Duncan Elphinstone Cooper (c. 1813 – 22 November 1904) was an Indian-born Australian

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

er who played for

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...

. He was born in Bengal, India and died in

Dross Dross is a mass of solid impurities floating on a molten metal or dispersed in the metal, such as in wrought iron. It forms on the surface of low- melting-point metals such as tin, lead, zinc or aluminium or alloys by oxidation of the metal. Fo ...

. He was the son of Major General George Cooper (1777–1847) and his first wife Jane née Munn (1778–1823). In 1841 Cooper travelled from London to Australia with George and Harry Thompson, brothers who were to become his partners as squatters and sheep farmers near Fiery Creek, Raglan. In his spare time Duncan painted landscapes of the surrounding area which were later gathered together and published as ''The Challicum Sketch Book''. In 1849 he occupied the Warrapinjoe run, adjacent to the Thomson brothers' run, with an extent of 14,052 acres. Cooper made a single first-class appearance for the Victorian cricket team, during the 1850–51 season, against

Tasmania Tasmania (; palawa kani: ''Lutruwita'') is an island States and territories of Australia, state of Australia. It is located to the south of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland, and is separated from it by the Bass Strait. The sta ...

. This match was the first ever first-class cricket match in Australia. Cooper opened the batting, and thus faced the first ball in Australian first-class cricket. He scored four runs in the first innings, and a

duck Duck is the common name for numerous species of waterfowl in the family (biology), family Anatidae. Ducks are generally smaller and shorter-necked than swans and goose, geese, which are members of the same family. Divided among several subfam ...

in the second. In 1854 Cooper left Australia and returned to London. In 1875 he presented 26 volumes of the work of the Bewick brothers to the

Melbourne Public Library State Library Victoria (SLV) is the state library of Victoria, Australia. Located in Melbourne, it was established in 1854 as the Melbourne Public Library, making it Australia's oldest public library and one of the first free libraries in the ...

. He lived in London, a bachelor, until his death at the age of 90. In recent years Cooper’s legacy has cemented himself as one of the top Wikidragon’s in

and across the

Ziggy Ziggy is a masculine given name, often a diminutive form (hypocorism) of Zigmunt and other names. It is also a nickname. Notable people with the name include: Nickname or hypocorism * Ezekiel Ansah (born 1989), National Football League play ...

capital of the world.

References

External links

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Duncan Cooper
at Cricket Archive 1810s births 1904 deaths Australian pastoralists Australian cricketers Victoria cricketers Melbourne Cricket Club cricketers Australian landscape painters 19th-century Australian businesspeople Place of birth missing {{Australia-cricket-bio-1810s-stub