BORN BECCLES, SUFFOLK, 1883. ALIAS “COPERMAN”. SON OF FREDERICK COPEMAN (1847-1890) AND FRANCES ALICE LEADER (1851-1926), OF SUFFOLK AND NORFORK. A FISHERMAN. HE LIVED BRADFORD & HULL. HE HAD AN TWO BROTHERS, JESSE AND JOHN AND FIVE SISTERS. HE MARRIED SARAH MARIA JILLINGS (1883-1979) AT WANGFORD, SUFFOLK, IN 1906 AGED 27. THEIR SON, LEONARD DIED IN THE SAME YEAR, 1901. ON HIS ARMY RECORDS HE SAID THAT HE WAS UNMARRIED AND HAD NO CHILDREN. DESCRIBED AS 5 FOOT, 4.75 INCHES TALL, 130 LBS WEIGHT, 38-41 INCH CHEST, FAIR HAIR, BLUE EYES, TATTOOS ON BOTH FOREARMS. HE ENLISTED AT HULL, ON 15/09/1914 AS LEONARD FRANK BURNS. SERVED WITH THE HULL PALS, IN EGYPT AND FRANCE. KILLED AT SERRE, FRANCE, ON 13/11/1916. COMMEMORATED ON THE THIEPVAL MEMORIAL. HIS ARMY EFFECTS WERE LEFT TO HIS SISTER, ALICE ATKINSON, AT THE LAURELS, THURLTON, NORFOLK. HIS WAR PENSION WENT TO HIS WIDOW, SARAH MARA COPEMAN (1883-1979), AT 42 IPSWICH ROAD, LOWESTOFT (WAR PENSIN ADDRESS). HIS DEATH WAS REPORTED IN THE HDM 16/01/1918, AND HDM 13/11/1918. HIS NAME IS LISTED ON ST CHARLES BORROMEO CHURCH MEMORIAL, HULL. HIS BROTHER, LANCE CORPORAL, JOHN ARTHUR COPEMAN, 8TH SUFFORKS WAS KILLED IN ACTION AT SANCTUARY WOOD, ON 31/07/1917, AGED 28.
Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE LEONARD FRANK BURNS 12/241. Born in Harwich, Essex in 1883 Leonard was one of eight children to Frederick and Frances Burns. The family moved north to Bradford and Leonard to Hull where he worked as a Fisherman. When war came he enlisted at City Hall on 15th September 1914 joining the 12th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, 3rd Hull Pals. His posting to Egypt was shortened when he was hospitalised in Port Said with cellitis, and he arrived in France two months later than the rest of the Pals in May 1916. Leonard was killed in action on 13th November at Serre during the last pointless attack of a pointless 5 month campaign on the Somme which cost a million lives and achieved virtually nothing. His body was never recovered and his name is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial; he was 33 years old.
