In 1855 Mr. Cooke obtained a silver medal at the first Paris Exhibition for a six-inch equatorial telescope.[8] This was the highest prize awarded. A few years later he was invited to Osborne by the late Prince Albert, to discuss with his Royal Highness the particulars of an equatorial mounting with a clock movement, for which he subsequently received the order. On its completion he superintended the erection of the telescope, and had the honour of directing it to several of the celestial objects for the Queen and the Princess Alice, and answered their many interesting questions as to the stars and planets within sight.
Mr. Cooke was put to his mettle towards the close of his life. Acontest had long prevailed among telescope makers as to who should turn out the largest refracting instrument. The two telescopes of fifteen inches aperture, prepared by Merz and Mahler, of Munich, were the largest then in existence. Their size was thought quite extraordinary. But in 1846, Mr. Alvan Clark, of Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, U.S., spent his leisure hour's in constructing small telescopes.[9] He was not an optician, nor a mathematician, but a portrait painter. He possessed, however, enough knowledge of optics and of mechanics, to enable him to make and judge a telescope. He spent some ten years in grinding lenses, and was at length enabled to produce objectives equal in quality to any ever made.
In 1853, the Rev. W. E. Dawes--one of Mr. Cooke's customers --purchased an object-glass from Mr. Clark. It was so satisfactory that he ordered several others, and finally an entire telescope.
The American artist then began to be appreciated in his own country. In 1860 he received an order for a refractor of eighteen inches aperture, three inches greater than the largest which had up to that time been made. This telescope was intended for the Observatory of Mississippi; but the Civil War prevented its being removed to the South; and the telescope was sold to the Astronomical Society of Chicago and mounted in the Observatory of that city.
And now comes in the rivalry of Mr. Cooke of York, or rather of his patron, Mr. Newall of Gateshead. At the Great Exhibition of London, in 1862, two large circular blocks of glass, about two inches thick and twenty-six inches in diameter, were shown by the manufacturers, Messrs. Chance of Birmingham. These discs were found to be of perfect quality, and suitable for object-glasses of the best kind. At the close of the Exhibition, they were purchased by Mr. Newall, and transferred to the workshops of Messrs. Cooke and Sons at York. To grind and polish and mount these discs was found a work of great labour and difficulty. Mr.
Lockyer says, "such an achievement marks an epoch in telescopic astronomy, and the skill of Mr. Cooke and the munificence of Mr.
Newall will long be remembered."
When finished, the object-glass had an aperture of nearly twenty-five inches, and was of much greater power than the eighteen-inch Chicago instrument. The length of the tube was about thirty-two feet. The cast-iron pillar supporting the whole was nineteen feet in height from the ground, and the weight of the whole instrument was about six tons. In preparing this telescope, nearly everything, from its extraordinary size, had to be specially arranged.[10] The great anxiety involved in these arrangements, and the constant study and application told heavily upon Mr. Cooke, and though the instrument wanted only a few touches to make it complete, his health broke down, and he died on the l9th of October, 1868, at the comparatively early age of sixty-two.
Mr. Cooke's death was felt, in a measure, to be a national loss.
His science and skill had restored to England the prominent position she had held in the time of Dollond; and, had he lived, even more might have been expected from him. We believe that the Gold Medal and Fellowship of the Royal Society were waiting for him; but, as one of his friends said to his widow, "neither worth nor talent avails when the great ordeal is presented to us." In a letter from Professor Pritchard, he said: "Your husband has left his mark upon his age. No optician of modern times has gained a higher reputation; and I for one do not hesitate to call his loss national; for he cannot be replaced at present by any one else in his own peculiar line. I shall carry the recollection of the affectionate esteem in which I held Thomas Cooke with me to my grave. Alas! that he should be cut off just at the moment when he was about to reap the rewards due to his unrivalled excellence. I have said that F.R.S. and medals were to be his. But he is, we fondly trust, in a better and higher state than that of earthly distinction. Best assured, your husband's name must ever be associated with the really great men of his day. Those who knew him will ever cherish his memory."Mr. Cooke left behind him the great works which he founded in Buckingham Street, York. They still give employment to a large number of skilled and intelligent artizans. There I found many important works in progress,--the manufacture of theodolites, of prismatic compasses (for surveying), of Bolton's range finder, and of telescopes above all. In the factory yard was the commencement of the Observatory for Greenwich, to contain the late Mr. Lassell's splendid two feet Newtonian reflecting telescope, which has been presented to the nation. Mr. Cooke's spirit still haunts the works, which are carried on with the skill, the vigour, and the perseverance, transmitted by him to his sons.
While at York, I was informed by Mr. Wigglesworth, the partner of Messrs. Cooke, of an energetic young astronomer at Bainbridge, in the mountain-district of Yorkshire, who had not only been able to make a telescope of his own, but was an excellent photographer.
