Two Sussex archaeologists: William Durrant Cooper and Mark Antony Lower/William Durrant Cooper
The year 1812, in the very dawn of which the subject of this imperfect sketch first saw the light, was one of the most eventful, most memorable years of the nineteenth century. In that year, as is well known, "the scourge of Europe," the first Napoleon, was at last effectually checked in his career of conquest and confiscation. In England the high price of provisions and scarcity of work, and the distress and discontent consequent thereon, led to continuous local disturbances and riotings, and the wholesale destruction of machinery. Unhappy rioters, or so-called rioters, were hanged, half-a-dozen or more at a time. On one occasion, eight poor ignorant wretches were thus disposed of at Manchester, one of them being a miserable woman, whose sole offence was the stealing of a few potatoes. In 1812, too, a cabinet minister—Spencer Perceval—was assassinated in the lobby of the House of Commons. And if to this it be added that the United States of America declared war against England, and in several instances compelled English ships, after hard fights, to strike their flags to their transatlantic assailants, it will be seen that, taking it altogether, the year 1812 was as gloomy and unpromising a one as a human being could well choose—or have chosen for him—for his entry upon the theatre of life.
Mr. Cooper's ancestry may be traced back to Thomas Cooper, of Icklesham, a Sussex squire of the seventeenth century. Thomas Cooper, his eldest great-grandson, also of Icklesham, who married, in 1787, Mary, daughter of Thomas Collins, of Winchelsea, had six sons and two daughters. The second of these six sons was Thomas Cooper, who, born in May 1789, married Lucy Elizabeth, great-granddaughter of Samuel Durrant, of Cockshot, Hawkhurst, Kent; and the eldest son of this marriage was William Durrant Cooper, who was born in High Street, in the parish of St. Michael, Lewes, on the tenth of January, 1812. The first cadet of this family, who settled in Lewes, would seem to have been William Cooper, the second of the great-grandsons of the first-named Thomas Cooper, of Icklesham. He became an eminent solicitor in Lewes, and dying in 1813, was succeeded in his practice by his nephew, Thomas Cooper, the father, as just stated, of the subject of this notice. This William Cooper was perhaps the only member of the legal profession who espoused the Liberal side of politics in Lewes. His residence was in Saint Anne's parish, and being well-nigh as independent in pocket as he was in politics, and endowed, moreover, with a spice of humour as well, he could afford to indulge in a practical joke upon his electioneering opponents, without counting its cost too nicely. In connection with Sir Henry Blackman, these two being the chief supporters of what was called the independent party in Lewes, he brought forward Mr., afterwards Sir James, Scarlett, and subsequently Lord Abinger, on the first occasion that eminent lawyer, then a flaming Whig, and afterwards a more flaming Tory, contested, unsuccessfully, the old parliamentary borough, which then had the privilege of returning two members. With no greater success Mr. Scarlett ventured on a second contest. On the first of these contests (1812) he lost his election by nine votes. On the second (1816) he was in a minority of nineteen.
After the 1812 contest Mr. William Cooper, incensed at the conduct of all the butchers of the town, who, like all the lawyers of the town, except himself, voted against his chosen candidate, hit upon the novel vengeance of opening an opposition butcher's shop in Saint Anne's, painting over it, in conspicuous letters, "William Cooper, Butcher," and under-sold the blue-aproned trade in their own commodities, at the rate of one penny per pound—a consideration in those dear days—until they capitulated, and, as the story goes, promised to support his candidate at the next election; a pact which, if entered into, can hardly have been adhered to, as we see above that Mr. Scarlett found at that next election the majority against him had increased from nine to nineteen. Possibly, Mr. William Cooper having died in 1813, the butchers aforesaid deemed themselves released by his death from the performance of their forced promise.
William Durrant Cooper took his first Christian name, from his great-uncle, the just-mentioned practical joker, who was his godfather; his second name, being, as already stated, his mother's maiden name. He received his education at the Grammar School, Lewes, whose head-master, for all the latter time of his stay there, was Dr. George Proctor, afterwards principal of Saint Elizabeth's College, Guernsey, and now the venerable Chaplain to the Fishmongers' Almshouses at Bray, near Maidenhead, Berks. While subject to Dr. Proctor's direction, this local Grammar School attained a high character, and under him, Mr. Cooper, for whom his tutor always entertained a high regard, early showed great intelligence, and made rapid progress in his studies. But from this ancient seminary, his only alma mater, he was perhaps too prematurely taken, for he was not more than fifteen years of age when he was articled as clerk to his father, and during his articles, although he may not literally have realised Pope's couplet, and have been—
"A clerk foredoomed his father's soul to cross,
Who pens a stanza, when he should engross,"
he yet exhibited an early bias towards literature, but the severer Clio—modern scholiasts write the name Cleio—rather than those of her sisters who dallied with poetry in its various forms, was the Muse to whom his youthful heart was vowed, and unto whom, through life, his multifarious labours were chiefly dedicated. History—history in its topographical and archaeological phases—was the study in which he delighted, and he was not out of his teens ere the history and antiquities of his native town and county engaged his constant and serious attention, and as time rolled on, he made himself familiar with those of most of the Sussex families of any local importance. He not only materially assisted Mr. Horsfield in the compilation of his History of Sussex, but, while he was not an author on his own account, at so early an age as his friend Lower, still, by the time he had completed his twenty-second year, that is in 1834, he had contributed a valuable supplement to Mr. Horsfield's work, under the title of The Parliamentary History of the County of Sussex, and of the several Boroughs and Cinque Ports therein. This Parliamentary history of his native County, which was also issued in a separate form, compressed into fifty-three double-column quarto pages of very small type, would readily fill a respectable octavo volume, and, as to the way in which it is executed, would reflect credit, both for its painstaking and research, upon the most experienced historian.
In 1836 Mr. Cooper published A Glossary of the Provincialisms in use in the County of Sussex. This slim volume, which was "printed for private distribution" only, and probably first appeared in the columns of the Brighton Herald, from the office of which it emanated in its book shape, has since been thrown into the shade by the more comprehensive Glossary, issued a year or two ago, by the Rev. W. D. Parish, the learned Vicar of Selmeston, who, as a diligent labourer in the same field, would certainly be among the first to appreciate the efforts of his predecessor.
In 1842 he published The Sussex Poets, a lecture at Hastings. This little brochure has, in all probability, been long out of print. In the strict order of events, it ought to have been sooner stated, that—if the Law List be correct—previous to the completion of his twenty-first year, namely, in Michaelmas Term, 1832, he was duly admitted an attorney and solicitor.
It would have been strange if, with his peculiar bias, the disgracefully neglected state of our Parish Registers, so much excitement about which prevailed some forty or fifty years ago, had not, even from a professional point of view, forced itself on Mr. Cooper's attention. Accordingly, with his usual activity, he bestirred himself in the matter, and in April, 1833, when he had turned his twenty-first year by three months only, he was called before the House of Commons Committee, then sitting, on Parochial Registration, to give his young, but by no means immature, experience on the condition, mostly, of the registers of his own County; and the state of things disclosed in his evidence, which covers eight printed folio pages, reflected great discredit on the previous contemporary custodians of those precious records. He had seen, in the difficulties thus interposed in the clearing up of titles on the sale or purchase of landed property, proof positive of the evils of the existing system, or rather no-system, and he exposed them most unsparingly. In his evidence as to the reckless carelessness with which the registers were treated, he states that he recollected "an instance where the clerk was about destroying the old register, saying it was of no use;" and he recollected also, "when a little boy, the parish clerk of another parish saying, that the clergyman used to direct his pheasants with the parchment of the old registers." And he was wont to relate that, once, when he went to make a search, the first sight that caught his eye, on entering the parsonage house, was a little boy riding cock-horse across a walking-cane, with a parchment cap on his head, made from a leaf of the Register. It cannot be concealed that among some of the old-school "clerics," and their deputies, Mr. Cooper's popularity was not increased by his denunciation of their disregard of the sacredness of their trust in this respect.
Emulating from the outset the conduct of his father and great-uncle, he at once heartily espoused the principles of the Liberal Party, and soon became associated with its local leaders, and no one, who was at all intimate with him, will require to be told that he became a most energetic participator in the numerous election contests of his time. He acquired so great a proficiency in election law as to be regarded as a safe authority therein, and always displaying great courage and talent, he generally won the applause of his opponents, even when they were on the losing side. Indeed, his old friend, and, practically, his first legal tutor, Mr. John Smith, then the managing clerk to Cooper père, and now the veteran actuary of the Lewes Savings' Bank, always lamented his pupil's too eager devotion to the interests of his party, as he thereby barred the way to that degree of pecuniary independence to which, with a less prominent intermingling in electioneering strife, his unquestionable talents and persevering habits would have conducted him. But, like Milton, his inborn predilections and too pronounced opinions would not allow him to
". . . . . . take the beaten path and broad,
Which leads right on to fortune."
In or about the year 1837, Mr. Cooper went permanently to reside in London, chiefly, it is believed, at the invitation of the late Sir John Easthope, Bart. who (then plain Mr. Easthope) fought a losing battle for the seat rendered vacant by Mr. Kemp's retirement. Sir John was the principal, if not the sole, proprietor of the now defunct Morning Chronicle, and Mr. Cooper, in addition to his endeavours to establish himself in his profession, accepted a post on the parliamentary staff of that (in its day) influential Whig journal. After a while he accepted similar employment on the Times, but some new division of labour in the corps of reporters on the establishment of that leviathan broad-sheet, which would have interfered with his allotment of the daytime to his professional practice, ultimately led to his severance from a journalistic career.
The branches of his profession in which Mr. Cooper was chiefly engaged, were conveyancing and parliamentary agency, but it may be added that his practice was at no time extensive, and he consequently never realised more than a modest income.
On the death of his uncle, Mr. Frederick Cooper, who was private solicitor to the then Duke of Norfolk, Mr. Cooper was appointed the Duke's steward of the Leet Court of the Borough of Lewes. It is not needful to say much here of the antiquity or jurisdiction of this "Lewes Leet," as it is curtly styled, but, it would seem, by descent or partition among coheiresses, the lordship of the Leet has come to be divided among the Duke of Norfolk, the Marquis of Abergavenny, and the Earl Delawarr, the Marquis holding two fourth parts, and the other two noble personages one fourth part each, and the annual holding of the Leet is presided over by their stewards alternately, the Marquis, in right of his two-fourths, being the lord for two years in succession. A jury is summoned at each leet, and this jury presents the names of the High Constables and Headboroughs for the ensuing year, and, according to ancient custom, the Steward accepts the nomination thus made, and the officers so nominated are sworn in by him. Other occasions also arise on which leets are held, and the small fees payable to the steward constitute the principal, if not the sole, emoluments of his office, and it may well be imagined that the prestige attaching to the post is of quite as much importance as its pecuniary profits. Mr. Cooper, no doubt, valued this appointment for the periodical opportunity it afforded him of keeping up his connection with his native town, and with his old friends there; and as the business of the chief day was terminated by a pleasant dinner, the conviviality which then ensued, we may be sure, was not the least agreeable feature of the Lewes Leet.
Another post, not of a public character, to which Mr. Cooper succeeded in 1843, and upon which he set a high value, was the auditorship of an ancestral estate in the district of Cleaveland, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, whereon stands Skelton Castle, "a noble embattled mansion presenting a very extensive front," on whose site formerly stood "an ancient fortress, built, soon after the Conquest, by Robert de Brus, from whom descended some of the Scottish kings." Readers of the Sussex Archaeological Collections will hardly need to be reminded of the connection of the Brus family (with its various spellings of Braose, Braoze, Breuze, Brewes, Brewis, Brewose, Brewosa, Brewus, Brewys,&c.) with our southern county, and its large holdings therein. Adam de Brus, one of the early owners of Skelton Castle, on the marriage of his only daughter, Isabel, with Henry de Perci, lord of Petworth, gave to the latter a manor in Cleaveland, on the condition that "the said Henry and his heirs should repair to Skelton Castle every Christmas day, and lead the lady of that castle from her chamber to the chapel to mass, and from thence to her chamber again, and after dining with her to depart."[1] As Skelton Castle is distant from Petworth a good three hundred miles and more, Henry de Perci and his successors must have had many a perilous and weary winter jaunt, to fulfil the condition of the tenure of this manor. This custom has, of course, long ceased, but, although centuries have passed away, Skelton Castle is still possessed by a worthy descendant of its original owner, Robert de Brus, uncle of the just named Adam de Brus. Nor is this all. Skelton Castle is a potent entity in the estimation of every admirer of Laurence Sterne, for it is the Crazy Castle of that most original (and, perhaps, most plagiaristic) of our great English authors, and his Eugenius was none other than the castle's then owner, John Hall Stevenson, himself the author of three humorous volumes—a shade too free, it may be, for the present generation—entitled "Crazy Tales."
Mr. Cooper had not long taken upon himself the auditorship of Skelton Castle, before his good genius instinctively led him to its muniment room, where he soon dug down upon some precious relics of "poor Yorick," which he printed, with annotations from his own critical pen, with this title page: Seven Letters, written by Sterne and his Friends, hitherto unpublished. Edited by William Durrant Cooper, F.S.A. London. Printed for private circulation, 1844. A happy Sterne-ophilist is he who possesses a copy of this rare fasciculus.
The most ambitious work, in a separate form, published by Mr. Cooper, is his History of Winchelsea, one of the Ancient Towns added to the Cinque Ports. This history appeared in 1850. Its value is testified to by the fact, that, although of so comparatively recent an issue, it is a volume rarely to be obtained. The two papers on Winchelsea, by Mr. Cooper, in Vols. viii. and xxiii. of the Sussex Archaeological Collections, form an apt complement to this volume.
On the 20th of December, 1858, Mr. Cooper was appointed to the office of Solicitor to the Vestry of Saint Pancras, Middlesex. He had previously approved himself a likely person for such an office, by the interest he had taken in, and the assistance he had given to, the passing of the Metropolitan Burials Bill, in 1852—a measure of great importance to so large and densely populated a parish as that of Saint Pancras. The emoluments of this post, consisting partly of a salary and partly of fees, although not very great, were yet not to be despised.
It need scarcely be noted that Mr. Cooper had long been a member of the Reform Club, ever since 1837 indeed, and some years before his death the appointment of Solicitor to the Club was conferred upon him. This was barely more than a graceful compliment to one who had always worked bravely for the Liberal cause, and as such he esteemed it.
Mr. Cooper's health began to fail him some three years before his death, when an attack of paralysis, from the effects of which he never entirely recovered, rendered him less capable of attending to his various professional and official engagements than before; but, save that his articulation had grown rather indistinct, his vigorous intellect survived with him almost to the last. At length, on the 28th of December, 1875, as before stated, he closed his eyes upon all that pertains to this world, to the deep grief of an only sister—his affection towards whom, and towards his mother, who died in 1867 (his father having died in 1841—26 years earlier), was of the most devoted and self-sacrificing character. Two of his brothers predeceased him. His second brother, Dr. T. H. Cooper, lives to lament his loss, while numerous friends, between whom and himself a warm attachment subsisted, will long remember one whose place in their esteem cannot in all respects be easily filled up. Mr. Cooper was ever ready to lend, and very frequently did lend, a helping hand to any historical student or enquirer, who, modestly confessing his shortcomings, sought his assistance. But, woe betide the shallow boaster or empty pretender, who should attempt to display his accomplishments in his presence! Small mercy got he. The daw in borrowed feathers was soon denuded of his false plumage, and he submitted as best he could to the scarifying operation he had undergone. For the rest, like all men endowed with true humour, he was not only light-hearted but also large-hearted. Mr. Cooper was never married.
The interest taken by Mr. Cooper in the progress and success of the Sussex Archæological Society would, had he no further claims on its lasting remembrance, be sufficiently evidenced by the number and value of his contributions to its volumes, which, beginning in Vol. ii, were, with the exception of Vol. xi, continued through the whole series to Vol. xxv, inclusive. In Vol. ii. we have a paper on Papists and Recusants in Sussex in 1587, and another on Hastings Castle, Rape, and Town. In Vol. iii, an elaborate paper on The Lewknor Pedigree. In Vol. iv, Extracts from Account Books of the Everenden and Frewen Families. Queen Elizabeth's Visits to Sussex supply him with material for his paper in Vol. v, and to Vol. vi. he contributes a paper on the Liberties and Franchises within the Rape of Hastings. Vol. vii. contains his interesting paper On the Retention of British and Saxon Names in Sussex. Vol. viii. is enriched by his exhaustive paper on The Families of Braose (of Chesworth) and Hoo; and another entitled Notices of Winchelsea in and after the Fifteenth Century. To Vol. ix. his contributions are Annotations on Dr. Smart's extracts from the MSS. of Samuel Jeake; and Brambletye Chantry and Sedition in Sussex in 1579. In Vol. x. is his paper on Smuggling in Sussex, a paper curiously suggestive of the contrast between a state of things, the latter days of which some of our old South Coast dwellers yet living can remember, and the present. Vol. x. also contains a paper on Tokens Struck in Sussex in the Eighteenth Century. A paper on Proofs of Age of Sussex Families will be found in Vol. xii, which is supplemented by a short paper on the same subject in Vol. xv. The Oxenbridges of Brede Place, and of Boston, Massachusetts, one of his best articles, will also be found in Vol. xii. Vol. xiii. contains a List of Grants to Tipper and Dawe; another on Protestant Refugees in Sussex; and a third on Letters and Will of Andrew Borde. Vol. xiv. contains Notices of Hastings (a partnership paper by himself and Mr. Thomas Ross) and one On the Marriage Settlement of Isabella Poynings and William de Cricketot. In Vol. xv. have have the Poynings Pedigree; a paper on the Bonvilles of Halnaker; and a third of considerable interest on Sussex Men at Agincourt. In Vol. xvi. are papers on the Social Condition of the People in Sussex; and on Bramber, its Castle, Elections, &c. In Vol. xvii. he edits Mr. Sharpe's Notes on Ninfield and its Registers; contributes a paper by himself on and Supplies from Sussex; and is associated with Mr. Lower in a third paper, entitled Further Memorials of Seaford. In Vol. xviii. he has three papers, the first, one of considerable historical value, on the Participation of Sussex in Cade's Rising. The other two are respectively Notes on Sussex Castles, and Extracts from the Passage-book of the Port of Rye. This latter paper is followed up in Vol. xix, by one on Aliens in Rye, temp. Hen. VIII., and the same nineteenth volume also contains a paper on Royalist Compositions in Sussex during the Commonwealth. Vol. xx. is led off by a paper on Midhurst, its Lords and its Inhabitants. Vol. xxi. contains three papers, viz., Notes on Mayfield; Crown Presentations to Sussex Livings; and Additional Contributions towards the Parochial History of Hollington. Vol. xxii. has a paper on the Guilds and Chantries of Horsham; and Vol. xxiii. Further Notices of Winchelsea, Former Inhabitants of Chichester are chronicled in Vol. xxiv. Parham and its Collections forms the commencing article in Vol. xxv; and this (save two inconsiderable notes in Vol. xxvi.) is the final contribution from the indefatigable pen which death alone could stay.
But the foregoing catalogue, full as it is, does not embrace all the printed communications of William Durrant Cooper to the volumes of, nor does it even refer to other valuable services rendered by him to, the Sussex Archæological Society. Nearly a column, on pages 96 and 97, of the General Index to our volumes, is devoted to his Minor Communications; Information to other Contributors, &c., while during the years that he officiated gratuitously as Editor of the Society's volumes, his multifarious footnotes, as valuable as they are unobtrusive, attest at once to his industry, his critical acumen, and the large extent of his historical acquirements. On his retirement from the Editorship of our Society's volumes some of the members (by a separate subscription), in order to mark their sense of Mr. Cooper's services, resolved on asking his acceptance of some tangible memorial of their gratitude and esteem. The result was a handsome silver salver, engraved with a wreath of Sussex oak leaves and acorns, the Sussex arms, and the family arms of Mr. Cooper." This memorial was presented to Mr. Cooper at the Society's Meeting, at Pulborough, in August, 1865, by the hands of the late Bishop of Chichester, Dr. Gilbert, and it, of course, bore a suitable inscription.[2]
To the Camden Society's publications Mr. Cooper contributed as under: To Vol. Iv. The Trelawny Papers, extending in date from 1644 to 1711, and having reference to the famous West Country bishop, Jonathan Trelawny, of Cornish celebrity. To Vol. lxxii. he contributed The Expenses of the Judges of Assize riding the Western and Oxford Circuits, temp. Elizabeth, 1596-1601. From the MS. account-book of Judge Walmysley. Besides the expenses of the Judges, these extracts contain "lists of the numerous presents of provisions for their table, and of the places and persons which entertained them." And Vol. lxxxii. which was the only entire volume of the series edited by him, was, as Sussex readers know, on a subject he had already made his own: Lists of Foreign Protestants, and Aliens, resident in England, 1618-1688, from Returns in the State Paper Office. The Introduction to this volume contains much valuable information.
In commenting on the loss the Camden Society had sustained in Mr. Cooper's death, the Council speak of their departed colleague as a constant attendant at their meetings, "always ready to contribute valuable advice and criticism; his learning and his practical acquaintance with business will be often missed by those with whom he so heartily co-operated in the interests of the Society." Although a service-rendering member both of the Percy Society, and the Shakespeare Society, Mr. Cooper would seem not to have been a contributor to the Percy Society volumes, while one volume only of the kindred Society claims him as its editor. The truth is that the staple commodity with which these Societies dealt belonged rather to the region of fancy than of fact, Still, the one volume for which the Shakespeare Society is indebted to him, Ralph Roister Doister, a Comedy, by Nicholas Udall. And the Tragedie of Gorboduc, by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville. With Introductory Memoirs. Edited by William Durrant Cooper, F.S.A. is one of the most valuable of the series, and the critical faculty is as well shown therein as in any of his historical pieces, while the Memoirs of Udall, Norton, and Sackville—this last a famous Sussex worthy—could hardly be improved upon.
To each of the four published volumes of the London and Middlesex Archæological Society, of which he was a Vice-President, Mr. Cooper contributed a paper: In Vol. i. he descants on The Parish Registers of Harrow-on-the-Hill, with special reference to the Families of Bellamy and Page. Notes on Uxbridge and its former Inhabitants are the subject of his paper in Vol. ii. and the Churches and Parishes of Saint James Garlick Hithe, and Saint Dionis Backchurch, both in the city of London, are the topics dwelt on in Vols. iii. and iv.
To the Kent Archæological Society's volumes he sent one paper only, which is printed in Vol. vii. of its series, but that paper, as a glance at its title will show, is an important one, John Cade's Followers in Kent: inasmuch as it dovetails in with his "Participation of Sussex in Cade's rising," in the eighteenth volume of the Sussex Collections. And it may be worth while to mention here that the late Mr. B. B. Orridge, with Mr. Cooper's assent, reprinted these Cade papers in his "Illustrations of Jack Cade's Rebellion, from Researches in the Guildhall Records, together with some newly found letters of Lord Bacon, &c., London, 1869."
To the Surrey Archæological Society, his one contribution is an Additional Note on a Deed relating to John Evelyn.
To The Reliquary, for April, 1862, he furnished an elaborate paper of considerable historical interest, entitled, Notices of Anthony Babington, of Dethick, and of the conspiracy of 1586.
Besides, and beyond, the above extensive bead-roll of Mr. Cooper's literary labours, there are, doubtless, several Papers and Essays, of which for lack of information and opportunity, no note has been, or can be, here taken. Enough, however, there is to show how continuously and conscientiously he worked. And the bulk of his several communications is in quite an inverse proportion to the painstaking research required for their production. No writer could possibly be more anxious than he was, even in his slightest contribution, to arrive at the absolute facts in any particular case. No second-hand authority satisfied him, if a primary one was to be got at, whatever the trouble it cost him.
Mr. Cooper's long connection with the Society of Antiquaries, and his communications to its Archæologia, are so felicitously treated by Frederic Ouvry, Esq., the learned and popular President of the Society, that, premising his mention of Mr. Cooper's election as a Fellow in March, 1841, it would be treason not to quote his actual language, as given in his Annual Address in April, 1876, slightly abridging it here and there.
"In adverting to the death of William Durrant Cooper, I speak of a friend of forty years' standing, of one whose many good qualities I warmly appreciated. He was one of the oldest, as he was assuredly one of the worthiest, members of our body. His first contribution to the Archæologia was laid before the Society in March, 1855. It is entitled Further Particulars of Thomas Norton, and of Stale Proceedings in Matters of Religion in the year 1581 and 1582. In May, 1856, he contributed Notices of the Plague in England, derived from the Correspondence of John Allix, in the year 1664-1669. In February, 1858, we find him reading a Memoir entitled Notices of the Tower of London, temp. Eliz. and the Horse Armoury, temp. Charles I. His most important contribution to the Archæologia closes the list. I refer to his Notices on the Great Seals of England, used after the Deposition of Charles the first, and before the Restoration, in 1660. The paucity of Mr. Durrant Cooper's communications to our pages must be attributed, not merely to the scanty leisure of an active professional life, but also to the large demands upon his time and pen, which were made by the Sussex Archaeological Society, to whose volumes his contributions are at once abundant and valuable. Of the services, however, which he rendered to this Society, his contributions to our Transactions would give a very inadequate idea. It is in the records of our committees that we shall find the proof of his zealous attachment to our body. Speaking as an ex Treasurer, I can bear testimony—which I am sure my successor in that office will endorse—to the thoroughness with which he executed his duties as a member of the Finance Committee, going carefully into every account submitted
for examination, doing his utmost to promote the financial prosperity of the Society, a friend to economy as distinct from parsimony, and ever ready with criticisms and suggestions which I felt were always entitled to respect, as they came from a cool head and a warm heart."
Any addition to the above eloquent tribute would be superfluous. All that need be added is, that this Memoir would have been much less complete, but for the valuable aid rendered by Mr. Cooper's only surviving brother, Dr. T. H. Cooper; the Rev. Geo. Proctor, D.D.; John Smith, Esq. of the Lewes Savings Bank; Frederic Ouvry, Esq. Pres. S.A.; Thomas E. Gibb, Esq. Vestry Clerk, St. Pan eras, Middlesex; J. S. Smallfield, Esq. and his old Sussex friends, G. P. Bacon, Esq. Robert Crosskey, Esq. J.P. and John Clay Lucas, Esq. F.S.A. to all of whom the heartiest thanks are here tendered.
Mr. Cooper's portrait is unavoidably absent from these pages, for the too obvious reason, that none of a satisfactory character is in existence.