His father Thomas Cooper was a solicitor practising at Lewes; his mother was Lucy Elizabeth Durrant.
In the following year he gave evidence on the parish registers of Sussex before a committee of the House of Commons.
The Duke of Norfolk gave him honorific posts as steward for the leet court of Lewes borough and auditor of Skelton Castle in North Yorkshire.
In 1872 he was stricken with an attack of paralysis, but he lingered three years longer, dying at 81 Guilford Street, Russell Square, on 28 December 1875.
[1] When Thomas Walker Horsfield undertook the task of compiling a history of Sussex, he found a helper in Cooper.
[1] In the muniment room at Skelton Cooper discovered the "Seven Letters written by Sterne and his Friends", which he edited for private circulation in 1844.
His contributions to the society's transactions on "Hastings" and "The Oxenbridges of Brede Place, Sussex, and Boston, Massachusetts", and his articles in the eighth volume of its collections, were published separately.