Education
At their Lithgow home, Cook studied in the evenings, moving from writing and grammar to typing and shorthand, and then to book-keeping.
At their Lithgow home, Cook studied in the evenings, moving from writing and grammar to typing and shorthand, and then to book-keeping.
Early years Beginning as a pupil teacher at Chesterton Girls" School, by 1885 she was an assistant mistress. Like Cook, she came from a Staffordshire mining family. He began studying to become a Methodist minister.
Emigration Foreign the 20 years he sat in the federal parliament, Joseph Cook spent much of his time in Melbourne, where parliament sat.
Mary Cook managed their large household in Sydney, with eight children born between 1886 and 1906. Cook became Navy Minister in Billy Hughes" government in 1917.
Mary Cook was by then very active in the New South Wales Branch of the Australian Red Cross Society, and in Cook"s electorate of Parramatta. From the time of her hushband"s knighthood in 1918 she became Lady Cook and was styled in that way until seven years later when she was honoured in her own right as a Dame.
She spoke at meetings there in the 1919 election campaign, and also deputised at ministerial events, such as the unveiling of an Honour Roll dedicated to the 1914-1918 servicemen and women in General Granville Ryrie"s Manly electorate.
London During her husband"s term as High Commissioner, Mary Cook played a key role for the Australian Red Cross Society, including representing the Society at a meeting of the International Red Cross Board of Governors in Paris in 1923. Honours Retirement The Cooks returned to Australia in 1927, enjoying an active retirement. In the first year of the association £300 was raised for equipment and improvements to the school"s hospital.
Sir Joseph Cook died in 1947, and Dame Mary Cook died on 24 September 1950, aged 87, at her Bellevue Hill, New South Wales.