Papers of Alfred Cecil Cooper, Bishop in Korea

Private letters from Alfred Cecil Cooper, Bishop in Korea (1931-1954), to his sister Rose, dated 1940-1955, diaries and ephemera including C.B.E. awarded to Bishop Cooper in 1956.

Alfred Cecil Cooper was born in 1882. He was ordained into the Anglican priesthood in 1907, and went out as a missionary priest to the Diocese of Korea in 1908. He was consecrated as Bishop of the Diocese in 1931. Following the liberation of Korea from the Japanese at the end of the Second World War, he returned to Korea and laboured to rebuild the Church. In 1950 he refused to leave the Diocese when the Communist forces occupied the Capital (Seoul), and he was taken into captivity in North Korea. He was forced to undertake the "Death March", when all Communist prisoners were marched north as United Nations troops pushed towards the Yalu River. Bishop Cooper spent two and a half years as a prisoner in North Korea, and was finally repatriated in April 1953. He returned to Korea in October 1953. He retired in 1954. He died on 17 Dec 1964.

Reference: Compiled from records of the Korean Mission.

Access to all registered readers

The provenance of this collection is unknown.

Please see online catalogue for further information

Permission to make any published use of any material from the collection must be sought in advance in writing from the University Archivist, Special Collections. Identification of copyright holders of unpublished material is often difficult. Special Collections will assist where possible with identifying copyright owners, but responsibility for ensuring copyright clearance rests with the user of the material.

These papers were acquired with the records of the Korean Mission which were deposited in 1987 and 1993 with the Selly Oak Colleges Library. It is likely that Bishop Cooper's papers had been deposited with the Korean Mission by Rose Cooper. The papers were then transferred to the Orchard Learning Resources Centre which was opened in 1997 following the merger of the Selly Oak Colleges Library and the Westhill College Library. In 2000, the custodianship of all archive collections held at the Orchard Learning Resources Centre was transferred to the University of Birmingham

Further deposits are not expected.

Cadbury Research Library: Special Collections, University of Birmingham holds the records of the Korean Mission (DA24); it also holds a collection of papers of Constance Trollope & Mark Napier Trollope, Third Bishop in Korea (DA60)