History of New York City (1665–1783) port British ships evacuated in 1783. The English had renamed the colony the Province of New York, after the king's brother James, Duke of York and on June 12, 1665, appointed Thomas Willett the first of the Mayors of New York. The city grew northward and remained the largest and most important city in the Province of New York, becoming the third largest in the British Empire after London and Philadelphia. The Dutch regained the colony briefly in 1673, then finally lost it permanently to the English in 1674 after the Third Anglo-Dutch War. Leisler's Rebellion, an uprising in which
Thomas Cooke (mayor) Thomas Cooke (mayor) Sir Thomas Cooke (died 1478) was an English merchant and Lord Mayor of London. He was born the son of Robert Cooke of Lavenham in Suffolk and moved to London to become a draper. He was made Sheriff of London for 1453–54, an alderman from 1456 and Member of Parliament for the City of London in 1460 and 1470. He was elected Lord Mayor of London for 1462–63 and knighted in 1465. In 1467 he began to build a mansion called Gidea Hall, near Romford in Essex, which was only completed by his descendant, Sir Anthony Cooke.