Soon after going to reside in Lincoln, Cooper married Miss Jobson, sister of Frederic James Jobson, afterward well known as Dr. Jobson among the Wesleyan Methodists, and at one time their honored President of the Conference. The religious troubles at Gainsborough followed the local preacher to Lincoln, for the superintendent with whom he had disagreed at the former place would not suffer him to rest in his new home; and at length, soured and wearied by what he could not but deem ill-usage, he threw up his appointment on the plan, and finally cut himself off from the Methodist connection. Free to devote his energies to other pursuits, he now flung himself very zealously into the new Mechanics' Institute movement, took a class in Latin, sought to perfect himself in French pronunciation, and to acquire a knowledge of Italian under the tutorship of Signor D'Albrione, "a very noble-looking Italian gentleman, a native of Turin, who had been a cavalry officer in the armies of Napoleon, had endured the retreat from Moscow, was at the defeat of Leipzig," etc., and had become "a refugee in England on account of his participation in the conspiracy of the Carbonari." German, also, was studied for a time; but very soon a new attraction arose in the formation of a Choral Society, of which the zealous schoolmaster became the secretary and chief manager, collecting its funds, enlisting by his persuasive powers the best singers in the city, and arranging for its meetings and public performances. His attendance at the lectures of the Institute incidentally led to a new employment, in which undoubtedly Thomas Cooper might have excelled and gained no mean emolument and renown had he chosen to devote himself exclusively to it. Having sent a paragraph report of one of the lectures on chemistry to the _Lincoln_, _Rutland_, and _Stamford Mercury_, he was waited upon by the editor, Richard Newcomb, and requested to supply intelligence weekly of any affairs of importance in the city, and promised £20 a year for his trouble. This was in 1834. In two years he gave up his connection with the Choral Society, cultivated the newspaper correspondent business to such an extent that he was advanced to £100 per year, and so gave up his school. Having put his hand to the work of newspaper correspondence, he did not do it by halves. He exposed the abuses, as he deemed them, then rife in the city, wrote sketches of the "Lincoln Preachers," and created such a stir by his lively and racy articles on municipal and political matters, that the paper rapidly rose in circulation, and he found himself for a time the most notorious man in the city, feared by many, hated by not a few, and courted by those who had favors to win or help to secure from the lively correspondent.