So, William Cooper appears to have been born in Seward Street & baptised in St Lukes Islington. St Luke’s isn’t open as a church now, but it’s still there. The London Symphony Orchestra play there on a regular basis. I may go along one day as it’s the only way I’ll get inside the place now, but I have visited it on the outside a couple of times.
William Cooper, Goldsmith
William appears as a Goldsmith or Gold Chain Maker in the various birth records of his children and also in the 1841 census. So, we know what he did for a job, but how did he learn his trade? Had he done an apprenticeship? It may be that he had a hallmark and both he and the mark are registered at the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths in London. This would only happen if he had been officially trained as an apprentice by a recognised master and I have never found any apprenticeship records on Ancestry or elsewhere. I was filled with excitement when I contact the Goldsmiths Hall. I thought I might be on to something…
The person I exchanged messages with was extremely helpful and he went through all of their records that he could for me. Searches through their records revealed nothing, meaning that there is no record of him being formally trained. He has no hallmark that can identify any work to him. So he and his work can’t be traced. If he had a hallmark, it could be traced on items to this day, which would have been nice.
So, I don’t know if he worked for himself or for someone else. If he worked for someone else and if they had a hallmark, he would have used that one and not his own.
1851 Census
William Cooper b.1813 does not appear in searches of the 1851 census (or any other census for that matter). I’ve searched numerous times using different spelling variations but had no results. This can mean one of several things: He may have died in between census’s; He may have been working overseas when the census was taken; The family may have immigrated so searches need to be done in records for another country; His name may be spelled wrongly in the census, so it doesn’t show up in search results; The census paper may be lost or missing.;He might have avoided taking part in the census for some reason. However, after numerous searches I believe that I have finally found his wife Sarah Cooper as a widow in the 1851 census. So, it looks like William has died between 1841 & 1851.
Even though William himself doesn’t appear in the 1851 census, it still contains some good results which have been covered in earlier posts, but to recap, we appear to have found his son William James Cooper, the solder, my 2x Great Grandfather. He had been elusive in this census for a while. But the biggest surprise with the 1851 census is that I appear to have found another son for William & Sarah – Charles. Note that daughter Eliza is not present.
Further searches reveal Charles was in fact the fourth child of William & Sarah, born at 13 Rosoman Street, (not Lower Rosoman, but probably the same place?) Clerkenwell, on the 27th Oct 1842. (Birth certificate confirmed). While were are on the subject of William’s children, if were search in the time frame of 1834 to about 1851 or so, with parents William & Sarah, we only get the four results we already knew of. Sarah (b.1837) William James (b.1839) Eliza (b.1840) and Charles (b.1842) so it appears we have uncovered all of William & Sarah’s children.
In the 1851 census, Sarah is a needlewoman visiting James Maskin/Maslin, who is married with a son. I don’t know who these people are. Was he a friend? Was she sewing for him? There are no Maskin’s or Maslin’s in the Cooper tree as of yet. The census reveals Sarah was born in Pentonville, which is the next parish north of Clerkenwell. But most importantly, she is a widow, so it appears that William has died before 1851.
William’s Death
What ever became of William would remain a mystery for some time. Searching on the Ancestry website for deaths of a William Cooper between 1841 and 1851 reveal dozens of results all over Middlesex, but closer analysis of these reveals that many do not really fit. They are different ages, or the location is different. There are a couple that may be worth investigating. That will involve purchasing the death certificate of someone who may turn out to be no relation at all, so it will be put on the back burner for now, until maybe some more clues turn up. There were several cholera outbreaks in London over that time frame, so that is a consideration. In the mean time, we can presume that William has died between 1842 (when son Charles was born) and the 1851 census, which was taken on the 30th March.
Here we are again – if not at another brick wall, then at least at a cast iron fence, in Victorian Islington…
COOPER Conundrums 