Page:Two Sussex archaeologists, William Durrant Cooper and Mark Antony Lower.djvu/17

 joke upon his electioneering opponents, without counting its cost too nicely. In connection with Sir Henry Blackman, these two being the chief supporters of what was called the independent party in Lewes, he brought forward Mr., afterwards Sir James, Scarlett, and subsequently Lord Abinger, on the first occasion that eminent lawyer, then a flaming Whig, and afterwards a more flaming Tory, contested, unsuccessfully, the old parliamentary borough, which then had the privilege of returning two members. With no greater success Mr. Scarlett ventured on a second contest. On the first of these contests (1812) he lost his election by nine votes. On the second (1816) he was in a minority of nineteen.

After the 1812 contest Mr. William Cooper, incensed at the conduct of all the butchers of the town, who, like all the lawyers of the town, except himself, voted against his chosen candidate, hit upon the novel vengeance of opening an opposition butcher's shop in Saint Anne's, painting over it, in conspicuous letters, "," and under-sold the blue-aproned trade in their own commodities, at the rate of one penny per pound—a consideration in those dear days—until they capitulated, and, as the story goes, promised to support his candidate at the next election; a pact which, if entered into, can hardly have been adhered to, as we see above that Mr. Scarlett found at that next election the majority against him had increased from nine to nineteen. Possibly, Mr. William Cooper having died in 1813, the butchers aforesaid deemed themselves released by his death from the performance of their forced promise.

William Durrant Cooper took his first Christian name, from his great-uncle, the just-mentioned practical joker, who was his godfather; his second name, being, as already stated, his mother's maiden name. He received his education at the Grammar School, Lewes, whose head-master, for all the latter time of his stay there, was Dr. George Proctor, afterwards principal of Saint Elizabeth's College, Guernsey, and now the venerable Chaplain to the Fishmongers' Almshouses at Bray, near Maidenhead, Berks. While subject to Dr. Proctor's direction, this local