Name
William Hide Cooper
10 October 1887
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
31/05/1916
28
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Ship's Corporal 1st Class
225272
Royal Navy
H.M.S. "Chester"
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Navy Star, British War Medal and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
CHATHAM NAVAL MEMORIAL
18
United Kingdom
Headstone Inscription
N/A
UK & Other Memorials
Not on the Kimpton memorials, HMS Chester, Battle of Jutland Memorial, Chester Cathedral
Pre War
William Hide Cooper was born in Kimpton, Herts on 10 October 1887, the son of Charles and Mary Cooper (nee Routledge) and the youngest of ten children.
On the 1891 Census the family were living at Kimpton Mill where his father was working as a Farm Bailiff. His mother died in 1895 and his father married again at the end of 1898 to Mary Ann Mulcock (nee Double) a widow with three children who later had two more.
They had moved to the Three Horse Shoes Public House at Ayot St Lawrence, Herts by 1901 where his father was the Innkeeper working on his own account. His father had returned to work as a Farm Bailiff by the 1911 Census when he was listed with his wife and children living at Offley Holes Farm, Hitchin (Preston and Langley). William was not living with them, having joined the Royal Navy in 1905.
They later lived at Blue Cottage, Leybourne, West Malling, Kent.
Wartime Service
He enlisted in into the Royal Navy as a Boy from 2 February 1903, later signing on for 12 years on 10 October 1905 when he was 18 years old.
He was serving as Ships Corporal 1st Class from 2 May 1916 on board HMS Chester, but was killed in action on 31 May 1916 during the Battle of Jutland when she was hit by seventeen 150 mm shells.
He has no known grave and his name is commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial, Kent.
Additional Information
Pension records exist which suggest a pension may have been paid to his father.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Adrian Pitts
