2nd Lieutenant Geoffrey Rowsell COOPER
3rd Battalion Royal Berkshire Regiment

Date of birth: 16th July 1898
Date of death: 8th November 1916

Died aged 18
Buried at Kingston-Upon-Thames Cemetery Grave E1847
He was born at Kiladini, British East Africa on the 16th of July 1898 the eldest son of Archibald Samuel Cooper CB CMG, chief accountant to the West African Railway, and Jesse Maud (nee Cooper) later of Walmer House, 7 Langley Road, Surbiton.

He was educated firstly in Nairobi, at King's College School, Wimbledon from September 1909 to July 1911 and at the King’s School Canterbury from September 1911 to July 1915 where he was a promising runner and rugby player and was a member of the Officer Training Corps.

He enlisted as Private 5160 in the Inns of Court Officer Training Corps at 10 Stone Buildings, Lincoln's Inn on the 29th of July 1915. At a medical examination, which took place on the same day, it was recorded that he was five feet seven and a quarter inches tall and weighed 117 pounds. He was sent for training at Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire.

On the 24th of November 1915 he entered the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion Royal Berkshire Regiment on the 19th of July 1916. He joined his battalion at Portsmouth.

He was on the list for France as a bombing officer but his health failed and he died at home in Surbiton from infantile paralysis. His funeral took place on the 11th of November 1916.

He is commemorated on the war memorial at Surbiton, on the memorial at King’s College Wimbledon and on the memorial at the Royal Military College Sandhurst.
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