Duchess of Marlborough. She also wrote an unprinted play, ‘The Nobleman,’ acted once at the Haymarket about May 1736.
[Genest's Hist. of the Stage, iii. 461–2; Biographia Dramatica, ed. Jones, i. 148, iii. 84, 212–13; Oldys's Diary (1863); Gent. Mag. v. 138–9.]
COOPER, GEORGE (1820–1876), organist, was born on 7 July 1820 at Lambeth. His father was assistant organist at St. Paul's. His early proficiency and facility of execution—he had practised assiduously on an old pedal harpsichord—were remarked by Attwood, the chief organist of the cathedral, who on several occasions made him extemporise at the festivals of the Sons of the Clergy. At the age of eleven he often took the service instead of his father, and in 1834 received the appointment of organist of St. Benet, Paul's Wharf. Two years later he became organist of St. Ann and St. Agnes, and on Attwood's death, in March 1838, he succeeded his father as assistant organist of the cathedral. His father, who had resigned at that time, died in 1843, on which Cooper obtained his post at St. Sepulchre's. In the same year he was appointed to Christ's Hospital. In September 1856 he was appointed organist of the Chapel Royal, vice J. B. Sale, deceased. This appointment, together with those at St. Paul's and St. Sepulchre's, he retained till the time of his death. He published a book of ‘Organ Arrangements,’ an ‘Organist's Assistant,’ an ‘Introduction to the Organ,’ and an ‘Organist's Manual’ (1851). In 1862 he revised the music for the Rev. W. Windle's ‘Church and Home Metrical Psalter and Hymn Book,’ contributing several tunes of his own composition. On the death of Dr. Gauntlett in February 1876 he undertook to complete the musical editing of ‘Wesley's Hymns.’ He had finished the task at the time of his death, 2 Oct. 1876, and the book appeared in 1877.
[Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians; Cheque Books of the Chapel Royal; Prefaces to hymn books quoted above; British Museum Cat.]
COOPER, Sir GREY (d. 1801), politician, was lineally descended from John Cooper, who is said to have been created a baronet of Nova Scotia in 1638. Sir John Cooper, the son and successor of the first baronet, died without issue, but the title was assumed in 1775 by Sir Grey, the great-grandson of the Rev. James Cooper, the second baronet's next brother. Cooper, who was a native of Newcastle-on-Tyne, entered at the Temple, and was in due time called to the bar, but on the formation of the Rockingham ministry in 1765 he plunged into politics in support of the new ministry. A pamphlet published anonymously, but believed to have been the composition of Charles Lloyd, private secretary to George Grenville, was issued in that year, and from the circumstance of its authorship attracted some attention. It was entitled ‘An Honest Man's Reasons for declining to take any part in the New Administration,’ and was promptly answered by Cooper in two anonymous productions, the first called ‘A Pair of Spectacles for Short-sighted Politicians; or a Candid Answer to a late extraordinary Pamphlet, entitled “An Honest Man's Reasons, &c.,”’ 1765, and the second entitled ‘The Merits of the New Administration truly stated,’ 1765. These brochures recommended him to the notice of the Rockingham ministry as a fit holder of the office of secretary of the treasury, but as his acceptance of the post would have involved his abandonment of a legal career, he did not consent to change his mode of life until he had secured ‘an adequate pension in case of dismission.’ His services as joint secretary of the treasury were so acceptable that he was continued therein under the successive governments of Lord Chatham, Duke of Grafton, and Lord North (1765–82). On the downfall of the last ministry he went out of office, but on the formation in 1783 of the coalition cabinet of North and Fox he became a lord of the treasury, and remained there until the dismissal of the ministry by the king, after which date he never resumed office. While one of the treasury secretaries under Lord North he managed the Cornish boroughs and the duchy revenues, but with these exceptions his energies were confined to the more legitimate duties of his office. In December 1765 he stood for Rochester against John Calcraft and was duly elected. At the dissolution in 1768 he was returned for Grampound, from 1774 to 1784 he sat for Saltash, and from 1786 to 1790 he was one of the members for Richmond in Yorkshire. Cooper's administrative abilities were justly esteemed, and he was considered a high authority on financial questions. During the debates on the commercial treaty with France (1787) he took an active part in the opposition, and yielded to few ‘in his accurate knowledge of the complicated interests which it included.’ On this and the other financial measures of Pitt he directed a keen and searching criticism. Cooper retired from public life some years before his death, and his nomination in 1796 as a privy councillor was a worthy tribute to his past services as a public official. He died very suddenly at Worlington, Suf-
