OLD PLYMOUTH . UK
www.oldplymouth.uk
 

©  Brian Moseley, Plymouth
Webpage created: March 06, 2020
Webpage updated: March 06, 2020

        

WHO WAS WHO IN OLD PLYMOUTH

GUSTAVE WILFRED COPELAND (1893-1967)

Mr Gustave Wilfred Copeland was the Senior French Master at Plymouth Public Secondary School for Boys and became well known as an antiquarian and archaeologist.

He was born at Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, on in October 31st 1893 and was educated at Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire and at Neuilly, Paris.  He became a teacher at Stoke-on-Trent in 1911 and followed this as a teacher in Berkshire, Wiltshire, Bristol and Surrey before coming to Plymouth in 1928.  He married Miss Marjorie E Yelland in December the following year.  In the Great War he had served in the South Staffordshire Regiment and the 2nd Suffolk Regiment.

During his time in the City, he was President of the Plymouth Institution from 1947 to 1949; President of the Plymouth Field Club, 1947 to 1950; became Honorary Secretary of the Plymouth Branch of the Devonshire Association and Librarian of the Plymouth Institution in 1941; became Honorary Secretary of the Old Plymouth Society in 1942; and became Honorary Treasurer of the Plymouth French Society in 1946. He was joint author of "The Ancient Buildings of Plymouth", published after the Blitz of the Second World War by the Old Plymouth Society, which went through several editions.

Mr Copeland died in Exeter on November 21st 1967.