Mark Cook "Game Destroyer" & Gardener of Landford Lodge

[RobertHauteville]

There are the following refs to Mark Cooks in Wilts in the 1830s/40s:-

1836 - Imprisoned for 3 months for "destroying game" at Winchester
1841 - Gamekeeper @ Whiteparish
1842 - Labourer married at Fisherton Anger to a woman originally from Landford
1844 - Labourer resident at Hamptworth
1845 - Gardener employed at Landford Lodge by the Philanthropist Josiah Wedgwood III & his wife Caroline Darwin (sister of Charles)
1847 - Moved to Leith Hill Place in Surrey with the Wedgwoods and stayed there for the rest of his life.

1) Are these all the same Mark Cook (b.1811-15 Gloucester) or is the Gamekeeper/poacher a different man to the labourer/gardener?
2) What is the difference between "destroying game" and straightforward poaching?

Thanks.

[Milliepede]

The 1841 you have in Whiteparish has a "y" for yes born in County, so born in Wiltshire.

If he was the Mark Cook born in Gloucestershire you would expect to see an "n" for not born in County.

However information wasn't always noted accurately 

Is there another Mark Cook you can trace born in Wiltshire that could be he?

[RobertHauteville]

But if the Gamekeeper was a Wilts man born and bred then where is the Gloucestershire one in 1841?

[philipsearching]

2) What is the difference between "destroying game" and straightforward poaching?

Thanks.

That is an interesting question.

I think that a poacher would be a person trespassing illegally on land to steal animals.
A gamekeeper might be charged with theft of his employer's property rather than poaching.
I can only guess that "destroying game" means that Mark Cook killed the animals before the landowner (and friends) could have the fun of shooting them for sport.

However, I could be totally wrong!

Philip

[RobertHauteville]

Alternatively I wonder if a farmer was having problems with rabbits eating his carrots he might be tempted to hire someone to go rabbit shooting on their neighbours land?

[Capetown]

The only other COOK marriage in Fisherton Anger around the same time was on the 11 September 1841 of

William COOK - labourer - (no father's name given)

to

Eliza STICKLAND - father: John STICKLAND - Keeper**  (could be STRICKLAND)

witnesses: William LOVELOCK and Lousa BEALE

Trying to find them on later census - so far no luck


*** John STICKLAND appears to be a Keeper (of game?)

---

William COOK banns - spells his surname COOKE

[RobertHauteville]

There are also a couple more Mark Cooks:

1) Mark Cook bapt at Chiseldon in 1823 who is listed there in 1841 but then vanishes.
2) Mark Cook born Romsey, Hants c 1823/4 married Elizabeth on the Isle of Wight in 1849. First found on the 1851 Channel Islands census but from 1861 lived on the Isle of Wight.

I wonder if the dissappearing Mark Cook of Chiseldon was a teenage tearaway who served time but then moved to the Isle of Wight and changed his birth details to hide his past (both the Chiseldon and the Isle of Wight Cook families used Mathew as a forename)? And perhaps the Mark Cook, Gamekeeper of Landford in 1841 did switch to gardening at Landford Lodge and had nothing to do with the court case?