This news article appeared in the Norwich Mercury 200 years ago this week, although it had evidently taken them some time to hear of the news.
“In August last, on board the Honourable Company’s ship, Vansittart, on his passage from Bombay to China, John Hammont Cooper, aged 17, youngest son of T. H. Cooper, Esq. late of North Walsham, most sincerely lamented by his family and friends.”
In situations like this, I find it intriguing what a young man from the North Walsham area would have been doing travelling from Bombay to China at this time.
The Vansittart was a merchant ship owned by the British East India Company and at the time, although for not much longer, they had a monopoly in terms of their UK trade with India and China. The ship had launched in 1813 and John Hammont Cooper went on its seventh voyage.
The ship left Downs (a shipping area of the North Sea) on 9 January 1825, bound for the Cape, Bombay, and China. The ship reached the Cape on 13 March, and Bombay on 31 May. It left Bombay on 11 August, and arrived at Whampoa, Hong Kong, on 1 October 1825. That was the section of the journey that Cooper didn’t complete.
John Hammont Cooper had been born on 24 December 1807 and was baptised on the following day which was quite festive. He was the son of Thomas Hammont Cooper and Mary Vernon. The family don’t appear to have been hugely wealthy, although they did own some land in North Walsham.
Thomas Hammont Cooper was a Captain-Lieutenant in the Norfolk Militia Western Regiment, a rank now abolished and this was more of a Dad’s Army type set-up in case the French invaded North Norfolk. However, Thomas wrote two books on infantry and military work, so he must have had some military knowledge.
One thing I’ve never much thought about, as this doesn’t impact on my daily life, is how many people would be on one of these ships. It seems that they might have a crew of 100 people and would take 50 or so passengers, although the numbers varied widely. Unfortunately, the crew and passenger lists aren’t available for this journey, so it’s not clear to me whether Cooper was a passenger on some commercial trade, whether he was crew or whether he was some sort of military presence on board.
But, either way, this must have been some considerable adventure…..