Thomas Cooper

 Persecuted, but
not abandoned
(2 Corinthians 4:9)

Thomas Cooper Information Page

Our church is named after one for whom the above text is certainly true: Thomas Cooper – shoemaker, journalist, prisoner, author, agnostic, evangelist, lecturer and champion of the poor and oppressed! 

Thomas Cooper was born on 5 March 1805. England was at war with Napoleon’s France and, at home, desperate Luddite workers destroyed the machines which were forcing many of them out of work and towards starvation.

Thomas was illegitimate and his early life was one of poverty. Sometimes there were only potatoes to eat. His widowed mother struggled to have him educated, despite the need for any added income the boy could provide.  

At 15 he ran away to sea, but sickened by the brutality of the life, he was surprisingly released after only 9 days' service. 

He returned home and worked 13-hour days as a shoemaker, yet found time to educate himself in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, French and algebra. He learnt, by heart, seven Shakespeare plays and the first three books of Paradise Lost. He rose at 3 or 4am, studied, then worked until 8 or 9pm. It was an astonishing programme of self-education. Inevitably, he had a complete physical and emotional breakdown. 

Cooper took work as a teacher and journalist and then became a Chartist. He believed all men deserved the vote and was deeply moved by the poverty he saw in Leicester. Thomas began each meeting with a prayer. The poor, down-trodden masses were:
“... just as Jesus was, persecuted by bad men and wicked laws!” He also wrote Chartist hymns. 

His energy and ability as a public speaker enabled him to become a great leader of the Chartist cause and one impassioned speech led him to disaster. 

Thomas was arrested and tried for ‘seditious conspiracy’ after the strikes in the Potteries in 1842 and he was imprisoned. It was here he wrote his most famous work: The Purgatory of Suicides.   

His wife close to death, Thomas was gaoled in a foul Victorian prison in a righteous cause. He turned from God.  

Upon his release, he embarked on his great mission: to educate the working man. So famous a character, and so fiery a speaker, was sure to draw crowds. He lectured on history, literature and science. He spoke against religion, but never doubted the beauty of Christ’s character. With a lecture booked, he found himself physically and mentally unable to speak on his chosen subject. Henceforth, God was to be his subject matter! Thomas had returned to Christianity and would once again be its champion.

Life remained a struggle. Both he and his wife suffered ill health, yet his miraculous survival of a train crash assured him of God’s hand on his life.      

His life re-committed to Christ, he spent the rest of his life travelling across Britain delivering lectures and sermons. He preached against Darwinism and preached a simple Christian message.       

In 1868, his obituary appeared in many papers, and Thomas, still very much alive, enjoyed reading them!      

From the 1870s he settled in Lincoln and attended church here.  A new church was named after him in 1885. Thomas attended TCM Church until his death in 1892. He had few possessions at the time of his death, as money he was given, he gave away.     

The extraordinary and fiery Thomas Cooper (1805–1892): poor shoemaker and poet; revolutionary political activist and evangelist; convict and preacher.      

Why is our church named ‘Thomas Cooper Memorial Church’? Because this man deserves a memorial! Is there anyone, alive or dead, who better reflects the text: ‘Persecuted but not abandoned’?

Webpage text by Paul Halfyard, TCM Member, drummer, teacher, and sometime local historian.