Rev. James Harrison Cookson, Jr

Rev. James Cookson Biography
Thanks To
The Rev. Dr. Raymond C. Foster

MISS M. E. CASH, B.A.,
County Archivist, Diocesan Record Officer.
Please quote: SJKjCK/G2
Your ref.: HAMPSHIRE RECORD OFFICE, 20, SOUTHGATE STREET, WINCHESTER, S023 9EF.
Telephone: Winchester 63153.

Rev. Raymond C. Foster
30th March, 1979

Dear Mr. Foster,
Thank you for your letter of 22nd March, 1979 asking for information con¬cerning the Rev'd James Cookson. The following details have been extracted from an entry in the Dictionary of National Biography Vol. XII ed. L. Stephen, published by Smith, Edler and Co., London 1887. James Cookson (1752-1835), son of John of Barton, Westmoreland, Queens College, Oxford, B.A. 1781 and M.A. 1786. Instituted in September 1775, on his own petition, to the rectory of Colmer with Priors Dean. Also curate of Steep and about 1796 presented to the vicarage of Harting in Sussex. He published "Thought on Polygamy, suggested by the dictates of Scripture, Nature, Reason and Commonsense etc." Winchester 1782; "A New Family Prayer Book", Winchester 1783; "The Universal Family Bible", London 1784. About 1783 he became master of Churcher's College, Petersfield, where he died aged 83, on 6th January 1835. He had been elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1814. He is buried in the chancel of Colmer church.

"The History of Colmer and Priors Dean" by Rev. Thomas Hervey, published in Colmer, 1891 gives further information: James Cookson, at the age of fourteen, claimed the advowson of Colmer when his cousin Thomas Harrison died intestate in 1766. Thomas Cookson was instituted in 1767 and resigned in 1775.

"In 1784 we find him residing at Petersfield and acting as master of Churcher's College. Richard Churcher founded the college (1730) to train boys for the East India Company's service: they were to be taught mathematics relating to navigation, and by the terms of the founders will, the master was to be a layman. The Jolliffes soon became in the majority on the Board, and in collusion with Mr. Cookson and Richard Steele, the latter was appointed master upon the death of Mr. Figgin 1784, while the former had the office and the pay. Proceedings in Chancery were taken against the Trustees in 1818 for misapplication of the College funds, and then many violations of its statutes came to light. Among other things Mr. Glyn, in his opening speech for the plaintiffs, November 16th 1822, said that:

'In 1784 a clergyman, Mr. Cookson, had been put into the possession of the college and allowed to reside in it for about thirteen years, and to receive the salary of £40 a year as master of the college, though contrary to the founder's will, and that during this period the name of a layman, Mr. Steele, was entered and kept on the college book as the actual master, though he quitted the school and the town in 1785, having been allowed the salary for the first year of that period. It also appears from the information that the defendants had admitted boys on the charity who were not, as required by the founder, children of the townsmen of Petersfield, and that the boys were not now boarded at the college, but obliged to live out, whilst the present schoolmaster (Dusautoy) had been allowed to take in private boarders, to whom every accommodation was given, without any benefit or advantage whatever to the college, or the objects of the founder's bounty; and that during the appointment of some of the defendants as trustees whilst Mr. Cookson and Mr. Trimmings were masters of the college, it had been let out in lodgings for the benefit of the masters, in some instances to ladies who kept boarding schools for girls, and even to some of the trustees themselves, who had taken up their residence there.

James Cookson remained as master until 1797, but when he had to leave Churcher's College he set about enlarging the Rectory house at Commer and resided there. It therefore seems unlikely that he died at the college.

We also have a record of an allegation for a marriage licence for James Cookson of East Meon, 24 bachelor and Sarah Robinson of East Tisted, 17 spinster with consent of her father Bryan Robinson, clerk at East Tisted on 28th July 1783. It is worth noting that Bryan Robinson was curate of Colmer during Thomas Cookson' incumbency.

Should you wish to obtain details of the baptism of James Cookson I would suggest that you write to:

The County Archivist
Cumberland, Westmoreland and Carlisle Record Office
The Castle
Carlisle
CA3 8UR

Yours sincerely,

S. J. Knight B.A. Archives Assistant

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