moderates in ecclesiastical politics was unattended by any latitudinarian tendencies in matter of doctrine. He died on 11 Sept. 1874. He married (14 July 1840) a daughter of Henry Davidson; his wife died 3 Jan. 1850, leaving three daughters. He published: 1. ‘Styles of Writs and Forms of Procedure in the Church Courts of Scotland,’ Edin. 1850, 8vo. 2. ‘Letter … on the Parochial Schools of Scotland,’ Edin. 1854, 8vo. 3. ‘Speech on … Scotch Education Bill,’ 1871, 8vo.
[Hew Scott's Fasti Eccles. Scot.; information from Rev. R. N. Smith, Haddington.]
COOK, JOHN DOUGLAS (1808?–1868), editor of the ‘Saturday Review,’ was born at Banchory-Ternan in Aberdeenshire, probably in 1808, though, according to his own belief, he was born in 1811. At an early age he obtained an appointment in India, probably through an uncle, one of the Sir George Roses. He quarrelled with his employers in India, returned, as he used to relate, on foot for a great part of the way, and found himself in destitution in London. He tried literature, and at last sent an article without his name to the ‘Times.’ Upon its acceptance he made himself known, and became a friend of Walter, the proprietor. He was also known to Murray, for whom he indexed the early volumes of the ‘Quarterly Review,’ and through Murray he became known to the fifth Lord Stanhope. When Walter was elected for Nottingham as a tory in 1841, Cook accompanied him to help in the election. He there made acquaintance with Lord Lincoln (afterwards fifth duke of Newcastle), who became chief commissioner of woods and forests in Peel's administration. Lord Lincoln sent a commission into Cornwall to inquire into the revenues of the duchy, and made Cook its secretary. The work came to an end about 1848. Some of the ‘Peelite’ party, to which Lincoln belonged, had bought
