 The son of Captain Edmund Moore Cooper Cooper-Key, C.B., M.V.O., of Landford, Hampshire by his wife Florence (née Wigram), Cooper-Key was educated at the Royal Naval College, Osborne, and Dartmouth.He served in the Irish Guards during the Second World War, and alongside his later political career was a governor and committee member of the RNLI and director of Associated Newspapers Ltd, the Aberdeen Investment Trust, and Price Brothers Ltd.He was created a Knight Bachelor in 1960.