Life

He was the son of William Copeland, surgeon, of Chigwell

Chigwell

Chigwell is a civil parish and town in the Epping Forest district of Essex. It is located 11.6 miles north east of Charing Cross. It is served by two London Underground stations and has a London area code.-Etymology:According to P. H...

, Essex

Essex

Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...

, where he was born on 1 September 1804. When eleven years old he was admitted at St Paul's School, London (11 September 1815), and while there won the English verse prize (1823) and the high master's prize for the best Latin essay (1824). In the latter year he went with a Pauline exhibition to Trinity College, Oxford

Trinity College, Oxford

The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity in the University of Oxford, of the foundation of Sir Thomas Pope , or Trinity College for short, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It stands on Broad Street, next door to Balliol College and Blackwells bookshop,...

, and, like another distinguished sympathiser with Tractarian doctrines, John Henry Newman, was first a scholar and then a fellow of that college.

Trinity College ranked second to Oriel College

Oriel College

Oriel College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. Located in Oriel Square, the college has the distinction of being the oldest royal foundation in Oxford...

 only in sympathy with the Oxford Movement, and Copeland, though never wavering in his attachment to the Church of England

Church of England

The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

, was close to all the leading Tractarians of the university. While at college he was ill and took no honours; but he was always known as one of the best Latin scholars at Oxford. His degrees were B.A. 1829, M.A. 1831, and B.D. 1840, and he was duly elected to a fellowship. In 1829 he was ordained to the curacy of St Olave, Jewry; for the next three years he was curate of Hackney; and in 1832 he went to Oxford, where he remained until he accepted, in 1849, the college living of Farnham

Farnham

Farnham is a town in Surrey, England, within the Borough of Waverley. The town is situated some 42 miles southwest of London in the extreme west of Surrey, adjacent to the border with Hampshire...

, Essex

Essex

Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...

. This was his sole preferment in the church, and he rebuilt the parish church with care. After a long illness he died at the rectory on 26 August 1885.

Part of his library passed, by the agency of his nephew, W. Copeland Borlase, formerly M.P. for St. Austell, Cornwall, to the National Liberal Club

National Liberal Club

The National Liberal Club, known to its members as the NLC, is a London gentlemen's club, now also open to women, which was established by William Ewart Gladstone in 1882 for the purpose of providing club facilities for Liberal Party campaigners among the newly-enlarged electorate after the Third...

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Works

He collected materials for, but did not actually to write, a history of the Tractarian movement. Newman dedicated to Copeland his ‘Sermons on Subjects of the Day’ as the kindest of friends, and Copeland edited eight volumes of Newman's Parochial and Plain Sermons (1868), an edition which was reprinted, besides printing a volume of selections. The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on the Epistle to the Ephesians were translated by Copeland, and included in the fifth volume of the Library of the Fathers

Library of the Fathers

The Library of the Fathers, more properly A library of fathers of the holy Catholic church: anterior to the division of the East and West, was a series of around 50 volumes of the Church Fathers, annotated in English translation, published 1838 to 1881 by John Henry Parker...

; and Thomas Mozley

Thomas Mozley

Thomas Mozley , was an English clergyman and writer associated with the Oxford Movement.Mozley was born at Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, the son of a bookseller and publisher. His brother, James Bowling Mozley, would become known for his own theological works...

 says that Copeland contributed to the anonymous Tracts for the Times

Tracts for the Times

The Tracts for the Times were a series of 90 theological publications, varying in length from a few pages to book-length, produced by members of the English Oxford Movement, an Anglo-Catholic revival group, from 1833 to 1841...

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Attribution