George Arthur Cooper was born in Southampton in 1899, he was brought up living at Bitterne where his father, George, was a master baker. His mother was Mary; George was her second child after a daughter Mary. George was probably a conscript joining up in 1917 when he turned 18 years of age. He enlisted at Lambeth and was posted to 7 Bn Northamptonshire Regiment. George was KIA on 6 May 1918 and is buried in Bully Grensay Communal.

George Arthur Cooper has no known connection to Oswestry.

There is a possibility that the name A. G. Cooper is an error on the Gates Memorial and is a mis-transcription for G.A. Corbett. On the memorial A.G. Cooper appears after R.H. Cooper. George Albert Corbett (Private 200076 George Albert Corbett) appears at the top of the right hand side column on the pillar to the right of the memorial gates. The name is out of sequence with the main alphabetical listing and is separate from the other ‘out of sequence’ names which are located in the bottom half of the same column.

Other names which seem to have been fitted in later are:  Left Pillar of the gates LHS bottom Ernest Bennett & George E Farmer; RHS bottom  James Jones and on the Right Pillar of the gates  top  RHS Walter Pritchard; LHS bottom Edwin Sagar & Daniel Rigby RHS  top George Albert Corbett and E.A. Humphreys.

Conclusion is that George Albert Corbett was added after the other ‘out of sequence’ names.  Neither the name A.C.Cooper nor the name George Albert Corbett appear in the pamphlet from the Ceremony of Unveiling (LINK) but, in the corresponding position in the listing, i.e. after R.H. Cooper is the name A.G. Corbett.

A sequence of events that fit these anomalies is that the name ‘A.G. Cooper’ is an error in transcription of ‘A G Corbett’ possibly a repetition of the preceding name ‘R.H. Cooper’ that the error was spotted, possibly by the omission of G. A. Corbett rather than the inclusion of the wrong name, and was corrected late on after the panels had been completed.

Acknowledgements.

References and Sources

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