Thomas was the twin son of Henry George Cope and his wife Ann (née Howden).
Henry George was born in Newark in about 1854 and his wife Ann Terrace Howden was born in Pastney, Lincolnshire, in about 1853. They were married in 1873 (reg. Louth Lincolnshire) and according to the 1911 Census (when they had been married for 37 years) they had had ten children of whom only six were still living. The census returns between 1881 and 1911 record seven children: Elizabeth b. 1878 Beeston Nottingham d. 1888 (reg. Newark); Emma b. 1881 Carlton Scroop Lincolnshire; Annie Eliza b. 1883 Carlton Scroop bap. Carlton Scroop October 1883; Ethel b. Newark birth registered 1886 (J/F/M); Henry and Thomas b. Sibsey Lincolnshire births registered 1891 (J/F/M) and James b. 1893 Cotham.
In 1881 Henry senior, a railway signalman for the Great Northern Railway, was living at Carlton Lodge, Carlton Scroop, Lincolnshire, with his wife Ann and their daughter Elizabeth. Elizabeth died 7 years later in 1888 when she was 10 years old.
By 1891 the couple were living on Station Road, Sibsey, Lincolnshire; Henry was still employed by GNR as a signalman. Henry and Ann now had five children: Emma, Annie, Ethel and twin sons Henry and Thomas, both four months old.
Henry had moved to Cotham by 1901 and was living at Cotham Station, where he worked as a signalman, with his wife and three sons, Henry, Thomas and James.
Their two eldest daughters had left home and were in domestic service. Emma was a housemaid in the household of William Roberts, a retired grocer, and his wife at Acacia House, High Road, Beeston, Nottingham, while her younger sister Ethel was a domestic servant in the household of Thomas Beecroft and his brother Albert, both toy and fancy good dealers, at 20 Zulla Road, Nottingham. The third daughter, Annie Eliza, has not yet been traced on either the 1901 or 1911 Census.
Henry and his wife were still living at Cotham in 1911 but only Thomas, a labourer at a 'plaster pit', was still in the family home. Henry's three daughters and youngest son James have not yet been traced on the 1911 Census, but Henry, a railway engine cleaner, was living on Bourne Street, Netherfield, Nottingham, in the home of his uncle, James Cope and his wife Hannah.
Thomas married Sarah E Bollands in 1914 (reg. Newark) and they had one child, a son Lewis Robert b. 15 May 1915. Lewis died in 1979 (reg. Manchester).
Thomas' mother Ann died in 1914 (reg. Newark) at the age of 61 while his father Henry died in 1919 (reg. Nottingham) at the age of 65. A notice of Henry jnr's death in 1915 gave their father's home as Cotham but he later moved as the CWGC record gave his address as 10 New Road, Balderton, Newark.