 Around 1850 Coppin built Semaphore Hotel (and thereby gave that suburb its name) and the "White Horse Cellars", an hotel and theatre in Port Adelaide, later owned by William Knapman.Coppin suffered losses in his copper-mining investments and with the exodus of his hotel and playhouse patrons to the Victorian diggings, he became insolvent.He left Adelaide for Victoria in December 1851, tried his fortunes briefly as a gold-digger without success, began playing at Geelong, then returned to Adelaide in 1853 to pay his creditors "20 shillings in the pound" (i.e.