Finlay Cook

Finlay Cook sailed from Greenock on the Minerva in 1837 with his parents, his sisters Mary and Margaret, and his elder brother Alexander, the ship’s surgeon. On 7 January 1838, after a passenger’s sea-chest was found broken open and his watches, money and gold pins taken, the emigrant William Henderson wrote in his log that ‘the Dr’s brother was one of the thieves’, and the next day ‘irons were put on the Dr’s brother’.¹ Finlay is not named, but he was the doctor’s brother on board. The colony’s quarantine surgeon later conceded in print that two of the ship’s emigrants had been ‘found stealing during the passage’.² Nothing suggests that charges were ever laid in Sydney.

Whatever happened, the fever followed. By February 1838 both the surgeon ‘and his brother have been dangerously ill, but have nearly recovered’.³ On 5 March Finlay signed the convalescents’ letter of thanks to Dr Stuart at Spring Cove, alongside ‘A. C. Cook, Surgeon’ and Margaret Cook.⁴

In January 1841 Finlay bought ‘the whole of his Brother’s Establishment’ — the druggist’s shop on Brickfield Hill — and asked the public for ‘a share of their patronage’.⁵ The business is not heard of again, and probably went down in the depression of 1841–43. By May 1846 Finlay had gone west over the Blue Mountains: a letter was waiting for ‘Cook Mr. Finley, Carcoar’ at the Sydney post office.⁶ In 1848 he married Mary O’Dwyer at Kelso, near Bathurst.⁷

After gold was found on the Turon in 1851, the family settled at Sofala, on the goldfield north of Bathurst. Their children were registered at Bathurst and Sofala between 1852 and the early 1860s.⁸ In May 1866 Finlay was permitted to buy the land he had improved at Sofala — portion 62, nearly two acres, appraised at £8 18s — so the family had a house of its own.⁹ He died at Sofala the following year.¹⁰ The Finlay Cook listed as a miner at Wattle Flat, near Sofala, in the directory of 1875–77 was his son Finlay J., born at Bathurst in 1857.¹¹