Ralph Cooper, a nephew of D Maurus Cooper, was born at Brownedge 15 August 1819 and came to Ampleforth in 1828. He was clothed in 1835 and professed 5 March 1836. He received his Orders as follows:- Minor Orders 31 December 1837; Subdiaconate 1 January 1838; Diaconate 31 December 1839; Priesthood in September of 1844. From 1839 to the summer of 1844 he was Prefect of the school.
He was sent on the Mission in 1845 and was an assistant at St Mary's Liverpool, until the year 1848, when he became Incumbent of St Anne's. In July of 1850 he was elected Prior of Ampleforth.
Fr Cooper became Prior at a fortunate moment for Ampleforth. The financial stringency caused by the Prior Park episode had been overcome; the House had regained its prosperity; there was needed just such a man of vigour and enterprise - not to say, audacity - to translate into fact the buoyant hopes of a new era. It was fortunate also for Ampleforth that Prior Cooper presently took to himself, in the person of D Bede Prest, a Procurator of industry and capacity, with a spirit of enterprise that equalled his own. These two men were to do great things for Ampleforth.
Already, in 1851, we find Prior Cooper engaged upon a minor building enterprise, viz the enlargement of the school playroom and its contiguous buildings. And it is very characteristic of his impetuous and sanguine temperament, that he embarked upon this enterprise without the due permission of President Molyneux and that the work cost a good deal more than he expected. This matter did not pre-dispose Dr Molyneux in the Prior's favour, and the Doctor was aggrieved also because Ampleforth had dismissed as unsuitable a church student of his [Peter Dromgoole, subsequently of Douay]. So it became a matter of doubt whether the President would attend the Ampleforth Jubilee celebrations of 1852, and still more doubtful what reception he would give to the Prior's project of building a new church. However, a conciliatory letter from the Prior and Council appeased the President; he attended the Jubilee, celebrated with much enthusiasm on 12 October 1852; and he studied the plans which had been already prepared for the proposed new church. Fortunately for this project, the Swale bequest of £1000 came to hand at this juncture, to provide the nucleus of a Building Fund. The Prior and Council, 14 October 1852, made formal petition to the President that they should be allowed to commence building operations 'as soon as the Building Fund shall amount to the sum required by the contractors for the completion of the edifice'. The President gave the consent asked of him upon these terms, 18 October 1852. [Note. See the documents in the Council Book p136-9. For other items in this paragraph, see the letters in MS 239 Nos 22 and 50 and MS 240 Nos 47 and 47a]
But it was to be some time yet before the Church could be begun, and Prior Cooper was evidently impatient at the delay. However, he could not overcome the financial prudence of the President or the objections of that very correct financier, and Definitor, Fr Anselm Cockshoot. We can follow the debate - which was not without its tense and even acrimonious moments - in the pages of the Council Book for the years 1853-5 and in such letters as No 54 of MS 239. The way was opened towards final success when Prior Cooper - who had hitherto been his own Procurator - appointed Br Bede Prest to that post, 1854, in whose capable hands the Building Fund at last acquired adequate proportions. When permission to commence building was at last given, 7 March 1855, it came, not from Dr Molyneux, but from his successor, President Burchall [Council Book p160-1]
Abbot Prest tells us in is ' Old Recollections' [Ampleforth Journal Vol 8 p190-1] that some preparations for the work were made in the autumn of 1854 - perhaps the opening of the hill-side quarry, and arrangements for the conveyance of the stone to the site - and that 'more active operations were carried on in 1855 and 1856, and early in 1857 the church was completed'. During the building, in February of 1856, a violent storm damaged the unfinished roof, and there is a letter of Fr Allanson's offering the Prior his sympathy in this misadventure [MS 263 No 34] There was a private opening of the church in the Spring of 1857, and a solemn opening, attended by many high dignitaries and a numerous concourse of clergy and laity, on the Exhibition Day of that year, July 15th.
The erection of the church necessitated some further, subsidiary buildings, such as sacristy, statio, etc, Abbot Prest gives a full account of these items in the 'Old Recollections' already cited and the reader is referred to that source. He will find there also an account of the furnishing of the church, a business spread over many years.
The Church had scarcely been finished when Prior Cooper's thoughts turned to the development of the school buildings. And this enterprise also rendered possible by a financial windfall which arrived at the correct juncture. This was the substantial patrimony £6000 of Br Jerome Watmough, freely renounced by him at his profession in 1857 Dec 23. With this money in hand, Prior Cooper and his Council set about getting architect's plans and estimates for the New College. The Council Book records that Br Jerome Watmough's money was on 13 April 1859 assigned to 'the erection of a New College as soon as possible, according to plans submitted by Joseph Hansom, Architect, with the permission of the Very Rev President and Regimen' [p192] Unfortunately for the comfort of the Prior the work, 1859-61, developed in extent under his hands and the hands of his capable Procurator, and unexpected difficulties were encountered, with the consequence that the ultimate cost was double the amount for which permission had been obtained [see financial details in Ampleforth Finances, which survey may be consulted with advantage for the whole of Prior Cooper's period]. So, at the General Chapter of 1862, President Burchall took occasion to animadvert severely on the Prior's conduct of the business, especially in regard of the unconstitutional expenditure. Prior Cooper expressed his regret and the Chapter agreed that the matter should not stand in the way of his re-election.
He was re-elected in this Chapter; but he was no longer in good health and he resigned the priorship in January of 1863. [See MS 244 Nos 125, 130, 131, 133, 136, 137] After a short rest with Fr Lowe at Morpeth, he resumed missionary work, as follows:- St Peter's Liverpool 1863; St Augustine's Liverpool 1864; Clayton Green 1875 at which last place he died. He was made Cathedral Prior of Worcester in 1870.
Prior Cooper's material achievement at Ampleforth is sufficient evidence of the courage and vigour with which he administered his office. If his courage passed at times into audacity, yet his work proved wholly beneficial for the House and led directly to a considerable increase in the numbers both of school and community. Physically Prior Cooper was himself built on a generous scale and is said at his prime to have weighed twenty stones. He had an imposing presence and a sonorous voice, and did not lack musical gifts. It is hardly necessary to add anything in praise of his work for Ampleforth; yet the reader may be referred, for further appreciation of that work to Fr Cuthbert Almond's History of Ampleforth Abbey [especially p348-9] His work is now overshadowed by great subsequent developments; but in his own day and for half a century afterwards it would have sufficed to say, as of Wren in St Paul's: Si monumentum requiris, circumspice.
The writer offers an apology to any readers the notes may have for the trivial, rambling, gossiping character of most of what he has written. There is little that is in keeping with the serious history in Ampleforth and its Origins. He has, however, been told by one of the contributors to the book that the famous chronicles of Matthew Paris consist to a large extent of monastic gossip. Most of the monks named, including the first two, the writer saw 'in the flesh'; some he knew more or less well, but the greater part of his information has been gathered from the talk of senior fathers, amplified from the manuscript biography of each monk kept in the monastery archives. The first series of these, up to 1850, is the work of the chief annalist of the English Benedictines, Abbot Allanson; the second series from 1850 to 1895 was compiled by Fr Hilary Willson; in 1895 The Ampleforth Journal began to appear. It may be well to remind readers that Downside, Ampleforth and Douai were only Priories until 1899; also that from 1859 to 1919 the novices of the monasteries were trained and made their first studies not in their own house but at Belmont - not then an independent monastery, but common to the three others, and staffed by them.
The dates are the year of birth, of arrival at Ampleforth, of receiving the Habit, and of death. The order of the names is not that of age but of reception of the Habit.
Dom Ralph Maurus CooperHe was born at Brownedge on the feast of the Assumption, and was a nephew of Dom Ralph Maurus Cooper, a Laurentian and a generous benefactor of the house who gave the bridge over the road, the chiming clock in the tower (bereft for years of its tune at the Angelus hours) and the statue of St Benedict in front of the Old House, not to mention considerable sums of money. Brownedge owes its fine peal of bells to him.
The second Ralph Cooper, destined to be one of Ampleforth's great builders came here at the age of nine. In 1840 or 1841, though not yet a priest, he was made Prefect. From 1845 to 1848 he was an assistant at St Mary's, the mother church of Liverpool, and then he was appointed to St Anne's, with Fr Sutton as his assistant. Two years later at the early age of 31 he was elected Prior of Ampleforth, and his term of office nearly thirteen years, was the longest in the first century of our life in England. In his speech last Easter at the great meeting of Old Boys', Fr Abbot said of Prior Cooper. 'He was a big man in every way', and indeed he was. Nothing daunted by all the difficulties which followed on the disastrous event of 1830, the new Prior set about some building almost at once. This was the enlargement of the boys' playroom and washing place which stood to the east of the second door on to the stone terrace. [The illustrations at pp. 279, 284, 338 of The History of Ampleforth Abbey are some guide to the progress of our early buildings.] The cost of this improvement, something over £600, seems a trifle now, but the Prior's Superiors were experienced, wary men, and unfortunately the youthful ardour and inexperience of the Prior led him to overlook some of the permissions and formalities required by constitutional law. When these mistakes bad been smoothed away by suitable amends the Prior was ready to face the difficulties he would meet with in achieving his main ambition, to build a church more worthy than the old chapel of that Opus Dei, the first duty of monks. The story of how this was accomplished is very fully told in the long biography of Fr Cooper. In 1853 or perhaps 1854, he wisely ceased to be his own Procurator and appointed Br Bede Prest, though he was not a priest till 1856. This appointment proved to be of great value to the Prior and to Ampleforth. Br Bede soon showed marked ability and business capacity, and he remained Procurator till 1866 when he was elected Prior.
With this helper at his side the Prior set about preparations for church-building. The two chief critics of his projects were monks and staunch lovers of Ampleforth, Dr Alban Molyneux, builder in 1823 of St Alban's, Warrington, President General 1850-54, and Fr Anselm Cockshoot, one of the President's councillors, and himself a former Prior, 1838-46. The long discussions, carried on mostly by correspondence, between the cautious elders and the younger men in the monastery, at last ended happily. One serious accident happened during the building of the church wbich won sympathy for the Prior. In February 1856, when the walls were up and the principals of the roof fixed, a violent gale during the night wrecked the unfinished roof. In his old age Fr Gregory Brierley told the writer of his extreme alarm at the terrific crash which woke him - he was a Junior sleeping in one of the rooms now occupied by Sixth Form boys of St Oswald's. The wind lifted the timber work and dashed it down in front of the Old House. Fortunately the stone work suffered but little, and the tracery of the windows escaped injury. In the spring of 1857 the church was ready for use, though the stone rood screen and the screens with the Stations, and some of the side altars were not completed till later. The church was the joint work of the brothers Joseph and Charles Hansom, the latter designing the structure, the former the internal scheme. The opening was fixed for the Exhibition Day, July 15th, and was attended by three Bishops, the President with the two Provincials, the Priors of Downside and Douai, and sixty monks. Where did they all sleep? The President in 1857 was Father Placid Burchall, a prominent monk of Douai, who had been its Prior for thirteen years. His term of office as president, 1854 to 1883, is by far the longest of any President since the restoration of the Congregation in 1619. He was Abbot of Westminster, and as President was summoned to the Vatican Council in 1870. He had the misfortune to lose the ring of the pre-Reformation Abbots of Westminster, or perhaps of Abbot Feckenham. It was stolen as he drove to St Peter's with his hand on the window of the carriage. His frequent re-election to the Presidency and the stories that were handed down about him are a sign of the regard in which he was held.
As soon as Prior Cooper's chief desire had been realized he was able to devote the energy of his procurator and himself to the extension of the School, the clock-tower wing or 'New College'. This building, 'still pleasing to Victorian eyes', as Fr Abbot said at Easter, is the work of Joseph Hansom. It was opened on All Monks 1861, with another large gathering. It is interesting here to recall the verdict of Sir Giles Gilbert-Scott on our earlier buildings. At his first visit in 1919 for consultation about the Abbey church he had been asked to design, the writer took him round in the short time available. Of the theatre he said 'It is rather like a Nonconformist Chapel'; the Georgian house, 'quite good of its kind'; the Junior House, 'very excellently planned, but architecturally bad'. He could not approve of the 'New College' or the Monastery, disliking for one thing the rockfaced masonry and the 'mustardy' colour of the local stone. As at the end we crossed the Square he looked over at the Ball-place and said, 'You know of all your buildings, I like that the best'.
Early in 1863 Prior Cooper resigned. His health was suffering, and a pressing trouble was the criticism and censure be incurred for what some thought his reckless overbuilding. During his last visit here in 1914 Bishop Hedley talked of his early days and of Prior Cooper. The General Chapter of 1862 was at Ampleforth and the Prior's action was much criticized and blamed. The Bishop said that, after this trial and the strain of his years in office, Fr Cooper was never the same man. He felt keenly the disapproval of those whom he revered. Another thing that no doubt tried him was the loss of Fr Hedley. A few weeks after his Ordination in 1862, he was sent to teach at Belmont. The Prior knew the value of the subject he was losing and had already begun to give him his confidence.
After his resignation, Fr Cooper returned to Liverpool and for several years was in charge of St Augustine's, Great Howard Street. The last two years of his life were spent in a country parish, Clayton Green, a neighbour of his native parish.
No account of him would be quite complete without some mention of his great size. He was tall and weighed twenty stone. In his last years Lewis's was beginning business in Liverpool and advertised trousers made to order for 10s. Fr Cooper asked to be measured. The tailor fetched the manager, who agreed after some hesitation, but asked that be might keep the trousers for a few days when made. Fr Cooper was quite willing, and the trousers, filled with straw, were put in the window with a card - 'Made for the Revd Mr Cooper of Great Howard St'. He went once to hear some christie-minstrels. One of them went down the scale to a very low note, and from the back of the big room, Fr Cooper sang a lower. The manager ran round to engage him - at his own figure.
He died at Clayton Green in 1877, a brave old man who will not be forgotten at Ampleforth.
Ralph Wilfrid COOPER 30 January 1877 1819 15 Aug Born 1836 Clothed 1837 Professed 1844 Priest 1845 St Mary's Liverpool 1848 St Anne's Liverpool 1863 St Peter's Liverpool 1864 St Augustine's Liverpool 1875 Clayton Green 1877 30 Jan died