George Cooke (c.1705–1768) was an English barrister and politician.

Life

He was the son of Sir George Cooke, a barrister who became chief prothonotary in the Court of Common Pleas, and his wife Anne, daughter of Edward Jennings, Member of Parliament for East Looe.[1][2][3] He entered the Inner Temple in 1717, and was called to the bar in 1728.[1]

Cooke was in practice as a barrister until his father died, in 1740. He had the life appointment as chief prothonotary, from 1732, and also inherited the family estate, Harefield in Middlesex.[1][2]

In 1742 Cooke entered parliament, as member for Tregony, supported by Hugh Boscawen, 2nd Viscount Falmouth.[4] At this stage, Horace Walpole called him "a pompous Jacobite". Leaving parliament in 1747, he was returned for Middlesex in 1750. Initially a Tory, he became a follower of William Pitt the elder in the later 1750s. In the 1760s he opposed the Stamp Act 1765. He was still the member for Middlesex when he died on 5 June 1768.[1]

Family

Cooke married Catherine, daughter of Sir Thomas Twisden, 4th Baronet, in 1735; they had seven sons. The heir was George John Cooke, who became a Lieutenant-General in the Army.[2]

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Cooke, George (c.1705-68), of Harefield, Mdx., History of Parliament Online". Retrieved 31 May 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 Sir Bernard Burke (1863). A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland. Harrison. p. 1576.
  3. ↑ "Jennings, Edward (c.1647–1725), of Little Lincoln's Inn Fields, Mdx. and Duddlestone, Salop., History of Parliament Online". Retrieved 31 May 2015.
  4. ↑ "Cooke, George (c.1705–68), of Bellamond, or Bellacketts, in Harefield, Mdx., History of Parliament Online". Retrieved 31 May 2015.
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