Mr. Cooke was for many years in the commission of the peace for the county of Middlesex, and was three years governor of the Bank of England. He was a man of singular character, very shrewd, but highly esteemed, particularly for his unbounded munificence. Having made his will, whereby he had bequeathed 1,000_l._ to the clerks of the Bank, he resolved on being his own executor, and to give them the money in his lifetime. Accordingly, in the month of February, preceding his death, he sent a note of 1,000_l._ to the governor of the Bank, requesting that it might be distributed among the clerks, in the proportion of one guinea for every year that each person had been in their service, and the remaining 3_l._ to the porters. Mr. Cooke died at Stoke Newington, 12th of August, 1752, aged eighty. By his own directions he was attended to the grave by twelve poor housekeepers belonging to a box-club at Stoke Newington, of which he had long been a generous and useful member. To each man he bequeathed a guinea and a suit of clothes, and as much victuals and drink as he chose; but if either of the legatees got fuddled he was to forfeit his legacy, and was only to receive half-a-crown for his day's work. Mr. Cooke's corpse was wrapped in a clean blanket, sewed up, and, being put into a common coffin, was conveyed, with the above attendants, in three coaches, to the grave close to a stile, near Sir John Morden's College, on Blackheath, of which he was a trustee. The corpse was then taken out of the coffin, which was left in the college for the first pensioner it would fit, and buried in a winding-sheet upright in the ground, according to the Eastern custom. Cooke's widow maintained the same benevolent character with himself, and died at Stoke Newington, January 15th, 1763. They had issue two daughters, both of whom died before their father. "Lady Lewson," of Clerkenwell.