There’s an unassuming shopfront on Market Place in Hull’s Old Town where, underneath the 1950s-style signs, behind the brass-bound clocks, compasses, barometers and telescopes which jostle for space in the windows, the business of B. Cooke and Son quietly takes place.
Cooke’s has the feeling of a living museum, one of the last vestiges of the city’s nautical past, but while the maritime fortunes of Hull may have changed greatly over
years, there’s a feeling that somehow time stands still at Cooke’s.
That’s Cooke with an ‘e’ - unlike the more famous explorer, Captain James Cook,
also born in Yorkshire - but the name also comes with quite a story…
Barnard Cooke – an optician by trade - clearly had an eye for opportunity. Back in
the 1840s and 50s he’d learned his craft alongside his brother, the renowned clock
maker Thomas Cooke of York. Thomas was a bit of a star – son of a Pocklington
shoemaker, he was a self-taught mathematician and physicist who carved out a
reputation building telescopes, later opening a shop in York, then a factory, as his
reputation as a manufacturer of excellent optical instruments spread around the
world.
Thomas’s younger brother Barnard had been his right-hand man as the business
grew, but by the early 1860s Barnard was ready to strike out on his own.
The first rail links between York and Hull had been established in the 1840s, new
fishing grounds had just been discovered, this is the peak of Victorian prosperity, Hull
was a major trading port with Europe and the city was booming.
Barnard set up shop bang in the centre of town, close to the busy Queens Dock,
where he began to supply the nautical trade with compasses, sextants, barometers,
clocks and telescopes.
B Cooke and Son grew with the city’s fortunes. Solid and reliable, a Cooke compass
became the captain’s choice, synonymous with quality.
Over the years, the business changed hands and moved premises, finally coming to
rest in the mid-1950s in its current location.
Brian Walker is 71 - and still making compasses – but he was just 15 years old in
1968 when he became an apprentice compass maker at Cooke’s.
“Back then the docks were filled with boats.” remembers Brian, “We had a van that
used to go there twice a day and each time he’d come back with a tea chest full of

gauges, sextants, compasses, chronometers, barometers for fixing – we had to sort
them before the ship sailed.
“We had 25 staff – you had the office staff, then the chart department, the gauge
department, the sextant department, then on top of the building was the compass
department.
“You could walk out the door and get anything you needed to do the job – all the
suppliers where there - Humber Rubber, Humber Electricals - there were ship’s
agents, chandlers, shipyards that you were supplying, all that expertise – there was
always somebody behind a counter that would help you.”