Description:This is an abridged biography of William Cook, the full version is available on this page as a download.
Mr Cook was born on November 28th, 1834, at the village of Kingscourt, near Stroud in Gloucestershire. His parents came to Birmingham when he was only eight years old. He was brought up as a mechanic. While quite a youth he was elected a member of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers and his ability was so quickly manifest that at the age of twenty he was appointed the delegate from Birmingham to the meeting held at Manchester, for the purpose of revising the rules of the Society. For six years he held the office of official Secretary for the Birmingham branch, when his great services were recognised by the presentation of a skeleton clock from his fellow members.
Mr Cook has always displayed the greatest enthusiasm on the subject of popular education. As a teacher in the now famous Severn Street early morning schools for the instruction of adults, he has endeared himself to the hearts of hundreds, if not thousands of men who have profited by his labours. That this love was not of a temporary nature, which comes and goes at the prompting of a new undertaking, is proved by the fact that for thirty years he has been a continuous labourer in this fruitful vineyard. It is impossible to over-estimate the amount of good, which has been produced by the unchangeable devotion of such men as Mr Cook and his noble-hearted colleagues, in this truly philanthropic work.
Of course in such a place as Birmingham these and other kindred works, could not be allowed to pass unnoticed and the minds of the burgesses of his own ward naturally turned to him as a fitting and proper representative in the Town Council. Accordingly, in 1873, he was elected for Hampton Ward, and when a change was made in the wards, he was re-elected for St. George's Ward. When we think of the many years which Mr Cook has so earnestly devoted to the subject of the health of the borough, there is something startling in the fact that his first work in the Council was connected with this great subject. In the first election of committees he was placed on the Inspection Committee, which afterwards became the better known and more important Health Committee.
The years 1873-74 were marked by the visitation of an epidemic of smallpox and Mr Cook was elected Chairman of the Committee, which had to deal with this terrible scourge. The evil was so thoroughly and energetically grappled with by the Committee and its Chairman, that the ordinary good health and low death-rate of the borough were again secured. The Borough Hospital and Disinfecting Station were established and when the Public Health Act of 1875 was passed there were not many Corporations so ready to adopt and carry out its provisions as was the Corporation of Birmingham.
Alderman Cook is still Chairman of the Health Committee and in 1893-4 had to contend with an epidemic of smallpox and scarlet fever more virulent than that of 1874 and displayed the same energy and was rewarded with a like success. He has also been a member of the Improvement, the Public Works and the General Purposes Committees, in all of which he has been active and vigilant in the discharge of his duties. In 1883 Alderman Cook received our highest municipal honour and was elected Mayor.
There is probably no part of his public work on which he looks with greater and more justifiable pride than in his connexion with that peculiarly Birmingham institution, Hospital Saturday. The establishment of the convalescent hospitals, both for men and women, at Llandudno, is the crowning achievement of his labours in this field of good work. As Chairman of the Committee he has inspired all with his sanguine spirit and the heart co-operation of every member has enabled them to obtain the yearly-increasing amounts which have marked the history of this admirable movement. It is an unexampled event in the records of charitable efforts that over £12,000 have been subscribed in one year for an object so purely unselfish and by working men of the city. May it be perpetual!
Alderman Cook has also been an active politician - he is a strenuous Liberal; in 1885 he was elected M.P. for the eastern division of the city, but failed to secure re-election in 1886. He is the President of the Birmingham Liberal Association. In 1900 Alderman Cook lived at 15 Trinity Road in Birchfield.