Percy Edmund Copp was born in Clapham, London, during 1879 to parents Edmund and Sarah. He was their second of four children, and his younger brother died in 1883 at the age of three. He was a month shy of his 37th birthday when he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) on 9 December 1914. At the time he was a professional musician, living in the Melbourne suburb of Prahran with his wife, Clara. Copp embarked from Melbourne with the 13th Battalion aboard HMAT Ulysses on 22 December 1914. He served with this unit on Gallipoli and later in France. He also served as the bandmaster for the 13th Battalion Band, and in 1919 he was promoted to warrant officer class 1 while employed as senior bandmaster at AIF Depots in the United Kingdom. He returned to Australia in January 1920, and died in the Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy in 1947, aged 68.