File:CookeJournalPAGE150-CookeExemplarLetters-RWLipack-Owner.jpg

Summary

LEFT TO RIGHT: The accompanying photograph shows various holograph exemplar elements used in a holograph authentication process of documents known as paleographic comparative authentication. In the case of the William Fothergill Cooke telegraph builder's journal, the elements of authentication include a 30 May 1838 Wm. F. Cooke letter exemplar section, a dated 30 November 1836 Wm. F. Cooke acting journal page section, a 2 January 1877 Wm. F. Cooke dated letter exemplar section and finally the full journal exemplar page for the astronomy class Wm. F. Cooke took after returning to London on 22 April, 1836 from Germany - where Cooke had been studying medical anatomy and wax anatomical model making.

It was in Germany where Cooke had witnessed an early electric telegraph demonstration and lecture based on Pavel Schilling's earlier 1835 findings that was given by Professor Moncke at the University of Heidelberg where Cooke was studying.

This composite photograph consists of various elements used in part in the paleographic authentication process of the William Fothergill Cooke telegraph builder's journal using two comparative authentication holograph exemplar letters executed in Cooke's hand written in 1838 and also in 1877. Sections from the two letters are shown placed beside a page found in the Cooke manuscript journal from 1836. This holographic comparative authentication is being conducted using the word "with" found in all three holograph works.

The first exemplar is the verso section of a holograph letter dated 30 May 1838 executed in the hand of William Fothergill Cooke to Mrs. Sophia Macnamara Brunel Hawes - pertaining to consummation of Cooke's negotiations with Mrs. Hawes' brother Isambard Kingdom Brunel relative to the contract initiating the landmark 'internal' trial electric magnetic telegraph installations of the Cooke and Wheatstone system on Brunel's Great Western Railway. Outside of the half dozen Cooke signatures found in the journal - some with Cooke's various changing addresses on record, and the signatures found of Cooke's in these two and other letters accompanying the Cooke journal, in this case the word "with" found in this 30 May 1838 letter, is being used as a holographic exemplar for authentication purposes of the Cooke's journal. This word "with" in this instance is being used to show the match with the word "with" entered on a Cooke journal page dated 30 November 1836 - the earliest dated page in the journal.

The second holograph exemplar letter dated 2 January 1877 executed in the hand of William Fothergill Cooke to Latimer Clark discusses Cooke having his portrait painted by a woman artist named Margaret Thomas. This letter, aside from being a good exemplar letter executed at a much later date in Cooke's lifespan, concretely establishes name of the artist that painted Cooke's apparently only extant portrait during his lifetime. This is significant because Cooke's portrait painting is not signed; so now the artist is fully documented. Again the word "with" in this 1877 letter is also being used. Latimer Clark was a master electrical engineer from the early days of Cooke's and Lewis Ricardo's The Electric Telegraph Company that was formed in 1846.

This 1877 letter was written 39 years after the 1838 executed Cooke letter and 41 years after the earliest known dated page from 1836 found in Cooke's telegraph builder's journal used to design the Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph system over a span of six years. In all cases, the word "with" found in each of the two exemplar letters from 1838 and 1877, and on the Cooke 1836 journal page - exhibits the same slant, flow and other inherent characteristics that prove all holograph works are executed in the same hand and using the paleographic exemplar authentication process these elements in unison wholly authenticate the journal as being in the hand of William Fothergill Cooke.