Octavius Edward Coope JP DL (12 January 1814 – 27 November 1886) was an English brewing partner and Conservative Member of Parliament 1847–1848 and 1874–1886.
Coope, born 12 January 1814, was the son of John Coope of Great Cumberland Place, London, and his wife Anna Maria.
In 1845 Octavius and his brother George joined the brewer Edward Ind to form the brewery company of Ind, Coope, and Co. Ltd which was based at Romford.
In 1847 he was elected as Member of Parliament for Great Yarmouth; the next year he was unseated on the proven bribery of some of his electors. He helped to endow the church of St. Paul, Bentley Common, and Crescent Road Infants' School, South Weald. He was a director of the Phoenix Fire and the Pelican Life Insurance Cos and a J.P. and Deputy Lieutenant for Essex.
Coope was next elected as MP for Middlesex in 1874. On 14 February 1881 he laid the foundation-stone for a new church at Brentwood. He held the Middlesex seat until 1885 when the constituency was reorganised. In 1885, he was elected as MP for Brentford; he held the constituency until his death in 1886.
Coope was a major benefactor of St Mary Matfelon, Whitechapel. In 1873 the seventeenth-century church was found to be structurally unsafe, and the parish initially contemplated spending about £4,000 on repairs. In June 1874 Coope, who regarded himself as a Whitechapel parishioner through the offices and depot of his brewing firm Ind, Coope, and Co. Ltd in Osborn Street, offered up to £12,500 towards the construction of an entirely new church. He also presented plans prepared by his nephew, the architect Ernest Claude Lee, a former pupil of William Burges. Lee proposed a High Gothic Revival church of red brick with stone dressings, intended to seat about 1,400 people. The design proved controversial within the parish, particularly because of its red-brick construction and because some vestrymen wanted a larger building, while the estimated cost exceeded the amount Coope had offered. The vestry nevertheless accepted his proposal in September 1874.
Rebuilding began in 1875, and the new church was completed in October 1876 and consecrated in February 1877, while the upper part of the tower and its spire were later completed in 1878. The final cost was estimated at about £30,000; it was later said that approximately £10,000 of this cost was raised via public subscriptions, whilst Coope provided the remainder.
The new church was gutted by fire on 27 August 1880 after flames spread from the organ chamber into the roof. Coope again intervened, undertaking to use his influence to secure £16,800 in insurance money and to meet further rebuilding costs, on the condition that Lee redesign the interior to remedy the poor acoustics of the first church. The church was rebuilt in 1881–82 on substantially the same plan, but with a lower roof, a polygonal apse and a more elaborate interior. An alabaster reredos, which had originally been intended for the church in 1878, was finally completed in 1886–87 as a memorial to Coope following his death.
Coope married Emily Fulcher, daughter of British Indian Army Officer Captain Robert Page Fulcher Esq. of No. 70 Gloucester Place, Marylebone, in 1848. She survived her husband, and following her death in 1909 she was later buried alongside Octavius. The marriage produced six children, one son and five daughters.
His main homes were Rochetts in South Weald, Essex; he purchased the manor house and 22-acre surrounding park for £28,000 in 1865. He purchased the lease of No. 41 Upper Brook Street, Mayfair, in 1863, which continued to be his London residence until his death in 1886.
In c. 1877 Coope also paid a rumoured £50,000 for Berechurch Hall and its 3,300-acre estate near Colchester in Essex. The existing house was subsequently demolished, and Coope commissioned a new manor house, which was completed in c. 1882, and was reportedly one of the first stately homes in the United Kingdom to have electricity installed. Following his death, Coope's executors sold the Berechurch Hall estate to Frederick Gordon in 1892.
Coope died on 27 November 1886 at the age of 72; his grave is located near the south-west corner of South Weald's churchyard. His epitaph reads The memory of the just is blessed.
His probate was sworn by his widow and others the next year at £542,784 (equivalent to about £61,700,000 in 2025).
The terms of his will distributed his estate amongst his family:
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