Alexander John Cooke
A personal story
A J Cooke Bury Railwayman
Worked at Bury from 1892 to 1932

 

Newspaper articles and pictures

 

On 1st May, 2016, I received an email from Ms Ronnie Munday, stating,

"I am a keen genealogist and I have been doing some research on my G Grandfather Alexander John Cooke 1867 to 1945. He was born in Mellis but lived most of his life in Bury St Edmunds (in a house in Avenue Approach) and worked for the GER at BSE from 1885 to 1932. I have found a couple of newspaper clippings about him and photos on the web as well as some family photos and, obviously, I found your website very interesting in putting his story into context. I wondered if you would be interested in an article that I have put together about him?"

"Some of the photos are not original – I think I got the Railway station from your website but the picture outside the Parcels office and the picture of him with his first wife (very faded!) are from the family collection and the one of the Falcon Inn was provided by a local history group in Mellis.

The spelling of his name seems to vary from Cook to Cooke, but I think my Grandmother regarded the spelling with the 'e' as the correct one !

I am happy for his story to be remembered more widely!

This family story was updated for me in October, 2020, when Ronnie sent me a further series of emails with more information and pictures of Alexander Cooke. The first picture she sent was this marvellous view of the floods at the Tollgate:-


Floods at Tollgate area
 		"My Great Grandfather Alexander John Cooke lived at 92 Fornham Road in 1901. He had moved to Avenue Approach by 1911. There is no photographers name – just the name of the landlord for some reason. It was in my Grandmother’s photo album and she moved away from Bury St Edmunds in 1919 ish so I am surprised to find it in the collection as we don’t have many photos of her time in BSE in the early 1900s. Maybe the pub was their local. Mr Todd definitely was the landlord in 1911 as I found him in an Historical Directory. If you remember, I wrote an article for you about my Grandfather who worked on the railways in Bury St Edmunds. I have since made contact with another cousin who has sent me more earlier photos of Alexander which you might be interested to see."

A J Cooke on the railway parcels van
 		This picture shows Mr A J Cooke driving the parcels van for the Great Eastern Railway.

A J Cooke - studio portrait

Now read Ronnie Munday's PDF on the life and times of Alexander J Cooke:-

The story of Alexander Cooke, Railwayman

Go to Picture Stories Homepage Page created 4th May 2016
Last updated 20th October, 2020		 Go to Main Home Page