John Cooke (Royal Navy officer)
John Cooke was an experienced and highly regarded officer of the Royal Navy during the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary Wars and the first years of the Napoleonic Wars. Cooke is best known for his death in hand-to-hand combat with French forces during the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. During the action, his ship HMS Bellerophon was badly damaged and boarded by sailors and marines from the French ship of the line Aigle. Cooke was killed in the ensuing melee, but his crew successfully drove off their opponents and ultimately forced the surrender of Aigle.
John Cooke, painted c. 1797–1803 by Lemuel Francis Abbott
Greenwich Hospital, in the painting London from Greenwich Park, in 1809, by William Turner
Engraving of Cooke, by James Fittler, for Cooke's memoir in the Naval Chronicle in 1807
Battle of Trafalgar
HMS Bellerophon, known to sailors as the "Billy Ruffian", was a ship of the line of the Royal Navy. A third-rate of 74 guns, she was launched in 1786. Bellerophon served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, mostly on blockades or convoy escort duties. She fought in three fleet actions: the Glorious First of June (1794), the Battle of the Nile (1798) and the Battle of Trafalgar (1805). While the ship was on blockade duty in 1815, Napoleon boarded Bellerophon so he could surrender to the ship's captain, ending 22 years of almost continuous war between Britain and France.
HMS Bellerophon, detail from Scene in Plymouth Sound in August 1815, an 1816 painting by John James Chalon
Anonymous drawing, c. 1786, of Bellerophon on the stocks at Frindsbury, prior to being launched
Sir Thomas Pasley, depicted as a rear-admiral in a 1795 portrait by Lemuel Francis Abbott. Bellerophon's first commander, he is shown wearing the Naval Gold Medal he won while commanding her.
Lord Howe engaging the French Fleet under Adm Villaret on the 29th May, a 1799 aquatint after Nicholas Pocock, showing Howe's flagship, Queen Charlotte cutting the French line. Emerging through the smoke behind her and following the commander in chief through the line is Bellerophon.