successfully stood for Paddington from 1859 to 1860. At the first meeting of the Legislative Assembly, Cooper was elected Speaker by a majority of one vote over Henry Parker. His election was not popular, but Cooper held office with dignity and impartiality and set a standard for future speakers. He successfully established rules of procedure and parliamentary conventions, which influenced the Parliament in the following years. In politics, he was close to Charles Cowper and Henry Parkes and financially supported Parkes' newspaper The Empire. In return it described his political principles as being 'of so liberal a cast that, were he less identified with the great interests of property, he would be set down as a dangerous democrat'. In January 1860 his health was again troubling him and he found it necessary to resign. He was asked to form a ministry in March, but declined and in 1861 returned to Britain. During the Crimean War he had exerted himself in raising a fund for the relief of widows and children of soldiers, and in the UK in 1863 he did much work to relieve the distress in Lancashire caused by the cotton famine. He continued his interest in New South Wales, did useful work in connexion with the exhibition held at Sydney in 1880, and in 1886 was a member of the Royal Commission for the Colonial and Indian Exhibition at London. In 1897 he was appointed Agent-General for New South Wales in London. Family He married, in 1846, Elizabeth Hill, daughter of William Hill of Sydney and Mary Johnson, both convicts, and they had two sons and five daughters. Cooper died on 5 June 1902 in Kensington, London, and was survived by his wife and by two sons and three of their daughters. He was buried in Brompton Cemetery, London. The eldest son, Daniel Cooper (1848-1909), succeeded as second Baronet, but had only daughters and was himself succeeded by his brother William Charles Cooper (1851-1925) as third Baronet. His great-grandson was the art collector and historian Douglas Cooper. Philately Cooper was a founder and the first president (1869–78) of the Philatelic Society of London, the predecessor of today's Royal Philatelic Society London. His Australian postage stamps, sold to Judge Frederick Philbrick in 1878 for £3,000 (the first four-figure price for a collection), became part of Ferrary's celebrated collection. The Sir Daniel Cooper Lectures, sponsored by the Royal Philatelic Society,