The Coopers of Swineshead

I have been working on some of the old documents I received from a contact in America. You may remember I had worked on the Smith family some time ago. This time I am concentrating on the ones relating to the Coopers of Swineshead Lodge. I believe this is now known as Swineshead House.

One of my documents deals with the purchase of land by Samuel Cooper and the date is 1820. It concerns some land that was allotted to Zachary Chambers at the time of the Enclosures, which he later sold to Stephen Carnall. When Stephen Carnell died his executors sold the land - 120 acres in Brand End - to Samuel Cooper, grazier. Samuel's address at this time was Swineshead Lodge.

There is also a document detailing a sale of land to Thomas Cooper, this time dated 1832. His address is also Swineshead Lodge. He was buying land from Ann Twidale, widow and her son John for £4000. it contained a farmhouse with barns, stables, waggon hovel and other outbuildings plus pasture land adjoining measuring 8 acres and 30 perches, which was bounded on the East by land of Trinity College Cambridge and on the North by land known as Mown Rakes. This land included a mill and water engine. He also purchased 6 acres in Swineshead Fen. This farmhouse was said to be 'now in the tenure of Thomas Cooper', so was he buying Swineshead Grange and had he previously only rented or leased the property? Or was it some other property altogether? This is a very large document and it rambles on a bit, going through previous ownership over and over again, making it four pages long - and very large one at that! It takes a bit of unravelling.

There is a third document relating to John Cooper, dated 1810, which I haven't yet worked on. However, I have been trying to sort out these three men, Thomas, John and Samuel, into some kind of relationship. To this end I checked out my National Burial Index but only seven entries for deaths in Swineshead came up. They all seem to be connected to Swineshead Lodge. Making a family tree is taking some time as the Coopers came from out of the county. Thomas Cooper, who died in 1844 and therefore only appears in the 1841 census, was the first to drop a clue by saying he was not born in the county. Further research suggests Nottinghamshire.

More tomorrow.................