All flesh is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the
Word of the Lord shall stand forever.
Annie Elizabeth Cook / born June 4 1845 / died November 5 1880.
Marianne Cook / mother of the above. / Born / Feb XI 1807 / Died March 8 1884
Thomas Cook / father of the above. / Born Nov 22 1808 / Died / July 18 1892.
Thomas Cook. Pioneer of travel. Founder of the world's largest travel organisation.
First excursion Leicester to Loughborough 1841. Round the World 1872.
He brought travel to the millions.
Thomas Cook was born in Melbourne, Derbyshire. When he was 14 he left school
to work on the gardens of the Melbourne Estate before moving to Market Harborough where he
worked as a wood turner.
In the 1830s he became a member of the South Midland Temperance League and, in
1840, founded the
Children's Temperance Magazine.
Cook's first 'tour' was on 5 July 1841,
when he persuaded the Midland County Railway
to put on a special excursion train at half-fare
to take a party of people from Leicester
to a temperance meeting in Loughborough. This was the
first advertised excursion
train in England - if not the World.
By 1865 the business had grown so big that Cook was organising tours to the
Continent and the USA and had to move his head office to London.
