Lieutenant Henry Mark Hugh COOPER
B Squadron, 1/1st King Edward's Horse (The King's Overseas Dominion Regiment)

Date of birth: 10th March 1886
Date of death: 29th July 1915

Died of wounds aged 29
Buried at All Saints Cemetery Nunhead
He was born at Lancing College on the 10th of March 1886, the eldest son of the Reverend Henry Samuel Cooper, house master of Seconds House at Lancing, and Emma Elizabeth (nee Green later Foreman) later of 26 St George's Place, Canterbury. He was christened at Lancing on the 11th of April 1886.

He was educated at the Junior King's School from September 1898 and at the King's School Canterbury from September 1899 to June 1901.

He worked in the Canadian Pacific Railway offices before joining the Cranbrook Branch of the Canadian Bank of Commerce as a junior on the 6th of February 1905. In 1907 he transferred to Vancouver in Canada where he worked as a clerk but he left their employ on the 31st of December 1909 and returned to the UK on board the SS "Campania", landing at Liverpool on the 4th of May 1910. On his return he worked as a clerk for the stockbrokers W.H.Trott.

He was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 1st King Edward's Horse on the 5th of April 1913 and was promoted to Lieutenant on the 28th of November 1914.

He embarked for France at Southampton with his Squadron on board the Transport “Palm Branch" on the 21st of April 1915 and arrived at Le Havre at 2.30am the following morning. Disembarkation was complete by 8.15am and the troopers made their way up the hill to No. 6 Base Camp. On the 23rd of April they entrained for Steenwerek in Belgium; they then marched to Nieppe where their Division was headquartered.

On the evening of the 29th of April 1915 the Squadron was ordered to employ all available men for the construction of a strong point behind the front line at Wulverghem about 200 yards northwest of La Plus Douvre Farm. They paraded at 6.30pm and marched up to within half a mile of the position where their horses were picketed. As soon as it was dark they moved up and began work that night. Henry Cooper was in command of fifty men who were detailed to construct a redoubt. They were engaged in this construction for about nearly four weeks during which time they suffered six casualties.

Henry Cooper was wounded on the 13th of May 1915, becoming the first officer casualty of the Squadron, and was evacuated back to England where he died two months later at the 1st London General Hospital in Camberwell.

He is commemorated on the war memorial at the King's School Wimbledon and on the memorial at the Royal Military College Sandhurst.

He is buried at All Saints Cemetery Nunhead but the grave is no longer marked and he is listed on the memorial there as being buried in the cemetery.
 

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