He was born at Bolton, Lancashire, England, the son of Thomas Cooper, merchant, and his wife Jane Ramsden. He was the nephew of the emancipated convict and extraordinarily successful businessman, Daniel Cooper, who took an interest in the education of his nephew. He was taken to Sydney by his parents when a child, but was sent back to Britain again in 1835 and spent four years at University College London. Cooper began business at Le Havre, France, but his health failing, he returned to Sydney in 1843. There, he acquired an interest in a mercantile firm, afterwards known as D. Cooper and Company, and bought much property in Sydney and its suburbs. This afterwards appreciated in value and Cooper became a wealthy man. In 1853 he inherited the bulk of the enormous fortune of his uncle, Daniel, who had no children. He was an early member of the senate of the University of Sydney, to which he gave £500 for a stained glass window, and £1,000 to found a scholarship.
Political career
In 1849 at the age of 28, Cooper was made a member of the legislative council, and in 1856 he was elected as a member for Legislative Assembly seat of Sydney Hamlets of the first Parliament of New South Wales. He represented Paddington from 1859 to 1860. At its first meeting, Cooper was elected Speaker by a majority of one vote over Henry Watson Parker. His election was not popular, but Cooper held office with dignity and impartiality and set a standard for future speakers. He successfully established rules of procedure and parliamentary conventions, which influenced the Parliament in the following years. In politics, he was close to Charles Cowper and Henry Parkes and supported Parkes' The Empire, financially. In return it described his political principles as being 'of so liberal a cast that, were he less identified with the great interests of property, he would be set down as a dangerous democrat'. In January 1860 his health was again troubling him and he found it necessary to resign. He was asked to form a ministry in March, but declined and in 1861 returned to Britain. During the Crimean War he had exerted himself in raising a fund for the relief of widows and children of soldiers, and in the UK in 1863 he did much work to relieve the distress in Lancashire caused by the cotton famine. He continued his interest in New South Wales and occasionally acted as agent-general, did useful work in connexion with the exhibition held at Sydney in 1880, and in 1886 was a member of the Royal Commission for the Colonial and Indian Exhibition at London.
Family
He married, in 1846, Elizabeth Hill, daughter of William Hill of Sydney and Mary Johnson, both convicts, and they had two sons and five daughters. Cooper died on 5 June 1902 in Kensington, London, and was survived by his wife and by two sons and three of their daughters. He was buried in Brompton Cemetery, London. The eldest son, Daniel Cooper, succeeded as second Baronet, but had only daughters and was himself succeeded by his brother William Charles Cooper as third Baronet. His great-grandson was the art collector and historian Douglas Cooper.
