Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rooke, John

by William Albert Samuel Hewins

ROOKE, JOHN (1780–1856), writer on political economy and geology, eldest son of John Rooke, yeoman and surveyor, of Aikton-head, Cumberland, by his wife Peggy, was born there on 29 Aug. 1780. A farmer until he was thirty years of age, he was entirely self-taught, except for the knowledge he acquired as a boy at the village school and Aikton school. He devoted himself to the study of political economy, and became a zealous advocate of free trade. The project of a railway across Morecambe Bay aroused his interest in geological study and in the practical applications of geology. In an unpublished correspondence with his friend Andrew Crosse [q. v.] he sought to explain ‘the geognostic operations of the universe by the opposite physical and electrical qualities of matter’—a theory which he entitled ‘the theory of explosive forces.’ In 1844 he read a paper before the British Association on ‘The relative Age and true Position of the Millstone Grit and Shale’ (Reports, 1844, p. 51). He was also instrumental in promoting the Wigton agricultural show. He died on 26 April 1856, and was buried in Wigton cemetery. His portrait was painted both by Haydon and Cocken. A photograph from the latter's painting is in Lonsdale's ‘Worthies of Cumberland.’

Rooke published:

1. ‘Remarks on the Nature and Operation of Money. By Cumbriensis,’ London, 1819, 8vo.
2. ‘An Essay on the National Debt, showing the Use and Abuse of the Funding System,’ 1822.
3. ‘An Enquiry into the Principles of National Wealth, illustrated by the Political Economy of the British Empire,’ Edinburgh, 1824, 8vo; this work was based upon articles contributed to the ‘Farmer's Journal’ in 1814 and subsequent years.
4. ‘Free Trade in Corn the real Interest of the Landlord and the True Policy of the State,’ 1828.
5. ‘Free and Safe Government traced from the Origin and Principles of the British Constitution,’ London, 1835, 8vo.
6. ‘Geology as a Science applied to the Reclamation of Land from the Sea,’ London, 1838, 12mo; 2nd edit., 1840, with an additional chapter entitled ‘A Dissertation on Geology.’

[Gent. Mag. 1856, i. 639–40; Annual Register, 1856, p. 252; Lonsdale's Worthies of Cumberland, pp. 201–92.]

W. A. S. H.