Cookney, George

COOKNEY, George (1799–1876) was born at Holborn, Middlesex, England, son of Charles Cookney, an attorney, and Thomasin James, a mantua maker, of Piccadilly, London. George trained as an architect before he migrated to New South Wales where he arrived at Sydney in 1823 and commenced practice with high but unrealised expectations. He moved to Mauritius for a year before returning to Sydney where in April 1825, he succeeded Standish Lawrence Harris (–) as Civil Architect of New South Wales for which he received no salary but generous conditions, being allowed a moderate charge on all original drawings and a fee of 7½% of the cost of all labour and materials expended. His duties were to attend to and receive instructions for new buildings and alterations, to design and furnish plans, elevations and sections with specifications and estimates and to superintend the erection and report on progress…and to be generally useful in all work connected with Civil Architecture. He retained the position for only one year. Cookney, who was reputedly an egotist, was dismissed in April 1826 in “ignominious circumstances” (he may have been an alcoholic) and the position was not filled. Cookney may have been responsible for delays in providing plans for permanent buildings at the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement, forcing the Commandant Patrick LOGAN to implement plans drawn locally by his predecessor Peter BISHOP. Cookney was imprisoned as an accessory to theft in 1838 and sentenced to seven years’ transportation. In Tasmania he was assigned to a former-convict architect, James Alexander Thomson (1806-60). From 1855 in the partnership which followed, he practised with Thomson’s son Frederick William as FW Thomson and Geo Cookney, architects, Hobart until 1861. Cookney died at Hobart, Tasmania.