Background
Cook was born at Chiltern, Victoria to English splitter Henry Cook and his Irish wife Mary, née Wilkinson.
Cook was born at Chiltern, Victoria to English splitter Henry Cook and his Irish wife Mary, née Wilkinson.
He received little formal education and was soon a land-owner, owning land at Tallangatta and Porepunkah. He became one of the most active public figures in the Wangaratta district, founding the North-Eastern Company-operative Society Limited in 1906. He was also a director of the Milawa Dairy Company and chairman of the Butter and Chesse Factories Association of Victoria, and held membership of the Victorian Dairy Council, the Western and Murray Company-operative Bacon and Meat Packing Company, the Wangaratta Agricultural Society, and the Melbourne Chamber of Agriculture.
In 1919, Cook stood for the Australian House of Representatives as a candidate for the Victorian Farmers Union in Industrial, and defeated sitting Nationalist member John Leckie.
A year later, Cook joined several other rural MPs in forming the Country Party. Cook was handily returned under the Country banner in 1922 and 1925.
However, in 1928, he mistakenly failed to lodge his renomination papers, resulting in Labor challenger Paul Jones taking the seat unopposed. He tried to regain the seat in 1929, but narrowly lost to Jones.
Cook was buried at the local cemetery at Milawa.
Cook was a member of Chiltern Shire Council 1902-1904, and was elected to Oxley Shire Council in 1908, being its president 1910-1911 and 1916-1917.
