Christian History Institute September 8, 1818 • Henry Cooke, Irish Evangelical, ©2007

he evangelical clergyman Henry Cooke was such a dominant figure in Irish church and politics that after he died admirers erected a statue to him in Belfast. Lord Cairns said that for the middle half of the 19th-century he "was a large portion of the religious and public history of Ireland."

Born Henry Macook (he later dropped the "Ma" and added an "e") in County Derry in 1788, he grew up during a time of seething troubles. The Irish rebellion of 1798 left a powerful impression on him when he was ten-years-old. In this rebellion, Catholics, liberal Protestants, and Presbyterians made common cause against the British government, demanding reforms. The British retaliated with violence, house burnings, and cruel tortures such as pitchcapping.

Against this background, Cooke struggled to obtain an education and eventually matriculated at the University of Glasgow. Owing to illness, he did not graduate, but was accepted for the pastorate in Ireland all the same in 1808.

Ten years later, on this day, September 8, 1818, he was installed as Presbyterian pastor of Killeleagh. This proved to be important in his emergence as an evangelical spokesman. The leading Presbyterian at Killeleagh was Captain Sidney Hamilton Rowan, an ardent evangelical, who strongly influenced Cooke to reject liberalism and thus set him on his path to fame.

Cooke began to make a name for himself in church affairs when he used his powerful rhetorical talents as a spokesman for the majority of Protestants who rejected liberal theological tendencies. Strongly Trinitarian, he marshaled Irish Protestants against Unitarian influences in the established church of North Ireland. He was so successful that the religious liberals ultimately withdrew of their own accord, after filing a "remonstrance" with the synod. Cooke also supported the formation of the Free Church of Scotland, which was evangelical, too.

In politics, he feared dominance by Catholics, and struggled for governmental policies that would favor Protestants. He was less successful in these endeavors and many who accepted his religious tenets did not like his political stands. The controversial Orangemen placed his likeness on their banners, however, although he was never one of them.

Bibliography:

1. Allingham, Philip V. "Henry Cooke." The Victorian Web. 2006. http://www.victorianweb.org/sculpture/misc/cooke1.html (Accessed April, 2007). Source of the photo of Samuel Ferris Lynn's sculpture of Cooke.
2. "Cooke, Henry." Edited by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee. London: Oxford University Press, 1921 - 1996.
3. "Cooke, Henry." Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals. Timothy Larsen, editor. Downers-Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2003.

Posted May, 2007.