First World War in Headington & Marston
Roll of Honour of Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry

Thomas Henry COOPER (1896–1918)

Thomas Henry Cooper was born in Headington Quarry in 1896, the son of Frederick Walter Cooper (born in Old Headington and baptised at St Andrew’s Church on 27 September 1868) and his second wife Susannah or Susan Carey (born in Stratton Audley in 1869/70, and baptised there on 13 February 1870).

Thomas’s father Frederick Walter Cooper married his first wife, Kate Kislingbury, at Holy Trinity Church on 15 December 1889, and they had one child:

• Frederick Walter Cooper (privately baptised via Holy Trinity Church on 20 August 1890, died aged 2 months and buried in the churchyard on 27 August 1890).

Kate herself died at the age of 24 less than a year after the death of her baby, and was buried in Holy Trinity churchyard on 15 July 1891.

At the time of the 1891 census Thomas’s future mother, Susan Carey (21) and working as a children’s maid for the Wykeham family at Tythrop House at Kingsey near Thame. Thomas’s father appears to have married her by the spring of 1892 (as he states in the census of spring 1911 that they had been married for 19 years), and they had eight children:

• Frederick Walter Cooper (born at Headington Quarry and baptised at Holy Trinity Church on 26 August 1894)
• Thomas Henry Cooper (born at Headington Quarry and baptised at Holy Trinity Church on 31 August 1896)
• Harriet Mary Cooper (born at Shotover Hill Place and baptised at Holy Trinity Church on 29 May 1898)
• Edith Laura Cooper (born at Shotover Hill Place and baptised at Holy Trinity Church on 29 June 1900)
• James Arthur Cooper (born at Shotover Hill Place and baptised at Holy Trinity Church on 26 October 1902)
• Elizabeth Rachel Cooper (born at Shotover Hill Place and baptised at Holy Trinity Church on 28 August 1904)
• Alice Cooper (born at Shotover Hill Place on 30 May 1907 and baptised at Holy Trinity Church on 29 September 1907)
• Dorothy Cooper (born at Shotover Hill Place on 28 August 1910 and baptised at Holy Trinity Church on 30 April 1911).

Thomas’s father did bricklaying and general labouring work. The Coopers spent the whole of their married life in Headington Quarry, moving by 1898 to Shotover Hill Place, where they can be found at the time of the 1901 census with their first four children: Frederick (6), Thomas himself (4), Harriet (3), and Edith (1).

The family was still living at Shotover Hill Place in Quarry parish at the time of the 1911 census, when Thomas (14) and his older brother Frederick (17) were both working as builder’s labourers. All the children were still at home, which meant that ten people were living in four rooms (which included the kitchen).

In the First World War Thomas Henry Cooper volunteered to serve in the 2nd/4th Battalion of the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (Service No. 200806) and rose to the rank of Lance Corporal. He was killed in action in France at the age of 22 on 31 March 1918.

He has no known grave, and is remembered on the Pozières Memorial and on the stone plaque in the porch of Holy Trinity Church in Headington Quarry.

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Postscript

Thomas’s parents

• Mrs Susan Cooper died at the age of 63 in Quarry Hollow (then called St Mary’s Road) and was buried in Holy Trinity churchyard on 11 November 1933.
• Frederick Walter Cooper died at the age of 77 at 29 Cumberland Road in east Oxford, and was buried with his wife on 18 April 1945.Edith Laura Cooper (born at Shotover Hill Place and baptised at Holy Trinity Church on 29 June 1900)

Thomas’s siblings

• Edith Laura Cooper (born 1900) married George Herbert Stockford at Holy Trinity Chuch on 7 June 1930. She was then living at 23 Quarry Hollow, and he was a gardener living in the Marston Road lodge of Headington Hill Hall. Their birth of their daughter Mavis J. Stockford was registered in the Headington district in the fourth quarter of 1930.