Location
Cooks Hill is an inner city suburb of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. It is typified by its tree lined streets, rows of Victorian terrace housing, turn of the century timber cottages and corner pubs. (wikipedia)
History
Cooks Hill grew from coal mines in the area. Land sales developed from Brooks Street onto Darby Street to create the commercial centre there today. Darby Street was originally known as Lake Macquarie Road and was one of the few public access roads through AA Company Coal Mine land.
It was named after Samuel Wellington Cook, father of Thomas Cook, who was a wealthy landowner at Nemingha in the Tamworth area for some 25 years, on the Cockburn River, well known as “one of the most progressive farmers and stock breeders of his time”. Samuel Cook was originally from Warleggan, Cornwall, England, a short distance from Lampen Farm, St Neot, home of the Dangar family. Samuel married the sister of Henry Dangar, Elizabeth Cary Dangar, moving first to Canada, then to Australia in 1837 with their son Thomas Cook aged 3, at the request of brother-in-law William Dangar to manage the property “Turanville”, Scone in the Upper Hunter. After this Samuel became a squatter in his own right firstly at Barwon, then Thalaba. He then exchanged the Thalaba property for 18,000 acres at the southern end of Henry Dangar’s 25,000 acre Moonbi run, and called this holding Nemingha. The Cooks moved there in 1844 and their new home was called Nemingha House. Samuel Cook became especially well known in Nemingha, 5 miles from Tamworth, for breeding of horses, and were very prominent at the Tamworth Shows. Henry Dangar was Surveyor for the Australian Agricultural Company (AAC), and the original Tamworth settlement was wholely owned by the AAC. Samuel Cook remembered Tamworth as having “6 or 8 houses” when he arrived, and once the landlock controlled by the AAC was lifted by government legislation, he stayed long enough to help it develop into a thriving town. Cook owned shares in the Nemingha Gold Mining Company during the gold rush, and is recorded as having “over 400 horses, 180 breeding mares, 5 stallions and several stallion foals” described as “thoroughbred, crossbred and English roadsters comanding the best price” on the Nemingha property. Cook patronised local businesses and helped to develop the Tamworth area. His spendings were said to be twice that of the vast Goonoo Goonoo Station owned by the AAC.
Their eldest son, Thomas Cook (born in 1934) moved to Nemingha with his parents and brother John (born at Turanville) as a child. He is reported to ride the 5 miles into Tamworth to meet the mail coach once a week. In 1854 Thomas became manager at age 20 of the same property that brought his family to Australia, “Turanville”, Scone in the Upper Hunter, for his uncles William and Henry Dangar, and was soon placed in charge of all of William Dangar’s grazing interests. Samuel and Elizabeth had two more children, William and Elizabeth, at Nemingha, but Willam died as a child in 1855 at Nemingha.
Thomas Cook married Charlotte Bentley Sibley, whose father was also from the same area of Cornwall as the Dangar’s, in 1867. The next year William Dangar died in England in 1868, and Thomas Cook inherited “Turanville” at age 34, as well as “Drildool” and “Cubbaroo”at Burren Junction, “Merrywinebone”, “North Oreel” and “South Oreel” in the Barwon district.
Samuel and Elizabeth sold Nemingha to John Gill, and after 32 years of success in NSW, and long association with the Dangars and the AAC, moved to Newcastle (Cooks Hill) in 1869 to retire to “Lucerna”, in Lower Church Street, where Elizabeth died 9 years later on 18 November 1878, and Samuel followed her, dying after 14 years of retirement, on 2 March 1883.
Thomas Cook later donated stained-glass windows in St John’s Church, Newcastle in memory of his mother, Elizabeth Cary Cook. “Lucerna” had views to the Northeast over Newcastle Harbour, on land now occupied by the Newcastle Conservatorium, Laman St, opposite St Andrew’s church. Two years after Samuel’s death, Cooks Hill School opened in 1885 formalising the name of the suburb. Low-lying ground and swamp was found in abundance locally, the market gardens near Marketown on Parry St often flooded due to poor drainage into Cottage Creek, and so elevated land was of some value. (wikipedia)
Places of Interest
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