William Edward Charles Wootton Abney (7 January 1921 – 9 August 1997) played Reverend Copley on Coronation Street in 1977, and Jim Lorimer in 1980. His other television credits include The Adventures of William Tell, Crossroads, Special Branch, Play for Today, All Creatures Great and Small, Robin's Nest and The Return of Sherlock Holmes. The son of Henry Charles Wootton Abney, of the landed gentry family of Abney of Measham Hall, Derbyshire, by his wife, Janet Bentley Littlejohn, Abney was educated at Cranleigh School and the Central School of Speech and Drama.