WEBVTT - SYMHC Classics: Thomas Cook 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:06.320 Happy Saturday. Thomas Cook was born on November twenty second, 0:00:06.400 --> 0:00:09.719 eighteen oh eight, or two hundred and seventeen years ago today, 0:00:10.000 --> 0:00:13.480 on the day this episode is publishing. Cook founded his 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:16.720 own travel agency in the nineteenth century, and he's seen 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:19.799 as one of the founders of the package travel industry. 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:22.680 At the end of this episode, we talked about the 0:00:22.720 --> 0:00:26.440 company Cook founded and what the business grew involved into, 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:30.400 and when we recorded the episode, Thomas Cook Group was 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:34.280 having some financial difficulties. Then in September of twenty nineteen, 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:37.160 it collapsed and that left roughly one hundred and fifty 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:41.479 thousand travelers stranded overseas with all their bookings canceled. We 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:44.640 talked about that a little bit in an installment of Unearthed. 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:49.839 The following month, Thomas Cook Group's biggest shareholder, Folksin International, 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:52.720 purchased all the branding and all of its assets and 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:56.400 they relaunched the business as an online travel agency in 0:00:56.440 --> 0:01:00.560 November of twenty nineteen, and then Polish travel technology company 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:04.039 East Sky Group acquired the business from Folsen in twenty 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:07.960 twenty four. This episode originally came out on July eighth, 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:15.000 twenty nineteen. Enjoy Welcome to Stuff You missed in History Class, 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:25.080 a production of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. 0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:28.200 I'm Holly Frye and I'm Tracy B. Wilson and Tracy. 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:31.720 We have been traveling a lot lately. I've been traveling 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:34.120 a whole bunch, and because of that, I just started thinking, 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:36.080 particularly when we were on our trip to Paris, which 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:42.399 was booked as a package, about how package travel started. Yeah, 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:46.240 Because like I often found myself marveling at the people 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:49.800 who managed our trips through defined destinations were just handling 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:53.840 the needs of fifty people who all had differing desires 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:58.520 and internal clocks and whatnot. As we wandered around in 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:01.000 a foreign country, and sometimes people got lost and they 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:03.040 always managed to find them and get I was just 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:05.560 I marvel at the whole concept. So that made me 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:08.360 start to think about how this whole thing began. And 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:10.640 as I dug it did not take very long to 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:13.040 find the person that most people point to and say, 0:02:13.120 --> 0:02:15.400 this is the person who started it. But I was 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:18.200 surprised because the man most often referenced as the father 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:21.800 of the modern travel industry was inspired not by some 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:25.360 deep seated yearn to go out and explore the world, 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:29.200 but it was more inspired by his support of the 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:33.240 Temperance movement and has deeply held religious beliefs. So today 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:35.640 we were talking about Thomas Cook, but we were also 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:39.720 talking about his son, John Mason Cook. Modern travelers in 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:42.519 the UK in particular are probably well acquainted with the 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:45.120 Cook name is now the name of one of the 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:48.440 largest travel agencies in the world, if not the largest. 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:52.360 But their family were really pioneers of this idea of 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:55.720 a travel agency to manage tourist holidays and put together 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:58.760 packages that could be sold for all of your needs 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:01.960 to be attended to. He just buyerr one thing and 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:05.120 then it's taken care of. Yeah, it didn't start that way. 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:08.040 That happened incrementally before they got to the buyer one 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:11.240 thing idea. But really you do see the progression of 0:03:11.280 --> 0:03:14.800 how this concept started and how it started to add 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:18.520 on different pieces until it became package travel. Thomas Cook 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:22.880 was born on November twenty second, eighteen o eight, in Derbyshire, England. 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:26.240 His parents, John and Elizabeth Cook were very poor, and 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:28.920 John worked as a laborer and died when Thomas was 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:33.520 just four years old. Elizabeth remarried to James Smithard not 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:37.920 long after John's death. Thomas's formal education was rather brief. 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:41.240 He attended school only until the age of ten, and 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:43.840 at that point he started working as a helper to 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:46.480 an estate gardener and he worked in that position for 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:49.400 four years, at which point he became a cabinetry apprentice 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:53.320 under his uncle John Peg. When young Thomas became an apprentice, 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:57.480 he also switched religious denominations. Up until the age of fourteen, 0:03:57.560 --> 0:04:00.600 Thomas had attended a Methodist Sunday School and that was 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:03.600 intended to offer a little bit of a supplemental education 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:05.680 since he had to go to work full time to 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:08.960 help the family, and that was a common pattern. Sunday 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:11.560 schools in England during this time were intended to offer 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:14.680 children a small amount of ongoing education after they were 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:18.000 required to join the workforce. Yeah, very different I think 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:20.760 from what we might think of as Sunday school today. 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:27.080 Not as much. I mean, certainly there was religious study involved, 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:29.679 but it was also literally like sort of a standard 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:33.280 education that was getting conveyed. But though he had been 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:37.400 attending Methodist Sunday school for four years, at fourteen Thomas 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:42.240 started attending a Baptist Sunday school. John Peg his new 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:44.680 person that he was apprenticing under was a Baptist, so 0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:47.479 that may have had some influence in the switch, but 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:51.279 Thomas's mother also wanted her son to change churches. It 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:54.160 appears that Thomas was very diligent in his studies at 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:57.400 this new school, and he eventually started teaching there. He 0:04:57.480 --> 0:05:01.719 was eventually named it superintendent. He hadn't been baptized yet, 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:05.000 though that didn't happen until February of eighteen twenty six, 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:07.560 when he was seventeen. Yeah, that kind of ties into 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:09.640 that idea that Sunday school is not the way we 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:12.640 would think of Sunday school in like modern America, for example. 0:05:12.720 --> 0:05:16.000 It really was not quite the same deal. And I 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:20.120 only know Catechism, which is different than other religions Sunday schools, 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:23.960 so I'm sure I have a very different concept of 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:29.400 how the whole thing works. Cook's religious devotion eventually supplanted 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:33.480 his work in cabinetry. After five years as his uncle's apprentice, 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:36.560 he left that job behind to become a missionary, and 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:39.160 his new job consisted of traveling from town to town 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:42.440 in rural England. In each town, he would distribute literature, 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:46.120 give sermons, and set up a Sunday school there. He 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:49.120 got paid thirty six pounds annually for the job, and 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:51.800 that amount was throttled back as he started to receive 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:55.400 aid from the people that he ministered to. While traveling 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:57.600 with his work, the twenty year old Cook met a 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:01.120 young woman named mary Anne Mason, another Sunday school teacher 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:04.039 who was a year older than Thomas. Thomas and mary 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:06.960 Anne were sweethearts for four years before they got married 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:09.719 on March second, eighteen thirty three. That's another thing that 0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:13.640 made me chuckle. In some of the biographical write ups 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:16.160 of him, people will talk about what a long courtship 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:18.760 that was. Where it's again in the modern era, not 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:22.800 so much. Not only did Thomas's bachelor's status change to 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:26.520 that of husband in eighteen thirty three, he also changed jobs. 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:29.800 He returned to carpentry. His job as a missionary had 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:32.600 ended because the church could no longer fund his salary, 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:35.720 so he moved with Marianne to Market Harborough and opened 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:39.040 up a shop on January thirteenth, eighteen thirty four. They 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:42.520 welcomed a son, John Mason Cook. In eighteen thirty five, 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:45.400 they had another child named Henry, but the second son 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:47.960 died while still a baby. They didn't have any more 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:50.760 children until the mid eighteen forties. When their daughter Annie 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:53.400 was born. In eighteen thirty six, the Cooks took a 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:57.040 strong stand for temperance. They felt that liquor was causing 0:06:57.080 --> 0:07:01.000 all manner of social problems. This was a pretty popularly 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:04.000 circulated idea at the time, and they decided that they 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:06.840 wanted to lead by example in their own lives. So 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:10.320 they both signed a pledge of temperance, and they also 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:12.560 vowed that no one who worked for them would have 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:16.200 access to alcohol while on their property. But Thomas was 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:19.520 not content to do just that. He started really throwing 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:22.520 his time and his efforts into promoting temperance. In the 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:25.720 latter half of the eighteen thirties, Cook reached back to 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:28.320 his preaching days. At this time, he started to preach 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:31.560 the importance of temperance and the dangers of alcohol. He 0:07:31.600 --> 0:07:35.280 wrote and distributed pamphlets with these same messages. He also 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:38.960 started setting up recreational events that were alcohol free. They 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:43.760 were social gatherings called rational recreation, where the activities were 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:47.760 wholesome and the hardest liquid serve was ginger beer. He 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:51.600 also founded a periodical called the Children's Temperance Magazine in 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:54.880 eighteen forty and it was Cook's temperance efforts and his 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:57.920 desire to put together activities that would offer fun and 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:01.600 socializing without alcohol that led him to start setting up 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:05.600 travel activities. In June of eighteen forty one, while he 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:08.760 was walking to a Temperance meeting in Lester, near his home, 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:12.880 he had a bolt of inspiration. He realized that developments 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:15.640 in transportation that had been part of the Industrial Revolution, 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:19.520 and in particular railroads, could be used to spread the 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:22.960 word about Temperance farther than ever before. He was walking 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:25.200 to a meeting in Leicester when he had this idea, 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:29.360 and when he got there, Cook outlined his planned the attendees. 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:32.240 He pitched the plan that they would hire a train 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:35.800 specifically to get their members to another meeting farther away 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:38.800 the next month. Everybody thought this was a great idea, 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:41.240 so he reached out to the Midland Railway to try 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:44.200 to make the arrangements and they were completely open to it. 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:47.120 So on July fifth of eighteen forty one, just a 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:49.920 month after he had his idea, Thomas led a group 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:52.560 of five hundred members of the Temperance movement on a trip. 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:55.520 It was a train ride from Leicester to Lufborough to 0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:58.640 attend a meeting and a lecture there, and each attendee 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:01.800 paid a shilling for the trip that was arranged by Cook. 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:04.840 And this trip went very, very smoothly, and its success 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:07.400 led Cook to plan for more. I just want to say, 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:10.280 five hundred people is a lot of people. That is 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:12.360 a lot of people. I mentioned at the top of 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:14.960 the show how I marveled at managing fifty people on 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:21.600 a trip. Five hundred seems bananas. To bolster the whole enterprise, 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:23.720 Cook wanted to be in a bigger city to have 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:26.720 greater access to travel resources. So to that end, he 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:30.040 and his family moved to Leicester. The Temperance and Baptist 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:32.920 community there was much larger, and he was also able 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:35.760 to expand his business with an id using these businesses 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:39.600 to promote temperance. He started printing temperance literature in his 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:42.720 own print shop, and he also opened a bookstore to 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:46.000 sell that literature in He also printed and sold guide 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:49.679 books and almanacs through this system, and next he opened 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:53.439 two Temperance hotels. The first in Darby was managed by 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:56.880 his mother Elizabeth, and his wife Mary Anne managed the second, 0:09:56.920 --> 0:09:59.520 which was in Leicester. Coming up, we'll talk about how 0:09:59.520 --> 0:10:03.000 Thomas t transition from wrangling groups of temperance supporters to 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:06.360 managing travel as a business, but first we'll pause for 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:19.160 a sponsor break. Thomas Cook had since that first rail 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:23.280 trip from Leicester to Lufborough in eighteen forty one, continued 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:26.760 to arrange trips for temperance supporters to attend meetings and 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:30.839 share their ideology throughout England. But in eighteen forty five 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:33.240 he decided to actually make a business out of it, 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:36.720 running tours for profit. He had a really good network 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:39.199 of contacts within the railways at this point, and he 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:41.720 had already made a name for himself as an efficient 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:45.559 and trustworthy organizer of group excursions, so he was starting 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:49.240 this enterprise from a very strong position. Cook's first for 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:53.840 profit itinerary went to Liverpool, with starting points for travelers 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:58.199 at Leicester, Derby and Nottingham. This included excursions to Canarvan 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:00.959 and a hike up Mount Snowden. He was conscious of 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:04.439 the fact that even on his previous temperance oriented trips, 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:06.000 for a lot of the people traveling it was a 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:08.960 really new experience, and to that end he produced a 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:11.240 handbook for the three hundred and fifty people on this 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:15.720 Liverpool tour, offering them both practical advice and encouragement to 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:19.280 abstain from drink while enjoying the journey. This handbook was 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:22.040 the first of many he assembled them for all of 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:25.960 his tours after this point. First class tickets cost fifteen 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:29.520 shillings and second class was ten shillings. Travelers could also 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:32.920 opt into a steamer cruise to North Wales for an 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:36.720 additional fee. The Liverpool Tour was a far more ambitious 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:39.760 project than any of Thomas Cook's Temperance trips had been, 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:42.960 but it went well, so well that Cook started to 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:47.240 set his sights on expanding to new destinations, and he decided, 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:49.520 after he had done some of these Liverpool trips that 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:52.800 the next excursion he wanted to offer would go to Scotland. 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:56.120 The Scotland Tour was scheduled for the summer of eighteen 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:59.440 forty six, and it was Thomas Cook's first real flop 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:03.560 since he started planning group travel. The several hundred people 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:05.360 who had booked had been told that they would be 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:07.760 able to disembark from the train they were on when 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:10.480 it made stops along the way to the coast, and 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:12.880 there they were going to board a steamer to Scotland, 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:16.040 but it turned out that train passengers were not allowed 0:12:16.040 --> 0:12:18.520 to get off and on it stops. The train also 0:12:18.559 --> 0:12:21.280 didn't have bathrooms and it didn't offer food service, so 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:23.760 by the time the group got to the coast they 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:27.560 were already miserable. The next leg of the trip was 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:30.800 aboard the steamer our Drassen, which was also a problem. 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:34.000 Cook had booked more people than there were cabins. There 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:37.000 appears to have been a miscommunication between him and the steamer, 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:39.319 so some of the group had to hang out on 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:41.840 the deck and they got drenched in a storm that 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:45.480 came along while they made this crossing. But once the 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:48.800 group arrived in Scotland, they were warmly welcomed with marching 0:12:48.880 --> 0:12:51.199 bands and other fanfare, and from that point it seems 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:56.000 to have gone okay. Reviews of this tour were unsurprisingly unkind. 0:12:56.320 --> 0:12:59.959 Part of the criticism was Thomas Cook's unrelenting devotion to temperance, 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:03.079 which he preached to all his tour groups. This summer 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:06.400 of problems caused a temporary halt to Cook's travel business. 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:10.080 He was also seeing new competitors emerge in the publishing market, 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:13.040 some of whom were printing books and pamphlets on Temperance 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:16.320 as well. Yeah, so he had kind of planned on 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:19.200 this travel thing going well, and it started well and 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:22.120 then wasn't. And then this other area of the market 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:25.280 that he had cornered with suddenly having some competitors and 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:28.520 he just kind of needed to regroup. So he slowly 0:13:28.559 --> 0:13:31.240 rebuilt his business over the next couple of years, and 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:33.280 in eighteen forty eight he was once again up and 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:37.160 running with his tours, publishing and his Temperance hotels. For 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:39.679 the next couple of years. After that, he launched successful 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:43.400 tours to Scotland and Ireland, and then a new opportunity 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:45.960 presented itself to Cook in the form of the Great 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:49.800 Exposition of eighteen fifty one, which has made numerous appearances 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:53.640 on the podcast over the years. Cook booked travel arrangements 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:56.400 for more than one hundred and fifty thousand people to 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:59.560 go to the Great Exposition. To bolster his travel business, 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:03.840 he also started publishing the periodical slash Travel catalog Cook's 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:08.559 Exhibition Harold an Excursion Advertiser. This effort to create Exposition 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:12.439 tours was incidentally made at the urging of previous podcast 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:16.839 subject and Crystal Palace architect Sir Joseph Paxton, who hoped 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:19.280 that Cook would make it possible for the workers outside 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:22.800 of London to see the hall. Paxton remained a supporter 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:26.680 of Cook's work long after the Exposition, and Cook's Exhibition 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:31.000 Harold was later published under the name Cook's Excursionist. And 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:34.440 after the Great Expo, Thomas Cook built his offerings up 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:36.760 to meet new levels of demand because he had become 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:39.920 very well known while planning all of those trips, he 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:42.920 started offering an assortment of trips that travelers could choose 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:47.080 from throughout England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland. These were not, 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:51.240 we should note, all inclusive tours. Cook's agency booked travel 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:55.720 and outlined itineraries and provided guide books, but tourists were 0:14:55.760 --> 0:15:00.000 responsible for booking their own lodging and getting their own food. 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:03.360 His travel business grew, Thomas Cook ceased operation of his 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:06.280 printing efforts so that he could focus more on tourism. 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:08.400 He still printed guidebooks, but he wasn't running his own 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:11.480 print shop. After a decade of growth and expansion within 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:15.200 his established roots, Cook expanded his offerings to a wider 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:19.040 range of destinations on the European continent. This was in 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:22.240 part because his tours in Scotland ran into a problem, 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:25.080 which is that the rail companies in Scotland stopped offering 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:28.480 him discounted group rates for the trains and so to 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:32.280 expand into this new phase of business, Cooked did two things. First, 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:35.920 he opened another office in London. Similar to the reasons 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:39.200 that he moved to Leicester. This shift to London offered 0:15:39.240 --> 0:15:43.960 greater resources and more access to a wider clientele. And second, 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:48.080 he started creating more comprehensive bookings, ones that did include 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:51.920 lodging and meals as well as railroad travel and channel crossings. 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:55.560 In eighteen fifty five, Thomas Cook mounted his first European 0:15:55.640 --> 0:15:59.360 continental tour to coincide with another exposition, this time the 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:03.600 Exposition on Uniforseel in Paris. This trip hit a lot 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:07.040 of other spots before landing at the expo, though from England, 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:11.359 the group traveled to Antwerp, Brussels, Cologne, Heidelberg and Strasbourg 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:14.840 before finishing in Paris. In addition to booking the trip 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:18.480 as a comprehensive package, he also offered a currency exchange 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:21.080 service to his travelers. Yeah at this point he was 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:24.720 offering literally like full service travel by the fall of 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:27.680 eighteen sixty three, Cook had booked traveled to Switzerland for 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:31.000 an estimated five hundred tourists and to France for about 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:34.840 two thousand. The rapid growth of his expanded offerings led 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:38.760 to Cook being nicknamed the Napoleon of excursions, and before 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:43.160 long a Cook's tour became synonymous with guided tourist experiences. 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:46.920 In eighteen sixty five, the business shifted once again, this 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:50.080 time because Cook's son, John Mason Cook, started working for 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:53.360 the firm full time. Over the next six years, John 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:56.200 helped his father expand the company significantly, so that by 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:59.080 eighteen seventy one there were three offices for the firm 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:02.600 in England, each with full staff. John was made partner 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:05.520 that year and the firm became Thomas Cook and Son. 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:09.120 John had been highly instrumental in getting Cook's company into 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:12.320 booking travel across the Atlantic, and he had streamlined the 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:15.680 way the business rans make everything more efficient, but even 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:18.119 so John had been really reluctant to step into the 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:21.280 role of partner. After the popularity of Thomas Cook and 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:24.240 Son's offering for travel to France and Switzerland, the firm 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:27.919 started offering tours to Italy as well. As we mentioned, 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:30.680 John helped get it across the Atlantic, so a United 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:34.280 States itinerary was soon made available, and then they offered 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:37.800 trips to Egypt and Israel. And as Cook's travel agency 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:41.439 entered the eighteen seventies, he was as always thinking bigger 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:44.440 in terms of where he could go. The advertisements for 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:47.159 the company at this point read a Cook's Ticket brings 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:50.399 the World to you, and Thomas Cook seemed really intent 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:53.800 on delivering on that promise. It was this attitude that 0:17:53.880 --> 0:17:56.840 led him to offer the first ever Round the World 0:17:56.960 --> 0:18:00.479 tourist itinerary. It was ambitious, but Cook was driven by 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:03.320 his religious faith just as much as any business ambition. 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:06.439 He wanted to continue to share his religious views and 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:09.840 show people the world simultaneously, believing that in doing so 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:13.159 he would help promote global peace. To that end, he 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:15.840 traveled along with his clients on the company's first Round 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:18.679 the World excursion, which ran from eighteen seventy two to 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:22.760 eighteen seventy three. It took two hundred and twenty two days, 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:25.679 and his being there was possible in part because he 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:28.760 had John to manage the offices back home. But despite 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:31.840 trusting John to handle a lot of the business, Thomas 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:34.280 and his son had problems, and we are going to 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:36.080 get into that after we take a break and hear 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:38.200 from one of the sponsors. To keep stuff you missed 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:49.879 in history class going. Thomas and John Cook did not 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:52.840 always agree on how their business should run, even though 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:56.240 John was made a partner, and this ultimately caused serious 0:18:56.240 --> 0:19:00.439 problems there. I read some historians that suggest said that 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:02.959 the two of them had such different approaches that they 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:05.679 would have been terribly complimentary if it weren't for the 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:10.040 fact that they were continuously butting heads. So while Thomas 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:13.639 was shepherding that First World Tour, for example, John settled 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:16.400 the firm's main offices into a new, fancier and more 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:20.520 expensive location. When Thomas returned, the travel agency started a 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:24.120 business partnership with an American partner, and that turned disastrous. 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:27.200 The idea was that combining their efforts with a business 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:29.160 interest on the other side of the Atlantic was going 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:32.479 to bolster travel bookings from North America to Europe and 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:35.919 vice versa, but that did not work out. Over the 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:39.320 next several years, Thomas and John were increasingly at odds, 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:41.920 and the US partnership fell apart, which added even more 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:45.439 strain into the relationship. Even as they successfully moved on 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:48.919 to new ventures, including offering cruises, they didn't seem to 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:51.919 celebrate as much as they seemed to argue, and the 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:54.560 main issue between them was that they just felt completely 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:57.399 differently as I said, about how their business should run. 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:01.040 Thomas had always dreamed big and terms of trips, but 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:04.800 he wasn't especially concerned with turning huge profits as long 0:20:04.840 --> 0:20:08.000 as they were making some profit. He basically seemed to 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:10.159 just want enough to provide for his family and then 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:15.000 donate pretty generously to the various charities that he supported. John, 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:18.840 on the other hand, envisioned much grander things. He really 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:21.520 believed that they could be much more financially lucrative, and 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:24.160 he thought that his father's approach to business was too 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:26.640 soft and inefficient, and that his father was a little 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:30.520 bit of a billy dreamer. Additionally, John wanted Thomas to 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:34.000 keep his religious and temperance views out of their tours 0:20:34.240 --> 0:20:38.760 and maintain those interests as personal matters, not business. This 0:20:39.040 --> 0:20:42.160 strife between Thomas and John wasn't exactly new. It had 0:20:42.160 --> 0:20:45.320 basically been there ever since John was young. There was 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:47.719 a time, as a very young man, just out of school, 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:50.640 when John had worked in Thomas's print shop and had 0:20:50.640 --> 0:20:52.960 worked on some of the tours, but the two of 0:20:53.000 --> 0:20:56.240 them had butted heads so often that John left to 0:20:56.280 --> 0:20:59.480 work for a railway company. Even when John returned to 0:20:59.520 --> 0:21:01.560 work for his father in eighteen sixty five, it had 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:03.640 been because he had a wife and a child to support, 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:06.840 not because the two of them actually wanted to work together. 0:21:07.320 --> 0:21:10.359 Things eventually came to a head in eighteen seventy eight 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:14.600 and father and son had a massive fight. The end result, 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:17.480 although we don't have details on how exactly this decision 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:21.640 was reached, was that Thomas removed himself from the business entirely. 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:24.639 He moved full time back to Leicester, where he had 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:26.840 built a large house, and he just let John run 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:30.679 things as he wished, But their relationship was damaged beyond repair. 0:21:31.000 --> 0:21:33.960 As the firm was transitioning in leadership from father to son, 0:21:34.119 --> 0:21:37.720 John established a new department at the firm, foreign Banking 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:41.119 and Money Exchange, and then through this division, the company 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:45.720 started issuing credit notes for travelers, which evolved into travelers checks. 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:50.080 It was proved to be a very lucrative enterprise that 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:56.200 makes travelers checks older than I imagined. Yeah, I think 0:21:56.200 --> 0:21:59.639 they were first calling them circular checks, and yeah, they 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:03.560 eventually set this up again. John, I mean was very 0:22:03.560 --> 0:22:06.280 smart about business, and his father was very smart about 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:09.480 putting together compelling tours. And if they could just have 0:22:09.600 --> 0:22:11.719 lived in harmony, they probably could have done even more 0:22:11.760 --> 0:22:15.800 amazing things than they did. John also started selecting new 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:19.480 destinations for the firm, including India, New Zealand and Australia. 0:22:20.160 --> 0:22:23.200 The New Zealand and Australian tours made plenty of money, 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:27.840 India not so much. John also negotiated government contracts for 0:22:27.920 --> 0:22:31.119 Thomas Cook and Son. So when England sent a force 0:22:31.160 --> 0:22:34.520 to relieve Major General Charles George Gordon, who had become 0:22:34.600 --> 0:22:37.399 embroiled in a conflict with the Mahdi of Soudan in 0:22:37.480 --> 0:22:41.080