Emma Elizabeth Thoyts (1860–1949), akaMrs. John Hauntenville Cope, was an Englishpalaeographer, amateur historian,[1] andgenealogist.
Emma Elizabeth Thoyts was born inBryanston Square,Marylebone inMiddlesex on 8 July 1860, the eldest daughter Major William Richard Mortimer Thoyts ofSulhamstead House,Berkshire, and his wife, Anne Annabella Puleston. She was the great-granddaughter ofWilliam Thoyts, theHigh Sheriff of Berkshire, and grew up at Sulhamstead House where she developed an interest in history. She wrote widely, particularly upon subjects related toSulhamstead and the surroundingvillages and the families who lived there. She transcribed many Berkshireparish registers and soon became a recognised expert on the reading of ancient handwriting. One of her few published works,How to Decipher and Study Old Documents (1893), is still in print today under the titleHow to Read Old Documents. Her many manuscript works are now in the Berkshire Local Studies Library inReading.
In 1899, Thoyts married one of the last of the great Cope family fromBramshill House inHampshire, John Hautenville Cope. He was a fellow historian and major contributor to theVictoria County History of Berkshire. The two settled inFinchampstead in Berkshire, where Emma died on 9 November 1949, having outlived her husband by seven years and a day. They are buried together in the churchyard at St Mary's,Eversley, the Cope family burial ground. They also have amemorial plaque inside the church.
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