Editing Thomas Cook (section)

== Early life ==
Thomas Cook was born on 22 November 1808 to Elizabeth and John Cook, who lived in a small cottage in Quick Close in the village of [[Melbourne, Derbyshire]]. His father was a labourer who died when Cook was four years old; his mother was the daughter of a [[New Connexion of General Baptists|New Connexion Baptist]] preacher. At the age of 10, Cook left  school and started working as a gardener's boy on [[Peniston Lamb, 1st Viscount Melbourne|Lord Melbourne]]'s estate, while continuing his education at Sunday School and later becoming a Sunday School teacher. In 1828, he left an apprenticeship as a cabinet-maker to become an itinerant Baptist preacher, distributing tracts and setting up Sunday Schools in villages in the [[South Midlands ]]for an annual salary of £36. In 1829, he met Marianne Mason, a farmer's daughter and Sunday School teacher from [[Barrowden]] in [[Rutland]]. The couple married on 3 March 1833 at [[ St Peter's Church, Barrowden]] and set up home in [[Market Harborough]] in Leicestershire, with Cook working as a wood-tujarner. They had one surviving son, John Mason Cook, and daughter, Annie Elizabeth.<ref name=odnb>{{cite ODNB|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/6152|title=Cook, Thomas (1808–1892)|year=2004}}</ref><ref name=simmons>{{cite web|url=http://www.le.ac.uk/lahs/downloads/CookSmPagesfromvolumeXLIX-3.pdf|title=Thomas Cook of Leicester|last=Simmons|first=Jack|date=1973|work=Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society 49|access-date=3 July 2020|archive-date=26 August 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130826004959/http://www.le.ac.uk/lahs/downloads/CookSmPagesfromvolumeXLIX-3.pdf|url-status=bot: unknown}}</ref>