Charles Purton Cooper

Charles Purton Cooper QC, FRS (1793–1873) was an English lawyer and antiquary.

He was educated at Wadham College, Oxford, where he was a contemporary of Richard Bethell, and in 1814 he attained a double first class in honours, and graduated B.A. on 7 Dec., and on 5 July 1817 M.A. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in Michaelmas term 1816.

After practising as an equity draughtsman, he was appointed a Queen's Counsel in 1837, and became queen's serjeant for the Duchy of Lancaster. In 1836 he became a bencher of Lincoln's Inn; he was treasurer in 1855, and master of the library in 1856.

His enthusiasm for the cause of legal reform attracted the attention of Henry Brougham, by whom he was introduced to the Holland House circle and the heads of the Whig party. Lord Brougham appointed him secretary of the second Record Commission, in which capacity he bought and printed so many books, that the Commission's debt exceeded the sum voted by parliament. Henry Vassall-Fox, 3rd Baron Holland recommended him for the post of Solicitor General when Robert Monsey Rolfe was appointed, in 1835.

Cooper enjoyed a leading practice in the court of Vice-chancellor James Lewis Knight-Bruce; but they had a public quarrel, and Cooper lost his reputation. He tried without success to obtain government assistance for a project for digesting all the existing law reports. He retired to Boulogne, and died of paralysis and bronchitis on 26 March 1873.

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