UGANDA MEMORIES 1897 – 1940 (Limited Edition)

With a foreword by The Right Hon. Lord Lugard

First edition. 415 pages, frontispiece of the author in his consulting room, 2 folding maps -1 coloured of the author's route in a back pocket, 62 full page plates, green cloth with gilt vignette on upper cover, titled gilt on the spine which is chipped and worn, a good copy.

This edition is limited to 750 copies, of which this is number 565.

Albert Ruskin Cook was born on March 7, 1870 in Hampstead, London, to a general medical practitioner and his wife the daughter of a clergyman. He studied on scholarships at St. Paul’s College and later Trinity College, Cambridge University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1891. In 1895, he graduated with yet another degree in medicine from St. Bartholomew’s hospital.

While at Cambridge, Albert reportedly became interested in missionary work. In 1896, when the Church Missionary Society (CMS) sought missionaries to come to Uganda, he volunteered. They took a journey by sea, landing at Mombasa after two months. After a two-month rest at Mombasa, with 500 porters mobilised for the caravan, he started the over- 1,360-mile trek to Kampala arriving after three months. Katharine Timpson, one of the travellers, and Cook got married in 1900.

Three months after his arrival, Cook set up his hospital in a grass-thatched, reed-walled structure, with 12 wooden beds and straw for mattresses. He named it Mengo Hospital after the Kabaka’s royal enclosure nearby, although today it is also known as Namirembe Hospital. But as fate would have it, Cook’s first hospital structure was burnt down by lightening in 1902. But he immediately built an even larger one with double number of beds.

From the time they arrived in 1897, Albert Cook and his wife lived in Uganda the rest of their lives. Lady Katherine Cook died and was buried in the country in 1938, while Sir Albert Cook died in 1951 and was also buried in Uganda.

But today their place as the patrons of modern medicine in the country is well-preserved. Cook seeing himself throughout his tenure as a missionary, who offered medical services just to complement spiritual services, left the hospital to belong to the CMS. http://www.newvision.co.ug/new_vision/news/1300983/dr-albert-cook-uganda-father-modern-medicine