The Coopers of Coopers Hill, Queen's county
Back to The Bowles of Ballickmoyler See also The Coopers of Coopers Hill Family Tree and The Cooper Hill Demesne I believe that this predominantly Quaker line of the Cooper family was closely related to a Cooper Line of Carlow and Dublin who were very much leaders of the Anglo-Irish establishment. See more on that connection at The Early History of the Coopers in Carlow. For more details on the deed memorials referenced on this and the above two pages see The Coopers of co. Carlow, Queens county and Dublin Deed MemorialsThe earliest references that I know of for the Carlow branch of the Cooper family are found in the Newgarden Monthly Meeting books maintained at the Friends (i.e. Quakers) Historical Library in Dublin. Thomas Cooper of Newtown, co. Carlow was a member of the Carlow Meeting and is mentioned in the meeting's Sufferings as having had produce from his land seized by tithemongers as early as 1697. See The Early History of the Coopers in Carlow for more on those events.
Thomas was buried at the Friends cemetery at Newgarden, co. Carlow in 1714. His eldest son, William, had died the year before so his son Edward inherited the property at Newtown. Edward is also mentioned at Newtown, co. Carlow in John Watson's will of January 1709. text
Extract
from the Newgarden Friend's Family Register as provided by Dr Peter J.
F. Coutts and published on this site with the permission of the Friends
Historical Library in Dublin the holders of the Copyright.
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In 1714 Edward Cooper, also a prominent member of the Carlow Meeting, acquired the entire townland of Ballickmoyler, along with the neighbouring townlands of Sragh (now called Coopers Hill townland) and Cudagh (now Cloydagh) along with the predominately Roman Catholic tenants already on the land. As was common with other Protestant landowners of that time, who generally saw the traditional Irish farming methods as inefficient, one of his priorities would have been to improve the land’s production and he looked for other Protestant, or in Cooper’s case Protestant and Quaker, sub-tenants to help him apply more modern (i.e. English) farming techniques. Sometime between 1726 and 1745 Cooper leased 60 acres of Ballickmoyler to my ancestor John Bowles. In 1750 his son John Jr signed a lease on 60 acres of Ballickmoyler which had previously been held by his parents. See The Bowles of Ballickmoyler Other Protestant who leased land there sometime before 1750 included John Murray, the town’s blacksmith, a William Walsh and John Furney the miller. We know more about the Taylor family who were one of Cooper’s earliest Protestant sub-tenants. In 1725 Cooper brought a fellow Quaker, Adam Taylor, and his family from Wexford to Ballickmoyler, initially as a free tenant, but giving him a lease on 60 acres there in 1737. The Bowles lease in 1750 identifies their 60 acres as immediately adjacent to the Taylor family’s 60 acres of Ballickmoyler. See The Taylors of Ballickmoyler more is under construction