John Cookson Fife
(1844-1911)
23 March 1866

Volume 13, page 96, sitting number 16,920.

Born John Cookson Fife in 1844, he was the eldest son of W.H. Fife of Lee Hall and eldest grandson of Sir John Fife of Gortanloisk House, Argyllshire. His maternal grandfather was John Cookson of Whitehill, under whose will he succeeded in 1878, changing his name to John Cookson Fife-Cookson.

He was educated privately and at Sandhurst. He served in the New Zealand War (1865). At the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish War in 1877 he was appointed a Miltary Attaché to the British Embassy at Constantinople, and accompanied the Turkish armies in the Balkan campaign and subsequently at Gallipoli (Brevet of Major). In 1880 he contested Scarborough on the Conservative ticket. His publications included With the Armies of the Balkans and Tiger Shooting in the Doon. His recreations, according to Who Was Who 1897-1915, were field sports, especially salmon fishing. The same source gives his address as Lee Hall, Wark, North Tyne.

Lieutenant-Colonel Cookson-Fife 'of Whitehill Hall county Durham and of Lee Hall Wark-on-Tyne Northumberland' died on 14 July 1911 at Lee Hall. He left an estate valued at £37,786.

A short obituary appeared in the Yorkshire and Leeds Intelligencer (17 July 1911). 'The death occurred on Friday evening at Lee Hall, Bellingham, near Hexham, of Lieut.-Colonel John Cookson Fife-Cookson. The deceased gentleman, who was 67 years of age, was the eldest son of Mr William Henry Fife, of Lee Hall, Wark. He was a J.P. and D.L. for County Durham, a J.P. for the North Riding of Yorkshire and Northumberland, and was hon. Lieut.-Colonel formerly of the 18th and 65th Foot. He was Military Attaché to the H.M.'s Embassy in Turkey in 1877-8. He assumed the name of Cookson in 1878, under the will of his grandfather, on inheriting Whitehill, Chester-le-Street,'