While people prepare to jet off on their summer holidays, it’s fitting to pay tribute to Thomas Cook, the pioneer of organised continental and world travel.

Thomas Cook was born at number nine, Quick Close, in Melbourne, South Derbyshire in November 1808.

His parents, John and Elizabeth Cook, were both members of Melbourne Baptist Church and the church would play an important part throughout Thomas’ life and in influencing the formation of the travel business.

Thomas’ early years were filled with tragedy as his father John died when he was three-years-old. Although his mother Elizabeth married for a second time, she was a widow again by the time Thomas reached his 13 birthday.

Thomas Cook had started work at the tender age of 10 as a gardener’s boy for a wage of six-pence per week before moving on to learn wood turning and cabinet making under the watchful eye of his uncle.

By the age of 18, Thomas had set up a woodwork business at Market Harborough. Upon reaching adulthood, Thomas was baptised to become an active member of the Baptist Church and became an ardent temperance worker – a movement against the consumption of alcohol.

Travel pioneer Thomas Cook was born in Melbourne and kept a close affiliation with the area
Travel pioneer Thomas Cook was born in Melbourne and kept a close affiliation with the area

During this time he married Marianne Mason, a fellow worker the for Baptist cause. The couple became increasingly ardent temperance advocates and their home was transformed into a distribution centre for leaflets with Mr Cook turning his hand away from woodwork and to printing.

By the age of 20, Thomas was appointed as village evangelist for Rutland and parts of Northampton and it was on a walk of 15 miles from Market Harborough to Leicester for a temperance gathering that the idea of an “excursion” came to him.

During his long walk, Thomas had read an account of the opening of an extension of the Midland Counties Railway between Leicester, Derby and Nottingham.

It occurred to him that this new rail line might be used to ensure a good attendance at a forthcoming temperance meeting at Loughborough.

Keen to attract numbers to meetings, Thomas Cook decided to ask the secretary of the Midland Railway, a Mr JF Bell, for a special return train to Loughborough. Mr Bell replied: “I know nothing of you or your society, but you shall have the train.”

On July 5 1841 when railway travel was still an adventure, 570 people climbed aboard a special train of open carriages for the return trip from Leicester to Loughborough at a fair of one-shilling per head.

This was to be the first excursion organised by Thomas Cook and it marked the foundation of the world-wide travel business which still bears its name.

The novelty of Mr Cook’s first excursion made an instant appeal and for the next year or two he was kept busy planning and conducting excursions in different parts of the Midlands for temperance societies and children’s welfare organisations.

It was in November 1841 that the Cook household moved to Leicester where he set up the Temperance Press while his wife opened the Temperance Hotel.

The Temperance Hotel in Leicester
The Temperance Hotel in Leicester

Over the next few months, Mr Cook developed his arrangements with the Midland Railway and organised his first tour to Liverpool and North Wales. People clamoured for tickets and very much like today, some were resold at twice the market value.

Next came a tour to Scotland but as the railway only ran as far as Newcastle, Mr Cook had to take the party of 350 people by rail to Fleetwood and then by steamer up the Firth of Clyde to Ardrossan before using rail again to travel to Glasgow and Edinburgh.

When the group arrived at Glasgow, the city’s guns were fired in their honour and a band played as they made their way to the town hall for a welcome party – the group were treated as “conquering heroes”.

After this success and reception, progress was really rapid and “The Great Exhibition” of London in 1851 gave Mr Cook the first of many outstanding triumphs as he managed in total to convey 165,000 people from all parts of the British Isles to the exhibition.

When, two years later a big exhibition was held in Dublin, he was invited to arrange excursions for visitors and to inaugurate a comprehensive system of touring facilities in Ireland.

In 1854, Mr Cook gave up the Temperance Press business and confined his activities to excursion work with his first continental trip now just months away.

In 1855 Mr Cook made travelling arrangements for thousands of visitors to the Paris Exhibition. This, in turn, opened the way for his first continental tour – a grand circular tour which would include Brussels, Cologne, the Rhine, Heidelberg, Baden-Baden, Strasbourg and Paris.

It was not until the early 1860s that Thomas Cook started in earnest on a continental campaign and he rapidly extended his activities in France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

In 1865, Mr Cook set up his first London office at 98 Fleet Street where as well as selling tickets and excursions, he obtained passports for his clients and even delivered parcels.

He was joined in business by his son John Mason and, in 1866, John conducted his first tour to America. This time also marked the turning point of offering hotels as part of the package deal alongside the transportation.

Thomas Cook’s tours gradually extended all over Europe and into America and when he was 65-years-old, he undertook a trip around the world. As a result, he was able to offer a world tour to guests in 1873 for the sum of 200 guineas.

This resulted in the expression of a “Cook’s Tour” which was an assurance of comfort and reliability. It is to Thomas Cook that we also owe the revolution of the traveller’s cheque as an international travel ticket which covered fairs and accommodation.

One of the early Thomas Cook travel shops - this one was at Clumber Street, Nottingham
One of the early Thomas Cook travel shops - this one was at Clumber Street, Nottingham

Within 10 years, the original Fleet Street London office was too small and it was deemed necessary to erect a larger building in Ludgate Circus. By this time further tours of America had taken place and Canada was now also being explored.

By 1887, Thomas Cook was a well-known name and even the Prime Minister has heaping praise on the travel pioneer. Prime Minister Gladstone said: “England has led the world in establishing cheap travel. Among the humanising controversies of the age, should be noted the system founded by Mr Cook under which large numbers of persons have for the first time found access to foreign countries”.

In spite of his world-wide activities and his residence in London, Leicester and Market Harborough, Thomas Cook always maintained contact with his native Melbourne.

In 1874 there was a rumour that he was about to purchase Melbourne Hall, although this later proved to be unfounded. He did, however, visit in 1876 to celebrate the 50 anniversary of his entry into the Baptist Church.

In August 1889 he visited again with some American friends and after visiting his birthplace at Quick Close, he decided to build a block of 14 almshouses for “poor and deserving people”.

The first of these new cottages belonging to the General Baptist Denomination was occupied in 1891 and a bronze plaque affixed to the wall of Quick Close simply read “He made world travel easier”.

Thomas Cook died in 1892 and his son John Mason soon after in 1899, but the business was carried on by John Mason’s sons Frank, Ernest and Thomas Cook.

In the 20th Century, the business continued to keep abreast of new developments and to promote inexpensive travel for the ordinary man and woman.

By 1919, air tours were offered to the public and in 1920, the first Thomas Cook British coach tour was organised.

In 1922 came the first Cape to Cairo safari and automobile tours were advertised by the early 1920s.

During the Second World War, the business was engaged in handling enemy mail, evacuating children and packing and dispatching parcels to the forces in every theatre of war.

After the war, in 1947, a special department was set up to deal with motoring holidays and in 1948 another department was created to handle the travel arrangements of businesses.

Next on the agenda was the “holiday budget” scheme which allowed customers to spread the cost of their holiday over a year and “inclusive holidays” which provided all travel necessities.

So, whether you’re jetting off abroad, taking a coach tour, paying for next year’s holiday monthly, preparing to enjoy an inclusive holiday or thinking about traveller’s cheques and their modern-day equivalents, all roads lead back to Thomas Cook of Melbourne.