Dictionary of Irish Architects 1720 - 1940

Irish-born engineer, who spent almost his entire working life in India. Cooke, the eldest son of the Rev. John Cooke, rector of Ardfinan, Co. Tipperary, was born in Drogheda in 1836. In 1851 he was admitted to Trinity College, Dublin, where he had a distinguished career, obtaining his BA and the Licentiate in Civil Engineering in 1860. After working briefly in London under a Colonel Kennedy, he left for India where he spent four years as an engineer to the Bombay, Baroda, and Central Railway Co. As such he was responsible for erecting the 4312ft-long iron bridge at Bessein. In 1865 he was appointed Principal of the Poona College of Civil Engineering. He was created a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire in 1891. In 1893 he retired to England, where he was employed for a further three years as Technical Sub-Director of the Imperial Institute, London. He died aged 74 in Kew, London, on 5 November 1910.

ICEI: elected foreign life member, 1865.



References

All information in this entry is from ICEI admissions applications, I, 83, the obituary of Cooke in TICEI 37 (1910-1911), 190 and Who Was Who 1897-1916, 155.