His father was Thomas Matthews Rooke, for many years the studio assistant of Edward Burne-Jones, and an accomplished artist in his own right.
In 1899, aged 18, Rooke was employed by William Lethaby in the school holidays to make drawings of the Chapter House at Westminster Abbey.
He faced opposition from Frank Morley Fletcher and Sydney Lee who taught classes in colour woodcuts in the Japanese style.
Lethaby had had to overcome opposition to Johnston's calligraphy classes, and, along with most artists at the time, saw wood engraving simply as the reproductive medium that it had been until then.
[5] He went on to apply the principles that he had learned from Johnston to wood engraving: Form should be expressed with tools which answer the helm with much sensitiveness.
Among his students were Mabel Annesley, John Farleigh, Robert Gibbings, Vivien Gribble, Muriel Jackson, Clare Leighton, Margaret Pilkington,[7] Herry Perry,[8] Monica Poole.
As a result of his teaching, his own production was comparatively small - wood engraved, line drawn and watercolour illustrations, individual prints, posters and paintings, many of which reflect his passion for mountains.
[3] Margaret Pilkington remembers classes where Rooke dwelt on the dramatic contrasts of dark rock and snow-covered sunlit slopes, on the angularity of line and on the possibilities of abstraction presented by such scenes.
Campbell Dodgson, Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, wrote about him in his introduction to the book: "Mr. Rooke himself, represented by examples of his earlier and later woodcuts, has discovered a vigorous treatment of mountain forms".
[17] VADS (the Visual Arts Data Service) offers quick access to reproductions of Rooke's work,[18] and the Central School has an extensive holding of his wood engravings.