George Cooper

George Cooper was Thomas Herbert's first customer when he set up in business in London's East End in 1842.  George had been churchwarden of St George in the East in 1838, a position Thomas himself held in 1866/1867.

 

George Cooper's shop was at 9 Nassau Place, Commercial Road, shown on this Map of London 1868 by Edward Weller, and he appears in trade directories of the time, the entry on the right taken from the Post Office London Directory of 1852.

 

In Thomas Herbert's son George's own words, written c1923, ‘My father …..started on his own account at his father-in-law's (Benjamin Brinkhurst) house at Catherine Street (later renamed Anthony Street) and worked in a shed in the back garden and began to have a few customers whose scales and weighing machines he would attend to yearly.  His first regular customer being a Mr Cooper, butchers, a few doors down from Cannon St Road, Commercial Road and he was always very proud in mentioning the fact that for years my mother (Sarah Herbert née Brinkhurst) used to buy her meat there.'