[1] He was employed at the Islington Railway Workshops,[2] before becoming a consulting engineer and patent attorney.
He contested the single statewide seven-member Division of South Australia at the 1901 federal election as a Free Trade Party candidate.
In South Australia, he was a councillor (Parkside ward) 1900–1904 and first mayor of the newly proclaimed City of Unley 1905–1907 (Mrs. Cooke laid the foundation stone of the new Town Hall in March 1907) then an alderman 1908–1914.
[3][4] In 1933, he lost preselection to Hermann Homburg and Collier Cudmore, and ran for Central No.
His widow and daughter presented the Royal Geographical Society with a brass surveyor's level, made by Troughton & Simms, and reputedly used by Colonel William Light.