Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry

Chartist, poet, novelist, and religious lecturer. Father was a dyer, and Thomas was born illegitimately. Worked as a shoemaker and then a schoolmaster, until turning to journalism. Known as Cooper the Chartist, he was arrested for involvement in Chartist riots in Leicester in 1842 and received a 2-year prison sentence in 1843. During his sentence he wrote The Purgatory of Suicides (1845). On his release he moved to London and embraced radical religious views as a lecturer and writer. Biographical information: ODNB , Lohrli 237. (AC)