Cocker, EDWARD

Cocker, EDWARD, schoolmaster and author, was born in 1631, and died in London in 1675. His book on arithmetic was the first English work of the kind really adapted to commercial life, and became so widely known that the name of Cocker is as indissolubly associated with accuracy in figures as that of Murray with the rules of grammar. He attained considerable success as a teacher of arithmetic and writing in London, and is mentioned repeatedly in Pepys's Diary, who qualifies him as 'very ingenious and well read in all our English poets.' Cocker published over thirty works on writing or arithmetic, but the famous book so often reprinted, Cocker's Arithmetick, was posthumous, being dated 1678, and edited by John Hawkins. De Morgan has contended, apparently on insufficient grounds, that this book, which passed through 112 editions, was not really Cocker's work at all. Among other works published under his name are an English dictionary, and the Muses' Spring Garden, which contains some quaint verses of his own composition.