Tales of London

St Mary's Church on Upper Street in Islington has seen more than its fair share of important characters. No fewer than at least six of its curates and priests have gone on to become bishops, including two twentieth-century Archbishops of Canterbury (Donald Coggan and George Carey). Founders of the Methodist Church George Whitefield, John Wesley, and his brother Charles, all preached at St Mary's in the seventeenth century. Philip Quaque, the first black Anglican minister, was christened here in 1759; Samuel Crowther, the first black Anglican bishop, was ordained at St Mary's in 1843. But in addition to the great and the good who have served St Mary’s over the years, there is also buried in its graveyard a man described as “the most contemptible miser who ever lived”.

Thomas 'Cabbage' Cooke was born in Windsor in 1725, the son of an itinerant worker. He was quickly packed off to live with his grandmother in Norwich, but made his way to London in young adulthood, becoming an apprentice in the Excise. Having qualified, Cooke was appointed to inspect a paper mill in Tottenham, and it was shortly thereafter that he first displayed signs of his devious conniving.

During the time that Cooke was inspecting the mill, its owner died; it was inherited by his widow who continued to run it with the aid of a foreman. Cooke then began making copious accounts of every fraudulent practice that the mill undertook, and afterwards approached the widow. He told her that if he were to raise these complaints with the Excise, the fines would amount to double the value of the mill: she would be bankrupt and imprisoned. Changing the subject entirely, Cooke offered his hand in marriage to the widow; but fearing that she may later renounce such a romantic gesture, he insisted that she agree in writing. Upon their marriage, Cooke inherited her vast property, along with the mill in Tottenham.

Despite his new found wealth, Cooke was notorious for scrounging off anybody that he could. He was often to be seen in the streets, feigning a fit. It must have been grand Georgian mansions that he was allergic to, because he conveniently seemed to undergo an attack of convulsions whenever he passed one by. The occupant, seeing such a well dressed gentleman seemingly in need of assistance, would rush to his aid. Cooke would at first nobly refuse any offer of wine to assist in his recovery, but upon being pressed by his concerned host he would find the courage to take a couple of glasses. He would then return two or three days later to "thank" his saviour, and by complete coincidence it would always happen to be around dinner time. Once more graciously declining his host's offer of dinner, claiming that "my gruel is waiting for me at home", he would then reluctantly accept. He would then unsubtly remind them during the course of dinner that his will was a work in progress, and request the names of the family's children in writing. This dangling carrot ensured that the benefactor of Cooke's "seizures" continued to forward to him gifts of meat and wine, in the hopes that their children may one day receive a sizeable endowment.

If patsies weren't in ready supply, Cooke would instead live as frugally as possible at home. Due to his penny pinching and manipulation of the goodwill of strangers, his household expenses were just fifteen pence per day. The only two occasions on which he displayed lavish tendencies were when he invited several business competitors over for dinner, and plied them with enough wine that their loose lips spilled forth all of their industrial secrets; the second occasion being when he bought an Epsom racehorse, but finding that the livery costs were too rich for his liking he instead decided to keep the horse in his kitchen.

On the subject of horses, Cooke was often seen in the dead of night scooping up horse manure from the streets to fertilise his cabbages. When horse manure wasn’t available, he would take to squatting over the cabbages and fertilising them himself. He came to be known locally as "Cabbage Cooke", although the people of Islington no doubt had plenty of other names for him besides. Owing to a life of penury and home grown cabbages, Cooke's wife died seemingly of a broken heart. Cooke offered his hand in marriage to all of the wealthy ladies of the area, his one stipulation being that they should sign over all of their property to him. Amazingly, none of the ladies took him up on this extremely tempting offer.

In his eighties, Cooke's health was beginning to decline, but his meanness continued unabated. When a physician failed to relieve him of his malady, Cooke demanded his money back, stating "no cure, no pay". Even in his final week, he was bargaining with the undertaker over the price of his coffin, until the undertaker informed him that the cost he was suggesting was even lower than that paid for the burial of the workhouse paupers.

When he died in 1811, his executors discovered that Cooke had hoarded away the equivalent of nine million pounds in today’s money. According to a book about his life published three years after his death, his funeral is described thus:

"The mob, who attended the procession from his house to Islington church-yard, did not treat his remains with any very great respect; nor did he go to his grave without the execrations of the multitude; some of the fair sex had provided themselves with rotten cabbage-stalks for the occasion, which they threw on the coffin when lowered into the grave, observing, that as he was so fond of cabbage in his life-time, he should have some to take with him to the other world."

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