Coppin feature sparks query about poem

The feature in last week’s Londonderry Sentinel about a South African man compiling his family records has led to a query about a poem in an old scrapbook.
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A reader in Irish Street got in touch about a scrapbook handed down to her from her father, which she believes belonged to her late grandmother, dating back to the mid to late 1800s.

In it is a poem by J Wylkyn Coppin, of Trinity College Dublin.

The reader, who does not wish to be named, wondered if there could be any family connection between J Wylkyn Coppin and Ronald Coppin, who made contact with the Sentinel about his family, whose ancestors included Captain William Coppin, the man behind a shipbuilding industry in the city.

J W Coppin’s poem, ‘Ode on the Marriage of the Prince of Wales’, was of such calibre that it won the first Special Prize in the Universiy of Dublin in June 1863.

The scrapbook makes mention that he is “the son of our townsman, Captain Coppin, and consequently a citizen of Derry”.

The scrapbook editorial does not make it known whether it was a certain William Coppin, only calling J Wylkyn the son of Captain Coppin.

“I was interested in the story the Sentinel printed last week and woudl liek to know if it was the son of Captain Coppin that was in the newspaper clipping I have in my scrapbook,” said our reader.

She continued: “I was inspired to get in touch after I ready the story as I have been reading this article and poem from I was very small.

“There are some lovely things in the scrapbook my father left me; religious things, like prayers and poems, and I read the Coppin poem a lot. The scrapbook has always been in the family and I just wonder whether the poem I have is written by this Captain’s son,” she said.