NINETY YEARS OLD

Hokitika Guardian, 15 December 1930, Page 2

NINETY YEARS OLD

MR THORNHILL COOPER-

LIFE OF WIDE VARIETY.

(Christchurch Press, Dec. 13.)

The doyen of insurance men in New Zealand—Mr Thornhill Cooper, of Christchurch—reached the age of 90 years yesterday and received messages of congratulation from many friends. Tall in figure, Mr Cooper is still in excellent health and continues with liis work as insurance adjuster—a calling which he bad pursued for very many years. Although the greater part of his life has been taken up with world wandering coupled with the more serious side of business affairs, Mr Cooper is a devotee of his particular hobby—-*• water colours—and as recently as a fortnight ago he reproduced an excellent scene of a part of Delhi, India. EARLY LIFE. During his busy office hours of Friday Mr Cooper granted ati interview to a representative of The Press. He gave a brief description of his life, full of adventure in various parts of the world, and he stated, by the way, that business conduct was, in these modern times, very different from what it used to be when a man’s word was most undoubtedly his bond, - Mr Cooper was born at Doncaster, Yorkshire, In 1840. He was educated at various schools, “some good ana others very much not,” ns he put it, and then spent 'a year In a grocery •shop. Later he, joined the Great Northern Railway and found the "controllers very fine .people from the directors downwards. Aftier two years with the company he went to Australia at the age of 19 and joined the National. Bank of Australasia, at a salary of .£3 a .week. Feeling- the urge for further travelling, he went back to -England in a year’s time to a- cotton warehouse in Manchester. This did not please Mr Copper after the colonies.: and/ / the wanderlust gripping him again, be sailed for British Columbia m 1862'. ' ’

■ , LURE OF THE COLONIES. ■ Hearing doleful tales, however, he stopped at San, Francisco, where he put in a ; year at'all. kinds of work, farming, and sawmilling. Then be saw a ship from, the islands bound for New Zealand.;* He 4 signed'up .as an ordinary seaman and was treated by the captain as a ; personal friend, “much to the disgust /of, the crew,” said Mr Cooper, Arriving' at Dunedin, he joined the Bank of New Zealand in 1863 and stayed there until 1865. He acted as ageiit to VarioUs gbldfields and went td; thfe Wftst Coast, in iB6O as goldbuyer and assayeP. Later lie wa« offered- a' position iff Mailchepfoib He returned to TSuglaiid,', but 'again the lure of the .colonies wfls too. strong, and be name back, vin Melbourne, to join the Union Bank, After a short spell he rejoined theßank of New Zealand, remaining there until 1874.

Then Mr Cooper came to New Zealand and started businc'-s in Christchurch as a photographer. Tn 1880 he joined Thomas Ledbetter in Wellington as marine average adjuster. He became an associate of the London Association of Average** in Great Britain and returned to Chri'tchurch ir. .1883. “I commenced work in that capacity fo Cfoigtchiif-ch in 1883, .and, as you see I am still on the job,” said Mr‘Cooper. .' ./ • ~./;' / ' , :■/ •;

; HOBBY IS , WATER COLOURS: • ; , . While the position of insurance ad-, juster ■ entails tinuch. highly * intricate . work, /Mr Ccoper. stills finds time to pursue and develop/.his hobby of water colour painting, and lie showed the reporter many of his productions. They embrace scenes of all parts of the world. Asked ..if he has placed his works on the market, Mr Ccoper said with, a smile, ‘Certainly, one does not paint altogether for amusement.” “Nowadays there is little work to be done in the marine line,” said Mi Cooper, “All the business is sent to London. You ask me why I am so old and yet so fit.. Well; I wrenched my back a couple of years ago, and that accounts for my stoop. Otherwise lam in very good condition. The man with the ‘paunch’ will never make old bones. 1 have always observed the rule of temperance in everything, and to that alone I ascribe my long health and fitness.”

Mr Thornhill Cooper was the first Bank Manager at Stafford. Reference is made above to his sketches. In the Hokitika Museum there are several valued sketches by Mr Cooper of early West Coast- scenes at Stafford and elsewhere. In later years Mr Cooper often visited Hokitika in connection with strandings and marine insurance adjustments.