Thomas Cooper Biography | Poet

Thomas Cooper (March 20, 1805 – July 15, 1892) was a poet and one of the leading Chartists. He wrote poetry, notably the 944 stanzas of his prison-rhyme the Purgatory of Suicides (1845), novels and, in later life, religious texts. An autodidact shoemaker, preacher, schoolmaster and journalist before he became a Chartist in 1840, Cooper was a passionate, determined and fiery man.