Researching Edward Cooper

Cooper was born in Trevorton, Pennsylvania. He moved with his parents to Fayette County, West Virginia in 1875 where he attended public and private schools. He graduated from Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia in 1892, and subsequently from the law department of the same university. He was admitted to the bar in 1894 and practiced law for three years in Bramwell, West Virginia where he was also a member of the town council for eight years.

On the death of his father, Cooper abandoned the practice of law and engaged in the development of coal properties in West Virginia. He was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1912 and elected as a Republican to the Sixty-fourth and Sixty-fifth Congresses (March 4, 1915 – March 3, 1919). He was unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1918 to the Sixty-sixth Congress. After leaving Congress, he again engaged in the production of coal in Mercer and McDowell Counties, West Virginia and served as a director in several coal companies. He died in Bluefield, West Virginia in 1928 and was buried in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia.

Cooper was the second son of Joshua Cooper MP (1732–1800) of Markree Castle, and his wife Alicia, daughter of Edward Synge, Bishop of Elphin. He was educated by Rev. Richard Norris in Drogheda, and then at Trinity College Dublin. In 1801 he married Anne Verelst, daughter of Bengal Governor Harry Verelst of Aston Hall, Yorkshire. They had three sons.

At the 1806 general election he was elected as one of the two Members of Parliament (MPs)for Sligo County,succeeding his older brother Joshua Edward Cooper, who was deranged. He also took over the management of the family estate.

In his first Parliament, he was a regular attender but took little active role, preferring "to look about me". In his second Parliament, he claimed credit for having helped secure the passage of the Highways (Ireland) Act 1809, which reformed the role of grand juries, and from 1810 onwards he opposed Catholic relief.

He died on 16 August 1830, shortly after standing down from Parliament at the 1830 general election.His son Edward Joshua Cooper, who had been elected in his place in 1830, inherited Markree in 1837 on the death of Joshua Edward Cooper.

His second wife Anne survived her husband and all three of her sons. She died in November 1864, in Dunboden. County Westmeath, aged 92. Her oldest son Edward Joshua had died a year before her in 1863, her second son Joshua Henry died in infancy, and her youngest son Richard died in 1850.

His observatory was home to the largest refracting (telescope with a lens) of the 1830s (an almost 14 inch astronomical grade Cauchoix of Paris lens, the largest in the World), and the asteroid 9 Metis was discovered there in the 1840s by his assistant. Several astronomical catalogs were also produced in the 19th century there.

At the age of 36 the Dublin-born soldier inherited Markree Castle in County Sligo from his uncle, and left the army to manage his country estate. As one of the major landlords in the county, he assumed many of the roles which still accompanied that status. He promptly became a local magistrate, and in 1865 was returned unopposed by the county to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.

Having followed five previous Cooper landlords of Markree to serve as Member of Parliament (MP) for Sligo, his unpopularity as a landlord led to his defeat in 1868, after one term. He then reactivated his uncle's Markree Observatory, and commissioned archaeological drawings of County Sligo. He served as the Lord Lieutenant of Sligo for the 25 years until his death, and for the last three as a Privy Councillor.