George Wood Cook, Bachelor of Science (BSc), was a teacher at the Normal School for training primary school teachers in Bloemfontein, Orange River Colony (now the Free State), during the first decade of the twentieth century. In 1907 he became a member of the Philosophical Society of the Orange River Colony. On 31 January 1908 he was elected as a member of the management committee of the colony's National Museum. By 1910 he had also joined the South African Association for the Advancement of Science. That year he published Physics for South African Schools (London, 1910, 242p). Years later he wrote a booklet on The scientific feeding of poultry (Cape Town, 1922, 97p). In 1910 he married Martha Christina Van der Merwe in Bloemfontein.

Cook's only contribution to geology appears to have been a paper on "The salt pan near Haagenstad", read at the seventh annual congress of the South African Association for the Advancement of Science, held in Bloemfontein in 1909. The paper was published in the association's Report for that year (pp. 215-218). Haagenstad, now Hagenstad, is near Florisbad, some 60 km north of Bloemfontein.

List of sources:

Coetzer, A.C.M. Geskiedenis van die Nasionale Museum. Navorsinge van die Nasionale Museum Bloemfontein, 1989, Vol. 6(8), pp. 243-291.

FamilySearch: George Wood Cook. https://www.familysearch.org/search/record/results?q.anyPlace=South Africa&q.givenName=George Wood&q.surname=Cook

George Wood Cook. Geni. https://www.geni.com/people/George-Cook/6000000019329901481

Philosophical Society of the Orange River Colony. Transactions, 1903-1907, Vol. 1, list of members.

South African Association for the Advancement of Science. Report, 1909, 1910.

South African bibliography to the year 1925. London: Mansell, 1979.

Compiled by: C. Plug

Last updated: 2023-12-28 10:16:07