Graeme has been battlefield guiding since 1995. He operates ‘Cooper’s Waterloo Tours’, a family run Essex based business specialising in tailored tours to the Napoleonic Campaign battlefields of the Peninsular War and Waterloo. A Fellow of the International Napoleonic Society (FINS), Graeme qualified as a Waterloo Campaign Guide with Les Guides 1815 in 1998.
Graeme’s interest in the Napoleonic Campaigns was sparked during his time as a cadet at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst by his tutors, the late and renowned military historians and authors, Professor Richard Holmes and Dr David Chandler. Graeme’s ancestor John Cooper fought at Waterloo in the 7th Hussars. In WW2 Graeme’s father Johnny Cooper was one of David Stirling’s originals in ‘L’ Detachment SAS.
Graeme was the driving force behind the creation of the International Guild of Battlefield Guides in November 2002. Since his original idea, the Guild has grown to International status and has set the benchmark for many who have passed its quality validation programme. Graeme was the Guild Secretary until November 2009 when he became the first member to be elected to the Guild’s Roll of Honour for his services to the Guild and the craft.
In May 2006 he established Corporate Battlefields Ltd, a leadership training company for corporate management and has since delivered to senior global management teams from eBay, Boeing UK, London Fire Brigade, Lilly, Brother UK, HSBC, Parliamentarians, the NATO Secretary General and others on the battlefields of Waterloo, Salamanca, Isandlwana, Normandy D-Day Beaches and Naseby. In 2025 the company found a new home with a fellow Guild member.
Graeme is a member of the Battlefields Trust and Waterloo Association. He and his wife live in Essex. Graeme enjoys golf, photography, dog walking and chess.
His pictorial presentations and talks are all listed on SPEAKERNET
“Graeme Cooper is the master story-teller. You stand with him in a green field, but when he speaks you see a battlefield before you.” – Adam Holloway MP