Summary heading
Career within Commonwealth
Mary Cook (née Turner) was born at Chesterton in
Staffordshire, England, in 1863. On 8
August 1885, at the Wolstanton Primitive Methodist Chapel, she married Joseph
Cook, who became the sixth Prime Minister of Australia (24 June 1913 to 17
September 1914). Mary Turner had been a
pupil and teacher at the Chesterton Board Girls School before marrying, and is
believed to have encouraged Joseph Cook’s further education in accountancy,
which assisted his later political career.
Joseph Cook emigrated to Australia in late 1885, initially settling at
Lithgow, New South Wales, and in 1887 Mary followed with their first child. When Joseph Cook moved from NSW to Federal
politics in 1901, the Cook family moved from Lithgow to Marrickville. They remained in Sydney thereafter, aside
from their time in London during Joseph Cook’s tenure as Australian High
Commissioner to Britain (1921-27).
Mary Cook accompanied her husband at official functions
while he was a Minister and Prime Minister and later, when he was Australian
High Commissioner to Britain, she became more actively involved in his public
duties. As an advocate of ‘Empire cookery’ she publicly supported the first buy
Australian campaign and also promoted emigration to Australia. She raised funds
for visits by Australian boy scouts to Britain, and was praised for her
patriotic promotion of Australia and her support for Australian women in
London. In February 1926, she christened the 1st Australian
“Seagull”, an amphibian flying boat, and in March 1927 she performed the naming
ceremony of the second HMAS “Australia”.
Mary Cook also became a well-known public welfare and
charity worker in her own right. She
was an active member of the Australian Red Cross Society (NSW division) from
the 1920s to1940s. In 1923 she
represented the Australian Red Cross at a Board of Governors meeting in Paris
and in 1938 she was a delegate to the International Red Cross Conference.
When Joseph Cook was knighted in 1918 she became Lady Mary
Cook, and in 1925 she was appointed a DBE (Dame of the British Empire) for
services to the Red Cross Society. Sir
Joseph and Dame Mary Cook had nine children.
Dame Mary died at Bellevue Hill, Sydney in September 1950, three years
after her husband.
Links to other Commonwealth Persons
8 August 1885 – 30 July 1947: CP 611, The Rt Hon Sir Joseph
Cook PC, GCMG
Publications
End notes
Sources
Michelle Grattan (ed.), Australian Prime Ministers, New
Holland Publishers, Sydney, 2000
The Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol 8, Melbourne
University Press, 1981, pp 96-99
‘Women of the Federation’ in ‘Sunday Magazine’, Sunday
Telegraph, 31 December 2000
The Sir Joseph and Dame Mary Cook collection, National Archives
of Australia