with the base of a tumbler shaped to form its lens. This led to his friends including John Phillips encouraging him to make telescopes and other optical devices commercially. Work In 1837 he established his first optical business in a small shop at 50 Stonegate, York, and later moved to larger premises in Coney Street. He built his first telescope for William Gray. At that time, the excise tax on glass discouraged the making of refracting telescopes, which were usually imported from abroad. Cooke was thus one of the pioneers of making such telescopes in Britain. He made more instruments and built his reputation. He was not only an optician but had mechanical abilities as well, and among other things, manufactured turret clocks for church towers. He founded the firm T. Cooke & Sons. In 1855 he moved to bigger premises, the Buckingham Works at Bishophill in York, where factory methods of production were first applied to optical instruments. He exhibited at the York Exhibition in 1866 demonstrating his three-wheeled, steam-powered car which he claimed could carry 15 people at 15 mph for a distance of 40 miles. One of his finest achievements was the construction of the 25-inch 'Newall' refractor for Robert Stirling Newall; sadly, Thomas died before seeing it completed. For some years the Newall was the largest refracting telescope in the world. On Newall's death it was donated to the Cambridge Observatory and finally moved in 1959 to Mount Penteli observatory in Penteli, Greece. He made a telescope for the Royal Observatory, also Greenwich and another for Prince Albert. The firm amalgamated with Troughton & Simms (London) to become Cooke, Troughton & Simms in 1922 and this later became part of Vickers, but still run by his sons Thomas & Frederick. Thomas Cooke was succeeded by his sons, Thomas and Frederick. He is buried in York Cemetery. Telescopes in use today A telescope made by Thomas Cooke is still in daily use at Carter Observatory – The National Observatory of New Zealand, delivering excellent results. The original 9-inch triplet lens has been replaced by a 9 1/2 doublet made by renowned optician Garry Nankivell. At the observatory in the Museum Gardens, York there is a working 4-inch telescope, built for the Yorkshire Philosophical Society in 1850. A second unit of the same construction was purchased and installed in the observatory at Bootham School, York in 1854. A