Trebha's father, Harry Edwin Cooper, in the Royal Airforce during wartime
Trebha Cooper is the given name, though it could just as easily have been Trebha Webb, for the original Cooper of this otherwise male line was a woman, Celia Cooper. Celia had borne two illegitimate sons in the early 1800's in the Norfolk town of Gressenhall. The father of her boys was recognised later to have been Edward Webb, who she ultimately did end up marrying. So it is that one could say Trebha's ancestor, Celia's illegitmate boy Edward, was not really a Cooper but a Webb, and even he did use that surname sometimes as a child, but by baptism he was a Cooper and this was his official name.
Trebha Cooper - Harry Cooper - Arthur Cooper - Henry Cooper - Edward Cooper - Edward Webb & Celia Cooper
Celia Cooper (1818 - 1883) was born in Binham, Norfolk to James Cooper and his wife Ann née Brook. This family travelled about Norfolk, maybe in the manner of gypsies (Cooper and Brook being known gypsy surnames), in time settling in the town of Gressenhall. Celia, also known as Cecilia or Celey, was 18 years old or even younger when she had her boy Edward, in those days known as a base or bastard son on account of she being unmarried and there being no recognised father. It's a clue enough that she called her son by the name of the man she would later marry, that her husband to be was indeed the real father of her illegitimate son. She had even given birth to a second illegitimate son by him, James, before she and Edward Webb at last married, on the same day of which she had her new son baptised as James Cooper Webb.
We see the Cooper/Webb family in the 1841 Census in Gressenhall, living on the south side of the Fakenham Road, Celia's father having died by now, her mother Ann noted to be a pauper widow, and Celia being with her husband Edward Webb, who worked as an agricultural labourer, with her two young boys, James and Edward. Young Edward was close to his granny Ann, always living with her rather than his mother, who was still moving here and there, staying a while in Beetley and then in Bittering. Young Edward helped granny Ann out with his farm labouring wages, until she died at the age of 75 in 1854. They can be seen together in the 1851 Census when Edward was 15 years old. Just some days before his granny Ann died, Edwards presumed father, Edward Webb, also died, aged only 40.
It was Edward Cooper who would move out of Norfolk and up to Yorkshire. While still in Gressenhall he married a 'minor' Ann Wormer. Ann Wormer's family also looked to have been travellers, for their often changing of location. Ann Wormer's parents were Robert Wormer from Scarning in Norfolk and Susannah née Calver from Beetley, these being villages near Gressenhall. On living in Gressenhall this family had lived on Sparrow Green, that was in 1841; in 1851 they were in Great Bittering; and in 1861 onwards they were in Fairstead. the men of the family were agricultural workers, and at least one of the women of the family was a straw bonnet maker. Susannah Wormer was a big homely mother figure, welcoming extended family members into the home and caring for them, including young grandchildren. It was in 1857 that Edward Cooper married young Ann Wormer. Their first child, Robert, would always stay with granny Susannah Wormer in Norfolk, even when his parents moved away up to the north of England. More children were born in Norfolk, in the village of Scarning. While early on living at East Dereham, the family lived at Wiggs Yard. They survival was still tied up with working on the land for local farms. By 1871 the family had moved up to Hull in Yorkshire, from the country to city life where they would now survive through the factory work of the Industrial Revolution.
And what became of Edwards mother Celia, widowed and still in Norfolk? Celia was having a hard time keeping her other son James Cooper Webb in check. He was a petty criminal, prosecuted again and again for poaching and assaulting the police. He was imprisoned one time for three years at a stretch with hard labour, not that anything dissuaded him. Three months he was given for stealing a spade, which he was caught with digging for rabbits. One year sentence he was given for stealing meat from a slaughter house. By the time of this last offence he was noted to have been already prosecuted for crimes 25 times previously. He was known to the system as a 'habitual criminal'. A description was given of him in police records, of which maybe the others of the family shared physical similarities, of having sandy hair (usually describing red hair back then), and blue eyes and fresh skin. He was by trade a gardener, he had a mole on the back of his neck and a scar on his left temple. James found himself a wife and had two daughters by her and they moved up to Yorkshire as did brother Edward and then down to Lincolnshire, and there James's wife died, and it was for mother Celia to become the house keeper and carer of the little ones on James's behalf. Celia lived in this way in Lincolnshire, in Spalding, and there would die at the age of 65.
Edward was long settled far away in Hull in Yorkshire by the time of his mothers death. There he worked as a labourer in a shipyard. In Hull was born, among many other children, one daughter, Harriet, who was crippled. In 1871 the family lived at 17 Beaumont Terrace and in 1881 at 7 Charles Terrace. A son Henry, known more as Harry, was born in Hull in 1872, this being Trebha's ancestor. By 1888 Edward had died. His widow, Ann, three years later remarried to a much younger man, a Hull local, Thomas Humphrey, a striker smith in the shipyards. Teenager Harry took up the same work as his new stepfather, that of a striker smith. Ann lived with her new husband at 24 Courtney Street in 1891, 2 Myrtle Grove in 1901 and at 118 Bean Street by the time of her death at the age of 67 in 1909.
So it was that the family's origins in Norfolk in the south were forgotten and they became northerners.
Harry Cooper (1872 - 1911), who as we have seen was a shipyard striker smith, married in Hull in 1896 to Mary Ann Howson, who was a Lincolnshire lass from Burrow on Humber, and they had six children, and lived at 8 Sarah Ann's place (in 1901) and 6 Myrtle Avenue in 1911, and then in January of that last mentioned year disaster struck, this being the untimely death of Harry at the age of 39. This was tragic, he and Mary Ann having a baby Ivy to look after at the time, let alone all the other children, which included 12 year old Arthur, Trebha's grandfather. Harry's demise was written of in the local newspaper, the Hull Daily Mail, recording that he simply dropped dead while walking over a bridge. It was morning and he was upon the Craven Street Bridge and another labourer, William Clarke, saw him fall and ran to his aid, but Harry was dead and nothing could be done. Mary Ann Cooper, his widow, had been married for only eight years and of their six children, two had sadly died, which was not so unusual for the times. To support her young children she took up the work of a charwoman and naturally they were poor and survival was hard.
Arthur Cooper (1898 - 1965), this being Trebha's grandfather, born and raised in Hull, was 12 when his father died. Arthur found work as a fish skilleter at the Hull docks and worked in a billiards hall keeping score. He was at one time prosecuted for 'stealing' fish from St Andrew dock, even though if he had not taken that fish home it would simply have been swilled overboard. Arthur was only 18 when he married Ida McWilliam in Hull in 1917, he essentially being Ida's toyboy, she being then aged 26. Ida, the wife of Arthur, was of an interesting family, that had sought adventure in far off lands, such as Guyana and Australia. I'll make a link in time to her own family history. Suffice it to say here that the adventurous McWilliams were Scottish in descent, from Tinwald in Dumfrieshire. Arthur and Ida, before marriage, were living together already in Ida's fathers home at 36 Wyndham Street, her Australian born father being a pawnbroker. Later they would live at 40 Coltman Street (in 1938) and 2 Dover Terrace off Norwood Street (in 1939). They had four sons together, one of whom was Trebha's father, Harry Edwin Cooper.
Harry Edwin Cooper (1920 - 1978), Trebha's father, was born and raised in Hull, his first trade as a young man being that of a butchers assistant. During the second world war, Harry served in the Royal Air Force as a wireless operator and in air sea rescue. After the war Harry made his career in insurance, which through promotion eventually moved him out of Hull and into Lincolnshire. Harry married a Hull lass, Marjorie Gill, in Hull in 1944. Marjorie's father Harry Gill worked in the iron and steel rolling mills, he being from Sheffield, and Marjories mother, Kathleen Fanny née Allman was interestingly born in Norwich in Norfolk, another link for Trebha between Yorkshire and Norfolk. This family lineage I will also make a separate link to. Harry Cooper died at the age of 57 from a heart attack, his address at that time being given as 36 Windsor Crescent, Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire. He and Marjorie had three sons, Kevin, Colin, and our Trebha.