Chapter 17.1 – The Background to the Cooper’s from England

Chapter 17.1 – The Background to the Cooper’s from England

The early 19th century was an era of political and social unrest in Britain. The pull of a new life in a new land was what brought so many immigrants to Australia and among them were the Coopers who were to become part of my ancestral family tree.

Samuel Cooper Snr (b. 1709 in Norwich England) married Mary Cooper (Lovick) (b. 1713 also in Norfolk England).

Samuel Cooper Snr died 1785 in Norfolk, England and Mary in 1784. When Samuel Snr was 30 years of age his son Samuel Cooper was born in 1739.

In 1761 Samuel Jnr married Maria Susannah Cooper (Bransby born 1737). They had eight children.

Samuel and Susannah’s son William Houman Cooper (b. 1766) married Elizabeth Cooper (Neal) on 18th Oct 1791).

William and Elizabeth’s son William Cooper was born in 1799 in Wimbotsham Norfolk, England and in 1828 married Judith Cooper (Langford) (b. 20th Apr 1800 in Norfold England ).

Judith Cooper and her children. William died in 1865

William and Judith at the age of 49 years respectively, decided to leave their home in Norfolk England with their surviving eight children and venture to the new Colony of South Australia. They had been blessed with ten children but daughters; Recabine and Judith; died before the family embarked for South Australia.

They left England on board the ‘Marmion’ carrying a ship load of Colonists, who were brought to South Australia under the Wakefield Scheme. They left in November 1848 and arrived at Port Adelaide 13th Feb 1849.

William and Judith Cooper were not eligible for a free passage and had to pay 28 pounds in fares, which in those times was more than equivalent to a year’s wages.

William established a prosperous farm on 80 acres of land with a house on Section 1564 in the District Council of Highercoobme.This land was somewhere in the area now at the back of the Modbury Hotel, generally known as Upper Dry Creek. The land was leased from Mr A. McLaine.

In 1854 William and Judith took up another 244 acres of good arable land which later became part of the District Council of Tea Tree Gully. All the Cooper family became farmers, mostly in the lower and mid north areas of the State.

William and Judith’s second son George Cooper (b 1832; d. 1912) and Harriett Cooper (Peverett, Place) were married on the 11th Aug 1853 in the Trinity Church, Adelaide by Rev. James Farrell.

Harriet Cooper (Place)’s parents John and Mary Anne Place came from Norfolk England and sailed in the barque ‘Amazon’ leaving 26th Nov 1851 two years after William and Judith sailed to Australia and arrived at Port Adelaide on 19th Feb 1852.

For a short time George and Harriett resided in Modbury later moving to Magpie Creek thence to Collinsfield, Redhill and finally in 1910 to Cummins on the Eyre Peninsula.

George’s wife Harriett died on 21st Jul 1871 aged 36 years, and was buried at Bungaree, SA.

In March George Cooper remarried; to Emma Riccard Squibb, a teacher at Modbury. She was a resident of Rev. Octavius Laker of the Bible Christian Church, Franklin St, Adelaide, SA. George had six children with his first wife and five with his second.

Robert Joel Cooper, buffalo hunter, and King of Melville Island.

Two of George Cooper’s sons, Robert Joel Cooper and George Henry Cooper, decided to go overland to Darwin in the wake of John McDougall Stuart. George accompanied them until they were caught by floodwaters, at what is now known as Newcastle Waters. From there George returned to Adelaide. He was gone for twelve months. It was only two years later on the 31st August 1912 that he died of heart failure at Wildeloo while breaking horses. He was buried in the old Port Lincoln Cemetery.

Shadrach Cooper with his father George Alfred Cooper

Emma died on the 6 Dec 1913 and was buried at Cummins. George and Harriet Cooper (Peverett, Place)’s son Shadrach Cooper was born in Modbury, SA in 1857 and married Sarah Cooper (Thoday) in 1882.

Charles Dangerfield is Joseph and Margaret Dangerfield’s son and his wife is Esther Maude (Lottie) Dangerfield (Cooper). Charles and “Aunty Tot” were Allan Dangerfield’s parents

Their daughter Esther Maude (Lottie) Dangerfield (Cooper) was born 1877 at Penwortham on 26th Aug 1886 (Kadina) (d 5th Nov 1975) (baptized 1907 at Kadina) and married William Charles Dangerfield (b 5th Nov 1877) on 6th Mar 1909 in the Congregational Church Melbourne. After he and Mother married he was building in Victoria at Rutherglen and later moved to Brighton in South Australia and worked with another builder whose name I can’t recall just now.

Their children were Winifred, Mervin, Allan and Lloyd. Both Esther Maude and William Charles Dangerfield were buried in Centennial Park Cemetery.

I hope that this ‘background to the clans’ helps with any questions you may have had about individual people and their place in history. I also hope you enjoy reading this story as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

Signed on my birthday, 28th July 2012.