Painter and printmaker, born in Manchester. Studied at the University there, then at the School of Art; at the Cope and Nicol School of Art; then at the RA Schools. Married to the artist Ethel Gabain. Travelled extensively in Italy. Exhibited extensively at Cooling Galleries, Goupil Gallery and RBA, also with NS, NEAC and abroad. Became honorary secretary of the Senefelder Club, 1910–16, only three years after taking up lithography, for which he won principal awards at an international exhibition at Chicago Art Institute in 1930. Was an honorary foreign member of Pulchri Studio, in The Hague. British Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum, provincial and foreign galleries hold his work. In 1985 Garton & Cooke put on a show of prints by Copley and his wife; in 1990 the Yale Center for British Art, in America, and Agnew both staged exhibitions by Copley.
Text source: 'Artists in Britain Since 1945' by David Buckman (Art Dictionaries Ltd, part of Sansom & Company)