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churchwarden, and as supplying tar barrels to burn at public 
rejoicings, when “ale at the cross” flowed so freely at the Parish 
expense. William, the grocer, was son of William Cookson, eldest 
son of William and Alice, who in 1693 married Dorothy Fothergill, 
who added considerably to the already numerous Cooksons of 
Penrith. Dorothy died 1706, and after her there was a second 
wife, Susanna, whose existence, and that of her children, are only 
learned from the elder William Cookson’s will, none of their names 
appearing in the parish registers. The parentage of William 
Cookson, mercer, maternal grandfather of Wordsworth, was for 
long somewhat of a mystery; dying in 1787 (when ages of persons 
buried had begun to be recorded in the register), he being at his 
death seventy-six years of age, we learn that he was born in 1711, 
but searching the registers of that period, no trace of him is to be 
found ; there is the burial of a Thomas Cookson, mercer, in 1721, 
who might have been the father of William, the mercer, but no 
baptisms of any children of his are to be found. 
Burke, in his Landed Gentry says William Cookson, mercer, who 
married Dorothy Crackenthorpe, was younger brother of Isaac 
Cookson, silversmith, of Newcastle-on-Tyne, who was born in 1680, 
and was a son of a William Cookson, whose family came originally 
from Settle, in Yorkshire, but as this puts thirty-one years between 
the alleged brothers, the statement looked perplexing. 
All was made plain, however, by reference to the will of William 
Cookson, “the husband of Alice Cookson,” as the parish register 
puts it. He died in 1712, and his will was proved at Carlisle the 
same year; from it we learn that he was a brazier, as was his 
probable ancestor, William Cookson, the ‘“‘tincler” of 1600, his sons 
enumerated in the will stand the same as in the registers, with the 
exception that one of the two, erroneously registered as Joseph, 
turns out to be the notable Isaac, of Newcastle. The sons of 
William and Alice were William (also a brazier, as appears from 
another source), Thomas, the mercer, Joseph, who died in 1720, 
Isaac, the goldsmith, of Newcastle, Benjamin, and James. The 
old brazier’s will is a most interesting document ; in it he bequeaths 
ten shillings each to all adult members of his family and several 
