Cooper Family 2

Continued from previous page:-

""Quote""ROMANI GLEANINGS 1917 or 1924?

Though there is more Cooper Romani than any other in our present list pride of place for quality must be given to the twenty-five or so words which the honorary Secretary noted from a very aged Selina Hughes nee Lee, who was camping with her nephew Bob hughes at Totton,some four miles from Southampton in the direction of Lyndhurst. Born near Salisbury about eighty-seven years ago, Selina had traversed South Wilts and Hants again and again; with her parents Dick Lee and Fiance Scamp .the latter a near kinswoman of the famous Josiah Scamp buried at Odstock; with her first husband, a Cooper related, though not very closely to Joshua the "Forest King". with her second husband ,, Christopher Hughes ,whom she married late in life ;and latterly with nephews of Christopher -- her own children ,all Coopers save one having without exception either gone to America or died early. She was, however almost as well acquainted with the South-West of England, of which her parents and her Cooper husband had been fond; whilst both early and late in her life she had often spent two or three months in Sussex, Kent and Surrey. Considering her age her memory and hearing were remarkably.

but she was half crippled with rheumatism, and in some danger of losing her sight and because of these physical infirmities her nephews wished her to settle. Indeed they had gone so far as to buy her a house at Salisbury ; a house with a big yard attached where they proposed to stay in the winter and where there would be travellers all year round. Yet even this well-gilded pill Selina refused to swallow, so the house had been sold again and she was still on the roads.""

The article also mentions a middled age Joe Lee and a elderly half blood Lee Sam Rose who was married to a daughter of blind Solomon Stanley of Sholing Common. Joe Lee called himself a Portsmouth Lee adding however that his old people used to be in the New Forest a great deal, he himself liked to winter in Portsmouth and journey Londonwards and back through Sussex in the spring and early summer, and also visit the Isel of Wight in the for a few weeks during the height of the season there, and then go up to the hopfields round Alton. Some say he is related to Hezekiah's lot , meaning the offspring of Wester Lee's cousin Hezekiah, by a Emily lee who certainly did not belong to the same Kentish-Metropolitan family as her husband, and who has been recorded as a Sussex Lee. Sam Rose whoever his Lee mother may have been, was also well acquainted with Portsmouth and with North Hants,West Sussex and Surrey,as well as the New Forest"

I think this shows just how far a field and connected many of the New Forest families are!

Among others he met while in the Portsmouth road area in Hants were Bowers, Johnsons and some Bakers who were really Scamps crossed with Lees ,and some Roses who also used the name Skerry. Also mentioned are James and Clevansi Lee and other various Smith and Lee's and Frankhams all related by mariage.

Born between 1850 and 1860 ,Rosa lee was by her own account, the daughter of Cinderella Lee and a gorgio named Broadway.the later and Harriet Well's father,who was also a gorgio called Broadway, would be about the same age presumably, and must one would think , have been closely akin. They might even be identical, for Harriet, who insisted that her father was born and bred in Southampton ,also stated that he travelled for a short time in the South and South-west of England with a Gypsy wife "other" than her mother .Whatever the truth about this, it is almost certain that Cinderella had a second, probably earlier husband, since on one occasion at least Rosa declared that her mother married a Boswell whose people nearly all went to America; meaning, perhaps, a kinsman of Seth and the other North Devon and Somerset Boswells who emigrated almost to a man about 1860 or 1865. A sister or maybe half -sister of Rosa's also jal'd the pani, after marrying a rai'; whilst another, whose husband was a Lee died at Bridgwater in 1898.

Unfortunately it does not enable us to fix on the Lee family to which Rosa and her mother belonged. kinship with Selina Hughes, nee Lee, and with Groome's pirani ,Briteni Hughes, also a Lee by birth , seems to be indicated.

Of course as is the case so often one can only hypothesise on some relationship’s as missing baptisms and census reports where they remain unfound or just omitted leaves a crucial gap in the lives of some of the people we are researching however when one gets a inkling about a particular snippet of information it is always wise to follow it up ! but also very time consuming! Janet Keet-Black some years ago sent me a copy of a letter she had transcribed it was described thus:-

Letters to Leland-(Transcribed by Janet Keet- Black.)

30 June 1883 Torquay

Dear Mr Leland – Your letter of the 18th :-

It is to a Thomas Cooper and Thomas then mentions his father who has passed away (the reason for the letter) and his brothers John and Harry and also his uncles Mathias and Leonard which can only be the “Matty” Cooper Royal rat catcher? Although not impossible to have another Mathias with a Brother Leonard? But on seeing the line in the letter “That Small that told you he was my brother-In-Law is my brother by mother”? Well off I went again on yet another search! Now by deduction of the brother’s to Matthias that I know of, only Nelson or Francis could be the father of Thomas ?unless another brother of which I know not, I managed to find Thomas in the 1861 and 1881 in Torquay Devon and he is born 1815/25 depending on which census,and described as Basket maker born Epping Essex so that would make sense but what was interesting was that in the 1861 he had a Henry Small age 16 and Cinderella Small age 9 born Dorset with him ? Now I already have a Cinderella Cooper born about 1805 who partnered Moses Small And they had a Henry b 1844?, and also a son Moses who had a Henry in 1857 who so happened to partner another Cinderella! Is this the same Cinderella as in the 1861 age 9 and could Henry be the same Henry? it seems highly likely and that the Cinderella Cooper that partnered Moses Small could be yet another Sibling form the Windsor Cooper line, as Matthias had a sister Cinderella but I do not have a birth date for her but 1805 is around the right time frame to fit but it has been said that Cinderella was a Lee and married first a Cooper and then a Small but of course she could also have used both Cooper and Lee as surnames as often was the case if they followed the maternal lines.

Also of course it ties in yet again to the Smalls/ Stanley / Buckland/Wells/Broadway/Wharton/Joles/Boswell/Palmer Families that seemed to be in the Devon area and went to America and continued marrying in to one another families. The Cooper family yet again married into the Joles/Jowles family as the “beautiful” so they say Queen Morella Cooper who is buried in Yatton Somerset and died 1827 and was married to Isaac Joules a Stonemason who was the son of a Wiltshire farmer.

No doubt the descendants being the Joles family who are to be found Stateside, I might add also the Hicks family and of course the Wharton/Warton family, the Hicks family and others mentioned is an ongoing hobby of mine! And I shall be adding to adventures and what they got up to in the United States!! See my website Romanygenes for more American Census and newspaper articles on our English Gypsies in America.

Going back to Selina and if indeed Job was her first husband before Christopher Hughes I have only found one possible match at the right birth date all though b Warwickshire? Also on the census was a daughter Reshinda, could Regenia Scamp age 11on the 1858 passenger list daughter of John & Lucy Scamp be the Regenia Cooper mentioned in the article above as going to America with her uncle and grandfather and from the direct line of Jack(John ) Cooper ? As Selina Cooper nee Lee’s mother was Fiance Scamp and we all know how often they used their mothers maiden name even after marriage.

Another record I found for a Regenia is in the 1901 Census:-

1901 Census - Regenta Cooper, M, Head, Age 51, Born Henley, Occupation Pedler Hawker, Has widowed Mother Selina & Widowed Sister living with her.This is the Richender(Regenia) Buckland born abt 1849 to Solomon and Selina Buckland .

This Regenia married Nelson Cooper in 1878 Berkshire needless to say I am still researching this line as there are so many connections between the families and the same Christian names being used by the siblings in each generation,and also continued in the States I think I shall be busy for some time!! More research will no doubt bring a lot together and hopefully tie up the lose ends and prove or disprove as may be the case ,please bear in mind this is only my “Ideas” and as always , I am happy to receive further information and corrections as I am only human! and no doubt when I have been burning the midnight oil mistakes happen, or I may have transcribed something wrong and not noticed, so please feel free to correct me where a mistake has been made. .