Week 65: My ancestor was a cooper

[Jill on the A272]

Week 65: My ancestor was a cooper

This is an opportunity to showcase a cooper from your family tree, you might want to offer a short biography and speak about their work eg
Name
Birth location/date
Family background
Where you've found them on the census
Their workplace/employer
Any tips on researching this occupation?

Trades and Occupations - Family Tree Forum

[Next week: Ropemaker]

[Jill on the A272]

My husband is descended from cooper Thomas Bonus of Horsham (1637-1707), his 10x great grandfather. Thomas left a will which I have transcribed, he left the sum of one shilling to various family members which has proved to be very useful for working out family relationships, but his messuage tenement garden orchard and backside in South Street Horsham (part of which is now know as the Causeway) went to his widow Sarah.

There is also a fascinating inventory which I have also transcribed, these are the coopering items:
"belonging to the shop Four Thousand
four hundred of Hoopes 22 : 00 : 00
Eight Hundred of Vessels 14 : 00 : 00
In Wood & Cooper timber & working toolls 10 : 00 : 00
In Coopers ware Ready made 06 : 00 : 00"

I can also trace this property forward through the will and inventory of his widow and a property dispute on the death of her granddaughter and husband in 1747, it's passing on to their bachelor son and his leaving it to his maternal spinster cousin in 1796, it turns out to be the Chantry House in the Causeway, Horsham, though the building there post-dates Thomas's time, but it is the same site named as being by the church gates.

[Jill on the A272]

My great uncle's father in law James Bennett worked for a cooper, he was a hoop maker. He was born in Warnham, Sussex in 1865 and he and his wife Mary Elizabeth with their two little daughter moved from Warnham to Tonbridge, Kent where they had twins, then to the Mayfield area in Sussex around 1891 and finally to Edenbridge in Kent where they lived at Sunnyside, he was still working as a hoop maker on the 1921 census. I think he died in 1928 in the Guildford area, he had a son who lived there. I have postcards to and from the Bennetts where he gets a mention.