Roll of Honour of Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry

Richard COPPOCK (1896–1918)

Richard Coppock was born in Newton, near Hyde in Cheshire in 1896. He was the son of Tom Coppock (baptised at Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry on 22 September 1867) and Ann Clowes (born in Newton, Cheshire on 16 June 1868).

Richard’s father Tom grew up in Headington Quarry, and he can be seen there in the 1881 census, aged of 13 and living with his widower father Richard (50) and his sister Harriet (16). By the time of the 1891 census, when he was 23, Tom was lodging in Crompton, Lancashire, where he was working as a bricklayer, and there he must have met his future wife Ann Clowes, who was then living with her family at Newton, near Hyde and working as a cotton twister

Tom Coppock and Ann Clowes were married at Rosemount Primitive Methodist Church at Newton, Cheshire on 27 June 1895 and settled with Ann at her home town of Newton. They had three children:

• Richard Coppock (born in Newton, Cheshire in 1896, reg. second quarter)
• Cicely Coppock (born in Newton, Cheshire n 1 July 1897)
• Alice Ada Coppock (born in Newton, Cheshire on 14 April 1899).

At the time of the 1901 census Richard Coppock (4) was living at 110 Old Road, Newton, Cheshire with his father Tom (33), who was described as a building contractor, his mother Ann (22), and his younger sisters Cicely (3), and Alice Ada (1).

Meanwhile Richard’s grandfather, also called Richard Coppock, was still living in Headington. He died there at the age of 78 and was buried at Holy Trinity Church on 16 December 1908.

By the time of the 1911 census Richard (15) had himself moved down to Headington and was working as a grocer’s assistant and lodging in Quarry High Street with his father’s sister, Harriet Elizabeth Shepherd (née Coppock) and her husband Joseph Shepherd, who was a builder’s labourer: they had two sons of their own a little older than Richard. Meanwhile Richard’s parents were still living in Newton with his two sisters: Cicely (14) was at work in an envelope factory, and Alice Ada (11) was at school.

In the First World War Richard Coppock served as a Private in the 1st/6th Battalion of the Manchester Regiment (Service No. 351720). He was killed in action in France at the age of 22 on 20 October 1918, very near the end of the war.

He is buried at the Belle Vue British Cemetery in Briastre (A. 20).

Richard Coppock is remembered on the stone plaque in the porch of Holy Trinity Church in Headington Quarry.

---

Postscript

Richard’s uncle and aunt

• Joseph Shepherd died on 23 October 1938 at the age of 79 and was buried in Holy Trinity churchyard.
• Mrs Harriet Shepherd died on 28 May 1944 at the age of 79, and was buried with her husband.

Richard’s parents

The 1921 census shows Tom Coppock (59) working as a bricklayer and living at 110 Old Road, Newton, Hyde, Lancashire with his wife Ann (53) and their daughters Cicely (23) and Alice (22), who were both working for a stationery, envelope, and paper manufacturer.

• Tom Coppock died at the age of 69 in 1936 and was buried in Hyde Cemetery
• Ann Coppock was living with her daughter Alice her husband at the time of the 1939 census. She died in Hyde at the age of 86 in 1954.

Richard’s sisters

• Cicely Coppock (born 1897) married her first husband Andrew McGraw in the Ashton-under-Lyne district in the first quarter of 1923. They had two sons Ronald McGraw (1923) and Kenneth McGraw (1926), both registered in the Stockport district, and a daughter Joyce McGraw (1930) in the Manchester North district. At the time of the 1939 Register Cicely was living with her husband, who was a blacksmith's striker, and her three children at 9 Copeland Street in Hyde. Her first husband died in Hyde at the age of 66 near the beginning of 1965, and in 1970 in Hyde she married her second husband Albert Mather. She died in the Thameside district of Greater Manchester in 1986.
• Alice Ada Coppock (born 1899) married Wilfred E Knight in the Hyde district in 1937. They do not appear to have had any children. At the time of the 1939 Register Alice was an envelope packer, living with her husband Wilfred (an incapacitated general labourer aged 34) in her mother's house at 110 Old Road, Newton, Hyde. Alice died in the Tameside district of Greater Manchester in 1986.