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Author: harrietsnape
Surnames: Capper
Classification: queries
Message Board URL:
http://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.capper/27.30.1.3.1.2.1/mb.ashx
Message Board Post:
Hi Susan
Hi Tim
As you know, Captain Cawthorne Capper who is buried in Macao is an earlier Cawthorne
Capper than the original subject of this thread. That man, Cawthorne Capper (23 Jun 1891
- 11 Sep 1969), was Tim's and my Great Uncle Dick. I met him when I was a child and
have his WW1 letters to his parents.
All I know about Captain Cawthorne Capper (16 May 1813 - 14 Jan 1844) is that Tim's
and my great great grandfather Samuel James Capper (28 Apr 1825 - 12 Jan 1912) was one of
his many younger brothers. Samuel James Capper was a homeopathic chemist and an
entomologist and there's an entry for him in the Dictionary of Quaker Biography,
original copies of which are held at Haverford College and at Friends House Library,
London.
Tim's grandmother Joyce Bullen's notes about Samuel James Capper and two of his
brothers and about their father Jasper Capper (1787 - 1855) are racier than the Dictionary
entry. Here she is writing in 1983.
` Samuel James Capper . . was a bit of a card. He was of Quaker stock, his father was a
Silk Mercer, in Gracechurch Street, London, and he went bankrupt over the Chinese
upheavals I think, or maybe the Crimean War: anyway all Quaker-like he paid all debts: 20
shillings in the pound . . . and his boys just went out to earn their livings (one of them
became a Hoogli Pilot which was both skilled and adventurous and one was Uncle Occy who
was named Octavius because he was the 8th child: and Uncle Occy married one of the Fry
family & so got into chocolate - both Frys and Cadburys were Quaker firms . . . Well
(Samuel James Capper) was bitten with the idea of Homeopathy - a revulsion from the
blister & bleed school of medicine at the time and he walked from London to Manchester
to work for a homeopathic chemist there & learn the Trade, He did well and
eventually, with a young & like minded Thompson, founded & flourished by the firm
of "Thompson & Capper" homeopathic chemists manu!
facturing & retail. . . .
Samuel James Capper . . . had been quite a young man when `Origin of Species' was
published and was passionately interested in Variation - he collected Moths in quite a big
way - "Moth Men" were quite a feature of my childhood, they could be anyone or
no-one so long as they collected Moths, and were sure of hospitality at Huyton Park. The
collection was, at his death, sold to the British Museum, and when I was at Cheriton I
checked on this, to see if it was still there - I wrote to the B.M, who replied Yes; they
still had the Capper collection, but it was not in London, but at an urban site which was
used entirely for the study of Variaton: they told me just where it was, but I forget.
On stories about the name Cawthorne told by `old Quaker aunts' to Tim's and my
great grandmother Amy Elizabeth Capper nee Jaques, if as the Colonial Magazine and East
India Review reported at the time Captain Cawthorne Capper died "after a short
illness", then he wasn't killed by pirates and he did die a natural death!
Tim I'm aware of William Capper of Rugeley. Quite a lot of people seem to take an
interest in him, perhaps because the phrase `Copyholder of Rugeley' has a bit of a
ring to it. The pedigree for which you sent a link says `he worked as a Copyholder'.
I believe though, but only because I once looked it up, that `Copyholder' doesn't
describe a man's occupation but the basis on which he held his land. Copyhold, like
Freehold and Leasehold, was a form of tenure. Myself, I'm only really interested in
people whose letters and/or diaries I have or about whom other family members wrote down
stories.
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