Edward Joshua Cooper

Edward Joshua Cooper (May 1798 – 23 April 1863) was an Irish landowner, politician and astronomer from Markree Castle in County Sligo. He sat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1830 to 1841 and from 1857 to 1859, but is best known for his astronomy, and as the creator of Markree Observatory.

Cooper was the oldest son of Edward Synge Cooper MP (1762–1830), and his wife Anne Verelst, daughter of Bengal Governor Harry Verelst. He was educated at The Royal School in Armagh, at Eton, and then at Christ Church, Oxford.

His first marriage was to Sophia L'Estrange, daughter of Colonel Henry Peisley L'Estrange of Moystown, Cloghan, County Offaly. They had no children, but he had five daughters with his second wife Sarah Frances Wynne, daughter of Owen Wynne MP of Hazelwood House, Sligo.

Cooper left Oxford after two years without taking a degree. He spent most of the next decade travelling abroad, pursuing an interest in astronomy which is believed to have been nurtured by his mother, and was developed as a schoolboy in Armagh on visits to the Armagh Observatory. He travelled with portable instruments, which he used to calculate the latitudes and longitudes of the places visited and assess their potential for astronomical observation. He accumulated a mass of geographical data, which he never published.

His early travels took him to the Mediterranean and Egypt, then eastward to Turkey and Persia. In 1824–5 he crossed Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, as far as the North Cape. He concluded that Munich and Nice were the best adapted spots in Europe for astronomical observation.

When his father died in 1830, he succeeded him as manager of Markree Castle and estate on behalf of his father's deranged older brother Joshua Edward Cooper. When Joshua Edward died childless in 1837, he inherited Markree.

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