Thomas Cook (Scottish politician)
Scottish Labour Party politician (1908-1952)
Thomas Fotheringham Cook (7 June 1908 – 31 May 1952) was a Scottish Labour Party politician.
Biography
Cook was the son of a miner and was born in Larkhall. He was interested in politics from the time he was an apprentice electrician, and was active in the co-operative movement in Rutherglen.
Cook was active in the Independent Labour Party until the early 1930s, when he joined the Scottish Socialist Party split. This affiliated to the Labour Party, under which label Cook served as Member of Parliament for constituencies in Dundee from 1945 until his death in 1952. He was first elected for the two member constituency of Dundee at the 1945 general election, being elected at the head of the poll. When that seat was abolished for the 1950 election he was elected as the first member for the new seat of Dundee East. In parliament he served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the President of the Board of Trade, working under Stafford Cripps and Harold Wilson, and then from 1950 to 1951 Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies.The Glasgow Herald described him "as one of the most popular Labour men in the House".
Cook died as a result of a road traffic accident a few minutes before midnight on 31 May 1952. He was driving on the Arbroath to Dundee road when the car he was driving left the road and collided with a tree and went over a low wall in to a field resulting in his instant death due to crush injuries to his chest.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Thomas Cook (Scottish politician)” is scottish Labour Party politician (1908-1952). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Thomas, Cook and Scottish, not as a finished interpretation.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7788581. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1908, 1952, 1945 and 1950.
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This entry incorporates text from “Thomas Cook (Scottish politician)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.