ALBERT FREDERICK COOPER
1 August 1889 - 9 May 1918
At School 1898 -
2nd Lieut 1st Middlesex Regt
Albert was born in Didsbury, Manchester and in 1891 aged 1, was living at 108 Lansdowne Road, Didsbury with father Frederick, Cashier, mother Mary and one domestic servant. The family remained at the house and in 1911, aged 21, Albert, an only child, was working as a bank clerk with the Manchester and Liverpool District Bank.
Albert enlisted in the Public Schools Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers on 25th May 1915 and went to France on 14 November 1915. At this time the Battalion was in the Bethune area.
On 28th April 1916 Albert was wounded, the Hulmeian Magazine reporting " He was out with a small working party about 2 miles behind the firing trenches when they were shelled by the enemy and he received shrapnel wounds in the thighs and left arm." Albert was transferred back to England and recuperated in the Lord Derby Hospital, Winwick.
On recovery he was awarded a commission in the Middlesex Regiment and returned to France in January 1918, with the 11th Service Battalion.
This Battalion was disbanded in February 1918 as part of the Army Brigade re-structuring and Albert was attached to the 1st Battalion. In March the Battalion was in the front line south west of Passchendaele, where it suffered from gas shelling, and in April moved to the Bailleul area in trenches near Meteren. At the end of April the Battalion was at rest near Blaringhem but on 1st May received orders to march to the Busseboom area and on the 4th relieved the 56th Brigade near Elzenwalle. The Battalion History states that "Very early on the 8th the enemy's guns began an intense bombardment of battery positions, back and forward areas." Albert was wounded
during this bombardment and was evacuated to the 3rd Australian Casualty Clearing Station at Esquelbecq but died from his wounds on 9 May 1918.
Albert was buried in Esquelbecq Military Cemetery, which had been opened in April 1918 on the arrival of the 2nd Canadian and 3rd Australian Casualty Clearing
Clearing Stations in the village.
Probate was granted to Frederick Cooper, Cashier, on 27 June 1918. Effects £584 2s.
COOPER – Died of wounds on the 9th of May, Second-Lieutenant Albert F Cooper, Middlesex Regiment, only son of Frederick and the late Mary E Cooper, of 108 Lansdowne Road, West Didsbury, aged 28 years.