Capper: The Family Story
More Charlie Capper Folklore

Whether heavy drinking and smoking killed him may be up to question but the fact that Charlie enjoyed a flutter really is not. Two strong pieces of evidence present themselves as to Charlie's taste for gambling:

The one photograph we have of him has Charlie proudly showing off one of his racing pigeons. That he was a pigeon fancier is without doubt.

His son Archie's middle name (his full name was Thomas Archer Capper) was given to him in honor of the greatest racing jockey to have lived by the year 1913: Fred Archer. It's a strong signal that Charlie was a big fan of the sport of horse racing.

Far left: Fred Archer: Long dead by the time Archie was born and even by the time Charlie Capper was a boy. Nonetheless he made a significant impact on Charlie Capper.

Left: Charlie Capper and friends admire their pigeons.

In other stories told about Charlie Capper, we hear that he played the piano in pubs and was a very social man and a bit of an entertainer. We know that his son Archie made his home in Crewe, Cheshire and in fact was born in Whitchurch in Cheshire but family folklore tells of roots in Shropshire, perhaps close to Wales.

Charlie's wife was known to be called Mona Mary Hickman before she was married. The couple were known to have had four children in all, the youngest being Archie. Archie's two sisters were called Mona and Lilian. He also had a brother called Leslie.

When Charlie and Mona died, their children were still very young and had to be seperated amongst a variety of relatives who brought them up. At least one child, Leslie, was sent to an orphanage: Dr Barnados. Soon after Barnados sent him to live in Australia. Lilian also eventually ended up in Australia. Little had been known about Mona other than the fact that she ended up living in Birmingham. Archie meanwhile, aged only four or five when his parents died, was passed around between different relatives before eventually settling with an aunt and his grandmother.