Samuel Edward Cook

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Samuel Edward Cook (1787–11 January 1856), later known as Samuel Edward Widdrington, was an English writer and naval officer. In 1840 he changed his surname to Widdrington after his mother became the heiress of part of the family estates. He served in the Royal Navy and spent several years in Spain, writing Sketches in Spain (1834) about 1829–1832 and Spain and the Spaniards (1844). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1842 and served as High Sheriff of Northumberland in 1854. He died at Newton Hall, Northumberland, in January 1856; his estates passed to his nephew Shalcross Fitzherbert Jacson, who also took the name Widdrington. The plant genus Widdringtonia was named in his honor by botanist Stephan Endlicher for his interest in Spain’s conifer forests, and in 1831 he collected an Azure-winged Magpie in southern Spain, now recognized as the Iberian Azure-winged Magpie (Cyanopica cooki).