Captain Herbert Stanley Cooper (d. 1858)
/Captain Herbert Stanley Cooper, 83rd Regt., is commemorated by a memorial in the North Quire Aisle.
To the memory of Herbert Stanley Cooper, Captain in the 83rd. Regiment, who died at Nusseerabad in the East Indies, where he was on service with his Regiment on the 13th July 1858.
His brother officers who knew his worth and deplore his loss have raised this tablet as a token of their affectionate remembrance of their departed friend.
Captain Herbert Stanley Cooper was born in Brighton on 3rd May 1827 and appointed an Ensign in the 83rd Foot on 19th March 1847 with purchase. He was promoted Lieutenant on 22nd December 1848 without purchase, and promoted Captain with purchase on 5th. March 1858. The 83rd Regiment became the 1st Battalion of the Royal Ulster Rifles and is now incorporated in the Royal Irish Rangers (27th (Inniskiliing) 83rd, and 87th).
The Regiment served in the North Western Provices during the Indian Mutiny of 1857/8. Nusseerabad was the scene of one of the many mutinies which broke out in the Bengal Army in 1857. At this time India was frequently referred to as 'The East Indies'.
Scenes from the later stages of the Indian Mutiny in which Captain Cooper lost his life, as did Captain Samuel Read
He died at Nusseerabad on 13th.July 1858.* He qualified in French, Italian and Hindustani. He was entitled to the Indian Mutiny Medal.
*The Regimental history states that during the pursuit of Tantia Topi (one of the leaders of the Indian Mutiny), General Roberts employed, among others, the 83rd.Regiment. During the month of July the weather was extremely hot, and several men of the Regiment died of sunstroke.
The 83rd. (County of Dublin) Regiment was stationed in Chatham in 1865, and presumably this was the time when the memorials were placed in Rochester Cathedral.
From the notebooks ‘The Naval and Military Memorials of Rochester Cathedral’ (1979)
by Roy Trett, OBE, TD,
Rochester Cathedral Chapter Library
The medieval tombs of the Presbytery and Quire Transept have had a tortured history which many effigies apparently moved and several defaced along with the medieval memorials and brasses over the Early Modern period.
Rochester Cathedral features an exceptionally large collection of Colonial-era military memorials and artefacts. This series has begun to highlight the stories behind these collections and their place in our global heritage.
