Stuart Blashfield Rea Cooke
Stuart Blashfield Rea Cooke (1871-1908)
1909 Obituary [1]
STUART BLASHFIELD REA COOKE, son of the late Mr. John Dunne Cooke, of Brampton Brian, Herefordshire, was born on the 17th October, 1871, and was educated at Cheltenham College and the Crystal Palace Engineering School.
He obtained his engineering training in the office of Messrs. Meik and Sons, Civil Engineers, Edinburgh, by whom he was employed chiefly on railway and harbour work.
Thus equipped, he obtained an appointment in 1898, under the late Sir William Shelford, as an assistant engineer on railway construction in West Africa, where the remainder of his unfortunately brief engineering career was passed.
In 1899 he became Resident Engineer for Messrs. Coode, Son and Matthews at Old Calabar, where he carried out important harbour works, and on their completion in 1904 he made a survey of the Gambia River.
In 1905 he superintended for the same firm the construction of harbour works at Accra, and it was whilst engaged on this task that he met his death, as the result of a carriage accident at Accra, on the 12th July, 1908. By the untimely death of Mr. Cooke, the Colony was deprived of a thoroughly efficient officer at a time when his special knowledge and experience were of the utmost service, whilst the coast community is the poorer by the loss of an attractive personality.
Mr. Cooke was elected an Associate Member of The Institution on the 2nd March, 1897.