Dame Mary Cook
Dame Mary Cook was the wife of Australian Prime Minister, Sir Joseph Cook.
Early years
Mary Turner was 22 years old and had been a schoolteacher for eight years when she married Joseph Cook in 1885. Beginning as a pupil teacher at Chesterton Girls' School, by 1885 she was an assistant mistress. Like Cook, she came from a Staffordshire mining family. She appears to have had a role in helping both her brothers and her husband to overcome their lack of education. At their Lithgow, [New South Wales|Lithgow] home, Cook studied in the evenings, moving from writing and grammar to typing and shorthand, and then to book-keeping. He began studying to become a Methodist minister.Emigration
By 1891, six years after their marriage and emigration to Australia, the couple had three small sons, and Joseph Cook had a seat in the New South Wales parliament. By 1901 they had six children, and he had won the Parramatta seat in federal parliament. For the 20 years he sat in the federal parliament, Joseph Cook spent much of his time in Melbourne, where parliament sat. Mary Cook managed their large household in Sydney, with eight children born between 1886 and 1906. Cook became Navy Minister in Billy Hughes' government in 1917. Mary Cook was by then very active in the New South Wales Branch of the Australian Red Cross Society, and in Cook's electorate of Parramatta. From the time of her husband's knighthood in 1918 she became Lady Cook and was styled in that way until seven years later when she was honoured in her own right as a Dame.She spoke at meetings there in the 1919 election campaign, and also deputised at ministerial events, such as the unveiling of an Honour Roll dedicated to the 1914–18 servicemen and women in General Granville Ryrie's Manly electorate.