Keighley News readers are being asked to help in the search for information about a soldier who lost his life in the First World War.

Wilson Cooper - who was born in Keighley in 1885 - was killed in the Battle of the Somme on September 15, 1916.

He was a Company Sergeant Major with the reserves' 10th Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry.

Just over a month after his death, he was posthumously awarded the DCM for his help in saving the life of a man buried alive on the battlefield during heavy enemy shelling.

Now Linda Torrance, from Canada, is trying to piece together more about the soldier after some documents carrying his name - including a birth certificate - were discovered in her grandmother's home at Leeds.

She has established some details through her own research, but is keen to hear from descendants of the soldier or anyone who has more information.

Linda said: "My research began after my grandma died. My mum went to clear out the house and found some documents with Wilson Cooper's name on them. My mum had never heard of him.

"From the Durham Light Infantry Museum I learned that Wilson was awarded the DCM posthumously, and he also fought in the Boer War - enlisting in Keighley in 1900, at the tender age of 15!

"War Office documents, which are held in the Public Records Office, have been searched.

"One of my friends has spent endless hours going through service records, war diaries and other such records in an attempt to find more information on Wilson Cooper in the hope that something, somewhere, will give me a clue as to why my grandma would have the documents. But it has been to no avail."

Wilson was born on April 26, 1885.

Censuses between 1881 and 1901 show that his parents John and Jane Cooper (nee Wilson), and his family, were living in Keighley.

He had five sisters - Maggie, Hannah, Martha, Mary and Marie - and a brother, called Henry or Harry.

Linda's grandmother was born Mabel Winifred Robinson, in Woolwich, London, in 1897.

She moved to Leeds in childhood, and lived there for the rest of her life. She had two sisters - Lilian Violet and Eva Victoria - and a brother, Leonard William.

Linda said: "She married Joe Clegg in 1921 and they separated in the mid-1920s. Joe was born in Hunslet, Leeds, in 1897 and had about 10 siblings. Perhaps Wilson Cooper was related to Joe?

"Mabel then met Herbert Leach - or Leech - in the late 1920s, and they were together until his death in 1944.

"And in 1947 she married Arthur Dickinson. Perhaps the Wilson Cooper connection is on Arthur's side?"

Linda can be contacted by e-mail at lindavet@hotmail.com.