COOK, THOMAS

born Nov. 22, 1808, Melbourne, Derbyshire, Eng. died July 18, 1892, Leicester, Leicestershire English innovator of the conducted tour and founder of Thomas Cook and Son, a worldwide travel agency. Cook left school at the age of 10 and worked at various jobs until 1828, when he became a Baptist missionary. In 1841 he persuaded the Midland Counties Railway Company to run a special train between Leicester and Loughborough for a temperance meeting on July 5. It was believed to be the first publicly advertised excursion train in England. Three years later the railway agreed to make the arrangement permanent if Cook would provide passengers for the excursion trains. During the Paris Exposition of 1855, Cook conducted excursions from Leicester to Calais, Fr. The next year he led his first Grand Tour of Europe. In the early 1860s he ceased to conduct personal tours and became an agent for the sale of domestic and overseas travel tickets. His firm took on military transport and postal services for England and Egypt during the 1880s. On his death the business passed to his only son, John Mason Cook (183499), who had been his father's partner since 1864.