The ancient town of Leicester (pronounced "Lester") has long been a center of Copson history. Today, there are 71 Copsons listed in the Leicester phone book -- most in Leicester itself, but many in surrounding towns and villages, including Quorn, Melton Mowbray, and Market Harbourough.
The Town is almost certainly pre-Roman in its origins, perhaps settled initially by the Belgic tribe known as the Coritanii. In the first century AD, the Romans drove a road, the Fosse Way, diagonally across England from Bath to Lincoln, fortifying each vulnerable point, including the crossing of the River Soar at Leicester. Remnants of Roman walls, mosaic floors, and villas can still be found in the Leicester area.
As the Roman empire decayed in the 5th century, the Leicester area was occupied by the Middle Angles, who were among the Anglo-Saxon immigrants from Germany. According to Jack Simmons, Leicester's historian and author of Leicester, Past and Present (Methuen, 1974), little is known of the Middle Angles, but they probably made a great contribution to their descendants by clearing the land of its forest.
In 977, the area fell to the Danish (Viking) conquest, and large-scale Danish settlement followed. According to Simmons, Scandinavian personal names persisted in the town for centuries to come -- a fact which may help to establish the theory of "Copsi's tun" as the origin of the name of nearby Copston/Copson. The Danes also left the ideas of majority rule and the sworn jury as part of their legacy.
Wool and cloth were the principal products of the town by the Middle Ages. Simmons reports that the drapers and wool merchants of Leicester had their own quarters at the Boston (England) fair of 1259. By the 17th century, the knitting of woolen stockings by hand was a major industry, and the introduction of the mechanical stocking frame in 1670 soon made Leicester the principal supplier of hosiery to England and the American colonies.
Independent thinking seems to have been characteristic of historic Leicester. Dissent, Puritanism, and non-conformity in religion were the rule, and the town was sacked by the King's army on May 30-31, 1645, although the King met final defeat at nearby Naseby just two weeks later. In the 19th century, Leicester became a center of resistance to compulsory smallpox vaccination. The women of Leicester were always prominent in the hosiery trade and probably had an unusual degree of economic independence.
Leicester, in contrast to neighboring Coventry, has been unfortunate in never having a Copson as mayor. But Thomas Copson was a prominent citizen in the late 18th century. A list of apprentices published by the City of Leicester shows that he was the son of Thomas Copson of Great Sheepy. He became a partner of John Dalby (who did serve as mayor) in a firm of "dyers and stocking-trimmers" and was a "chamberlain" in 1795.
Sean and Sylvia Copson, historians of the Copsons of Leicester and the surrounding area, have also recorded the 19th century Copsons working as weavers and elastic webbers, pawnbrokers, shoemakers, greengrocers, and beer retailers.
Elvin (Al) Copson of Brigantine, New Jersey, is one of the most active Copson historians at work today. Al's grandfather came to Durham, North Carolina, 80 or more years ago, and according to family legend, he was there to buy horses to be sent back to England.
This horse-buying legend certainly fits in with the history of Leicester, which was known for the high quality of its coach horses and drays sent to London from the 1600s. But the Leicester Races are probably of more immediate relevance to Al's family history. Racing became popular in Leicester in the 1700s, and the race track was moved to nearby Oadby (a Danish name) where it remains a major site of English racing.
When Al's father was six or seven (1912-1914), the family moved to Philadelphia, where the father left them. The four sons then had to go to work on nearby farms, but all of them later took to the boxing ring. Three became well-known in the 1920s and 1930s, and Al's father, fighting under the name of "Al Markey," fought seven world champions, including "Benny Bass." The press dubbed Al Markey as "The Blonde Viking, Wizard of Kensington." Kensington is the section of North Philadelphia where Rocky I was filmed. Al Markey won his first seven fights by knockouts. His boxing brothers were James Copson, who fought as "Jimmy Mack," and Charles Copson, known as "Young Chappy."
Al has been tracing his grandfather for some time and believes he may now have identified him as James Copson, buried in Chinchilla, Pennsylvania.
Amateur genealogists often read of the joys of discovering a list of births, deaths, and marriages in an old family Bible, but rarely do so. Kathleen Moore, of York, UK, however, is fortunate to have a list of her ancestors on the inside page of her Bible. According to a note, this list was copied from an original on October 6, 1893. The Chronicle reproduces this list as closely as possible to Kathleen's facsimile.
A Copson historian reports that a "cordwainer," like the first Joseph Copson, would have been a shoemaker. The name derives from Cordovan leather, originally the high-quality leather from Cordoba, Spain.
Leicester Past and Present, by Jack Simmons (v.2, p.6) contains a couple of sentences that could be very important to Copsons in Leicester and abroad. According to Simmons, "The deep depression that hit the Coventry ribbon trade about 1860 caused people there to look elsewhere for work. They are said to have found it in part in the elastic web manufacture of Leicester."
This same depression could help to explain why a number of Copsons, including at least one silkweaver, came to the United States in the following years, and why some of these were in the elastic webbing trade.
A descendant of an elastic webbing line, the late Raymond L. Copson, once came across a book with an unlikely title: "History and Romance of Elastic Webbing," (Clifford Richmond, Easthampton (Massachusetts) News Company, 1946). According to this book, William F. Copson brought elastic goring looms from Leicester, where he had worked for the firm of Harris and Parr, to Lowell Massachusetts, probably in the 1870s. Gorings seem to have been elastic panels used primarily in making ladies' skirts and dresses. Suspenders were another major product of the elastic webbing industry.
Readers shouldn't get the idea that Leicester industry was all hosiery and weaving. Boots and shoes were a very large business, and in the 19th century, engineering became prominent. Engineering of one sort or another is a major occupation for Copsons today, both in England and overseas.
Actually, Copsons are rarely found in literature. However, Death on a Back Bench Nadine Gordimer, the noted South African writer, refers to an obscure African affairs analyst named Roy Copson in her novel July's People. Chronicle editor Ray Copson has long feared that this analyst may be none other than himself.