of Thomas Cook & Son, (Egypt) Ltd.'' Berlin: Cosmos art publishing Co., 1893.
Brooklyn Museum Archives Thomas Cook & Son was founded by
Thomas Cook, a cabinet-maker and former
Baptist preacher, in 1841, under the name Thomas Cook, to carry
temperance supporters by railway between the cities of
Leicester,
Nottingham,
Derby and
Birmingham. The company's first excursion was a one-day rail trip, from Leicester to Loughborough and back; the price of one shilling included a meal. This has been described as the world's first package tour. In 1851, the founder arranged transport to the
Great Exhibition of 1851. He organised his first tours to Europe in 1855 and to the United States in 1866. In 1865, the founder's son John Mason Cook began working for the company full-time. In 1871, he became a partner, and the name of the company was changed to Thomas Cook & Son. Thomas Cook acquired business premises on
Fleet Street, London, in 1865. In 1866, the agency organised the first escorted tours of the United States for British travellers, picking up passengers from several departure points. John Mason Cook led the excursion which included tours of several
Civil War battlefields. In 1871, a brief but bitter partnership called
Cook, Son and Jenkins was formed in the United States with an American businessman. The first escorted
round-the-world tour departed from London in September 1872. It included a steamship across the Atlantic, a stage coach across America, a paddle steamer to Japan, and an overland journey across China and India. In 1874, Thomas Cook introduced his "circular notes", a product that was originally devised by a London banker in the 1770s and was later superseded by
American Express's "
traveller's cheques". Conflicts of interest between father and son were resolved when the son persuaded his father, Thomas Cook, to retire at the end of 1878. He moved back to Leicester and lived quietly until his death. The firm's growth was consolidated by John Mason Cook and his three sons, especially by its involvement with military transport and postal services for
Britain and
Egypt during the 1880s when Cook began organising tours to the Middle East. In 1884, the British Government attempted to relieve
General Gordon from
Khartoum. The British army was transported up the Nile by Thomas Cook & Son. A husband and wife might, for example, pay £85 for a Thomas Cook tour of Germany, Switzerland, and France over six weeks. While expensive enough that the trip would likely be the only one in the couple's lifetime, the company would arrange for a variety of activities new to the middle-class, including museum visits, the opera, and mountain climbing. John Mason Cook promoted, and even led, excursions to, for example, the Middle East where he was described as "the second-greatest man in Egypt".
Non-family ownership With the boom in travel in the
Edwardian era, John Mason Cook's sons, Frank Henry, Thomas Albert and
Ernest Edward, were even more successful than their father and grandfather had been at running the business. In 1924, the company was renamed Thomas Cook & Son Ltd., after acquiring limited liability status. In 1942, Thomas Cook & Son was sold to
Hay's Wharf Cartage Company, which was owned by the four major British railway companies. The company was
nationalised along with the railways in 1948, becoming part of the
British Transport Commission.
Midland Bank acquired sole control in 1977. During the 1980s, Thomas Cook had its most visible business presence in the United States, including robust sales of traveller's cheques to regional American banks. The company had enough business critical mass to set up a computer centre near
Princeton, New Jersey. Robert Gaffney, Charles Beach, Robin Dennis and Anthony Horne were some of the notable decision-makers in that era.
Robert Maxwell bought substantial holdings in the company in 1988 and still held that interest when Crimson/Heritage purchased the U.S. division of Thomas Cook for US$1.3 billion in 1989. In June 1992, following the acquisition of
Midland Bank by
HSBC, Thomas Cook was sold to the German bank
Westdeutsche Landesbank (WestLB) and the charter airline
LTU Group for £200 million. Due to contractual difficulties, LTU Group sold its 10% shares to WestLB in May 1995. During 1996 the company bought short-haul operator Sunworld and European city-breaks tour group Time Off. Within three years the company had combined Sunworld, Sunset, Inspirations,
Flying Colours and
Caledonian Airways into the
JMC (for "John Mason Cook") brand. On 2 February 1999, the Carlson Leisure Group merged with Thomas Cook into a
holding company owned by West LB, Carlson Inc and
Preussag Aktiengesellschaft. In 2000, the company announced its intention to sell its financial services division, in order to concentrate on tours and holidays. In March 2001 the financial services division was sold to
Travelex, who retained the right to use the Thomas Cook brand on traveller's cheques for five years. It sold off its worldwide foreign exchange business to Travelex in November 2000. In 2001, Thomas Cook was acquired by the German company C&N Touristic AG, which changed its name to
Thomas Cook AG. which then merged with MyTravel Group to become
Thomas Cook Group in 2007 and collapsed in 2019. The brand was relaunched as
Thomas Cook Tourism in 2020. having been acquired in December 2019 by a competitive bidding process. A £40,000 grant from
The National Archives funded an online catalogue. ==See also==