Frederick Cooper (1856-1947)
Frederick Cooper was born in 1856 and was a boot and shoe maker from Hingham, near Norwich. His father had also been a shoemaker in the same village, where Frederick lived for all his life except for a brief sojourn in Mile End, east London, where his first son Billy was born on 16th December 1883 and the birth was registered on 22nd January 1884. By June the family was back in Hingham, where Billy was baptised. Frederick and his wife Flora went on to have another four children, and lived on or near Hingham marketplace for the rest of their lives.
Frederick played euphonium and was band master of the Hingham and Watton Band. He also played both dulcimer and concertina. He taught both his son Billy Cooper and Billy Bennington to play dulcimer, and composed the waltz Dulcie Belle, subsequently recorded by both of them.
There are no known recordings of Frederick Cooper, and we don’t know anything about the dulcimer he played either.
Please note that in previous versions of this website, and other writings, we had the wrong dates for Frederick, believing him to have died in 1932, whereas he lived for a further 15 years until he was 91!
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