William Isaac Coppard

A Church of England clergyman, he served as incumbent of Plympton St Mary in Devon and was also domestic chaplain to the Earl of Morley. He is chiefly remembered for Cottage Scenes During the Cholera, a diary-based account drawn from the summer of 1832.

That book stands out because it records the cholera epidemic at ground level: not as a distant history, but through the homes, illnesses, losses, and acts of care within one parish. The writing is direct and humane, which gives modern listeners a strong sense of how ordinary people lived through a public health crisis.

Some details of his life are not widely documented in easily available modern sources, but his long association with Plympton St Mary and his role during the epidemic are clear. He died in 1865, and his surviving work remains valuable as both local history and a personal witness to a devastating outbreak.