Albert Ruskin Cook

Who was Albert Ruskin Cook?

Sir Albert Ruskin Cook, CMG, OBE, MD was a British born medical missionary in Uganda, and founder of Mulago Hospital and Mengo Hospital. Together with his wife, Katharine Cook, he established a maternity training school in Uganda.

Albert Cook was born in Hampstead, London in 1870. His parents were Dr. W.H. Cook and Harriet Bickersteth Cook. He graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1893 with a Bachelor of Arts degree, and from St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1895 as a Bachelor of Medicine. He became a Doctor of Medicine in 1901.

In 1896, Albert Cook went to Uganda with a Church Missionary Society mission, and in 1897 he established Mengo Hospital, the oldest hospital in East Africa. He married Katharine Timpson, a missionary nurse, in 1900, with whom he had two daughters and a son.

Katharine Timpson, who later became Katharine, Lady Cook was matron of Mengo Hospital 1897–1911, and the General Superintendent of Midwives, and Inspector of Country Centres. She was involved in the foundation of the Lady Coryndon Maternity Training School and founded the Nurses Training College in 1931.