George Edward Ebenezer Cook and Louisa Beck

[Peter Steer]

George was born in Forest Hill, London in 1890. His father, my great grandfather, was what would be called today a "developer". George is recorded in the UK 1911 Census as a "Building foreman". Sometime thereafter he set of for Oz. How, why and when are not known but a sceptic might come up with "draft dodger"!

It seems likely that George was involved with developments around the Bondi area because our family comes from N Devon and there are a number of N Devon names in this area e.g. Clovelly. To cap it George married Louisa Beck in 1918 at Randwick.

I can find no press record of the marriage and I am stuck on Louisa's origin (Louie to all who knew her).

George and Louie came back to the UK in probably the mid to late 1920s via Canada and George took over his father's property portfolio in Wallington, Surrey. They built an ultramodern house (for the time) called Coogee and when he retired built a scaled down version called Little Coogee. I was taught the rudiments of cricket on the lawn of Coogee and somewhere still have a little box with 3 burnt matches entitled "The Ashes"!

Anything on the activities of George and Louie would be much appreciated.

Peter

 

[gibbo]

Hi Peter,
Marriage for your George and Louisa in case you didnt have it. Their marriage cert. should give their parents names, where born etc. If they are filled out correctly can be a good source of info. I will check the papers and see if i can find anything on them.

990/1918
Groom COOK GEORGE E E
Bride BECK LOUISA
District RANDWICK

 

[DaveHam9]

Hello peter & gibbo,

I checked NLA and didn't see the marriage.

Regards,

Dave

 

[gibbo]

I couldnt find anything in the papers neither.

 

[Peter Steer]

Thanks for your efforts! My daughter is in Sydney at the end of the month and her first task is the marriage certificate. As she will be staying south of Sydney it is an ideal opportunity to explore the Coogee / Bondi area and if possible relate it to whatever George and Louie got up to in the 1920s.

It is not possible to get birth certificate info on line after 1909 but she will also be tasked for looking for the children Thomas and Lesley. I know T when last heard of was a doctor in Vancouver and L was an architect. I still have the corkscrew inscribed by L 50 years ago - "Wallington Temperance League"

Peter

 

[gibbo]

Hi Peter,
Thats right, the birth index on line only goes to 1909. Im not sure how it works if your daughter was to go into the office itself and inquiry about births after that period. No harm in her asking when she is there and see how she goes.

 

[Peter Steer]

It is all about incentive and concentrating the mind! I knew George had died before Louie and that George had spent his last years looking after her but I had no dates for their deaths. So I trudged through the on line records today and found the info. Louie was 9 years older than George which confirmed something lingering at the back of my mind.

It therefore seems likely that Louie was Louisa Beck b Bourke 1881 (11920/1881) d Thomas and Maria Beck. Being a bit of a bush bound creature myself (Northern & Southern Rhodesia) I can now see these features in Louie albeit 50 years ago!

With George's father being William Thomas and Louie's being Thomas it is obvious why their eldest son was also Thomas

Peter