BORN HULL 1898. ORIGINAL HULL PAL. ONLY SON OF GEORGE ALBERT & LILY COOK, OF 21, DE LA POLE AVENUE, HULL (WAR PENSION ADDDRESS)
HIS DEATH AND PHOTOGRAPH WERE REPORTED IN THE HULL DAILY MAIL ON 23RD JUNE 1919.
Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE ALBERT COOK 11/1397. Born in 1898, Albert was the eldest of three children and only son of George and Lily Cook of 106, Rosamond Street, Hull. A Fisherman before the war he enlisted at Hull City Hall on 4th February 1915 joining the 11th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, ‘The Tradesmen’, 2nd Hull Pals. He served in Egypt over winter 1915/16 but on his arrival in France his military career was put on hold when his family reported him for being underage. What caused the delay in their contacting the army I don’t know. It could have been they were estranged and didn’t know he’d enlisted and lied, or it could be that they’d turned a blind eye at first but were now starting to worry at the scale of the mounting casualties on the Western Front, we’ll never know, but first his father wrote on 23rd May 1916 sending a copy of his son’s Birth Certificate and requesting he be sent home to England; then his mother followed this up in July with a further copy of his Birth Certificate and a request he at least be withdrawn to the rear away from danger. This second plea was countenanced and Albert was removed from the battalion and sent to the base camp at Etaples until such time as he came of age. Of course he was close enough now to be only a few short months out of danger and was soon back in the thick of it. His parents saved him from the Somme but couldn’t spare him Oppy Wood. He survived only to be killed in action on 22nd June 1917 and his body lost forever. Albert Cook, literally a boy out looking for adventure, is commemorated on the Arras Memorial; he was 19 years old.
