William Cooper was born in Mobberley, Cheshire, in 1894. Little information is available about his family life, but records suggest that his father was called John.

The first document that can be attributed to William is the 1911 census. This recorded him as living in Newton Hall Lane in Mobberley, with his widowed aunt and two cousins.

William’s trail goes cold again at this point, and can be picked up again when war broke out in the summer of 1914. He enlisted early on, joining the Cheshire Regiment. Attached to the 10th (Service) Battalion, his unit moved to Codford on the edge of Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, by September.

William Cooper… was taken suddenly ill while on parade on Sunday morning at 8.30, and dropping out of the lines, was carried to the Army Medical Corps tent in the Chitterne Road, but on arrival there death had already taken place.

Lieutenant Spraight, of the Army Medical Corps, stated having examined the body of deceased, want he came to the conclusion that death was due to asphyxia and an epileptic fit.

[Devizes and Wilts Advertiser: Thursday 1st October 1914]

Private William Cooper died on 27th September 1914: he was just 20 years old when he died. It seems that his family were unable to cover the cost of the funeral: he was laid to rest in the peaceful graveyard of St Mary’s Church, Codford, his headstone being erected by his comrades in the battalion.

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