Talk:Cooke Optics

info from Cooke Optics to add to article
once formatting, etc. has been wikified:


 * 2000 and Beyond

There are some inaccuracies in the original write-up that was placed on this website about Cooke Optics Limited. The following edited copy is from information contained in archival documents belonging to Cooke Optics Limited.

Cooke Optics Limited is a camera lens design and manufacturing company based in Leicester, England. Until 1998, Cooke lenses were made by Taylor, Taylor and Hobson (TTH), then Taylor Hobson of Leicester. William Taylor, an engineer, and his brother Thomas Smithies Taylor, a lens maker, formed their optical instruments company, T.S & W. Taylor, in 1886. Herbert W. Hobson joined the company in 1887 and the name changed to Taylor, Taylor & Hobson in 1888. H. Dennis Taylor (no relation) of T. Cooke & Sons of York, devised the elegant “Cooke Triplet” lens design in the 1890s (patented in 1893). The first “Cooke” lens and five subsequent lenses designed by H. Dennis Taylor of York were made under license by Taylor, Taylor & Hobson. By the 1900s, William Taylor had hired in-house lens designers who continued using the name “Cooke” on their lenses for still and cinematography through the better part of the 20th century. Bell & Howell took control of the company in 1931, then it was sold to the Rank organization in 1946. After the war, TTH made camera lenses for the British Kershaw, for the Bell & Howell Foton, and for the Reid and Sigrist Leica copy. They were better known for their cine lenses, for Bell & Howell and other cameras. In 1998, Cooke Optics Limited was a new Company formed following a buy-out of the Optical division of Taylor Hobson. Cooke Optics now design and manufacture specialty optics, most notably Cooke 35mm and Super16 lenses for the motion picture film industry. Chairman Les Zellan led the buy-out and Dave Stevens is Managing Director of the Leicester based facility. The Company distribute to over 60 countries worldwide and export 90% of their products.

Edited version: Barbara Lowry, Cooke Optics Limited —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pinkville (talk • contribs) 21:17, 31 January 2007 (UTC).


 * I revised the article and added new content, responding to the above, after consulting the Cooke Optics website and other sources. To cover the other activities of TTH, I also created a Taylor Hobson article. This got marked for speedy deletion, the logic of which escapes me. EEye (talk) 00:31, 9 February 2008 (UTC)