100 YEARS OLD

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21836, 13 December 1940, Page 6

100 YEARS OLD

Mr Thornhill Cooper A Varied Career By Telegraph—Press Association CHRISTCHURCH, December 12. A hundred years old to-day Mr Thornhill Cooper, of Christchurch, received the congratulations of insurance underwriters as a mark of appreciation for a man whose services were of greatest value to the profession, and established for Mr Cooper a world-wide reputation as a marine insurance adjuster. Grocer’s apprentice, railwayman, bank clerk, farmhand, sawmiller, toll-gate keeper, wine and spirit salesman, assay er, goldbuyer, photographer, sailor, insurance adjuster—all these occupations and more have rounded out Mr Cooper’s 100 years. Mr Cooper was bom at Doncaster, England, coming to New Zealand in 1863. Mr Cooper has crowded more adventure and incident into his life than would fall to the lot of half a dozen average individuals. Mr Cooper’s life story is mirrored in many books of delightful paintings and sketches which trace the activities of more than 80 years’ wandering up and down the world. His first sketch books tell of early days in Doncaster, where his father was a banker. Young Cooper first worked as a grocer’s assistant, but did not like the job, and became a railwayman. In 1860 he was in Melbourne, with the National Bank, but banking was too dull, and a year or two later he was off as a deck-hand for San Francisco. In the States he worked on farms and in lumber camps, and kept a toll-gate over the Guadeloupe River. Life On Goldfields When the Civil War broke out, Mr Cooper saw the possibilities of New Zealand, and arrived at Port Chalmers in the ship Lady Young in 1863, again serving before the mast. He joined the Bank of New Zealand, and saw much of the wild, care-free life of the Otago goldfields, and took a course at Otago University, which qualified him as an assayer. By 1866, his bank had transferred him to the West Coast diggings, where he had to show considerable courage, skill, and resource as one of the first gold buyers there. He narrowly escaped ambushes by the Burgess bushranging gang, and at one time had £40,000 worth of gold in his possession. With the excitement going out of his job with more settled times, banking began to pall, and Mr Cooper returned to his old love, the sea, this time as an insurance adjuster on marine risks. In this sphere he established a reputation which extended far from New Zealand. As a photographer in early Christchurch, Mr Cooper was patronised by the Governor of the colony, the Marquis of Normanby. His sketch books tell of journeyings in India, a trip round Cape Horn in a windjammer when the Icebergs were near enough to transfer to static, colours, and of a journey by rail across the Isthmus of Panama when the trip was to court yellow fever. Convicts hulks lying in Melbourne Harbour, troops leaving for the- Sudan from Sydney, and glimpses of early Christchurch and Dunedin are fascinating reminders of a crowded life. Still active, Mr Cooper was painting consistently up till a year or two ago, and still handles brush or pencil with skill. His motto, “Paint and be happy,” has applied all through his life, and is still true.