James Cooper was Samuel and Elizabeth’s 8th child and 5th son. If you’ve been keeping track you will be thinking I can’t count. There were however two other sons born in the 6 years between Elizabeth and James.
William born in early August 1833, baptised 11 August and buried aged 5 weeks on 17 September. Nine months later in June 1834 they welcomed another son who they also named William. He was baptised 3 August 1834 but also sadly died and was buried on 8 February 1837 aged 2 years 8 months.
James was baptised on 10 April 1837. It is possible he was born before William died and so avoided becoming the 3rd William or maybe his parents decided that two Williams was enough. James' birth was just 5 months before civil registration began in England.
James was 5 when the family emigrated to New Zealand. Not a lot is known of his early life in Wellington. Even his adult life has been a bit of a mystery, but a DNA match has changed some of that.
I was sceptical at first since he seems to have acquired an additional christian name in adulthood. But there are too many coincidences, and DNA in the right range to be a 3rd cousin to Dad sharing the same great grandparent couple.
I have done a lot of
investigating, building trees, chopping off wrong branches over the last year
or so and I’m pretty confident now. I found James’ obituary in the Southland
Times. This mentioned that he had arrived in Wellington with his brothers
from Somerset in 1840. No mention of his parents who we know also came, and the
year was out by one. It also mentioned he and one of his brothers had gone to
the Australian goldfields in the 1850s which seemed to tie in with the
suggestion that Thomas had gone to Australia too.
The obituary suggests that James returned to Wellington in 1861 and a year later moved south to Invercargill. He set about establishing a horticultural business there, importing seeds and plants. On 18 June 1864 he married Harriet Ware in Hobart, Tasmania. Harriet was born in Hobart and was 22 when they married. James (with his additional name Wade) was described as a merchant and a fruiterer & seedsman of Tay Street in Invercargill.
At the time of his marriage James’ business in Invercargill was situated in Lowther Arcade facing on to Tay Street. The arcade ran through to Esk Street. In 1869 his shop had moved to Dee Street adjacent to the Prince of Wales Hotel and later to the Athenaeum Building on Dee Street which also housed the library and eventually the museum. In addition to his store front he established Waikiwi Nursery on land he had acquired soon after his arrival in the area. It comprised thirteen acres and was situated on either side of the North Road at Waikiwi. James’ obituary describes how he transformed the land planting flowers, shrubs and trees. Numerous business advertisements appear in newspapers available at PapersPast.
James and Harriett had 10 children in the next 18 years and evidently travelled back and forth to Tasmania as one daughter was born in Hobart in 1877. By the time of James’ death in 1911 they had 27 grandchildren. Eight of their children were girls so that gets a bit tricky to follow when names change at marriage.
In 1888 he sold the nursery and his store to James Lennie. James was a Scot who had trained in the nursery business after leaving school and had been employed at Arden Capell Castle (the seat of the Duchess of Argyll) and at the Edinburgh Botanical Gardens among other appointments before travelling to Ireland. He had arrived in New Zealand at Bluff in 1862, At first he was employed by local gentlemen seemingly offering landscaping advice and had three sons who were also involved in his business. I imagine our James sold with a heavy heart; his two sons possibly not being prepared to take over the business. After tracking them on electoral rolls it seems they both became butchers instead.
James along with James Morton were instrumental in the establishment of the Southland Horticultural Society and James was the first President.
I recently purchased his death certificate which confirmed that his father was Samuel, a tailor. So it certainly does seem that James Wade Cooper is our James Cooper.
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