Sir Frank Cooper – an appreciation
by Eric A. Ash

OBITUARY writers tend to provide a highly non-linear mapping of  a life; like all historians, inevitably,  they project  their own view of the essence.  So readers of the obituary in the Times will know about the fact that he was a spitfire pilot,  shot down over Italy, but escaped.

They will know  about his efforts to deal with the IRA in Northern Ireland and of his tenure as Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Defence  in the period before and during the Falkland war. There is but a passing reference to Imperial College.  

My own view of Frank Cooper started in 1985 when  I was appointed Rector. At that time the governing body of the College was too large to do much other than the rubber stamp.

However Frank, the deputy chairman,  made an immediate impression — he was clearly for action. So when we wanted to start  the first company to exploit  Imperial College inventions,  IMPEL Ltd, and when it was suggested  that a good time to do so would be  soon  — but not yet — he asked why not now? Now is what happened!

Frank  took on the chairmanship of the governing body in 1988. I must confess I did anticipate that his many years in the Civil Service  would show — that he might be rather rule-bound. In the event   I found that he was every bit as keen to  ignore rules as I was.

We developed a close working relationship and a close friendship. He was enormously supportive  — the  beginning of the medical school; the active encouragement of recruiting more women to the staff and as students; the launching of  Network — the precursor to IC Reporter.  But above all  he enthusiastically supported  all our  academic ambitions resulting in the RAE of 1992, where the College for the first time came ahead of Oxford and only a whisker behind Cambridge.

Nor was Frank shy about using his knowledge and connections in Whitehall.  The enlargement of the medical school which required the extraction from government of a large sum to build the Fleming Building — though after my time — was I know enormously helped by his advocacy.

The way he and Lady Cooper,  known to all as Peggie,  enthusiastically participated in the social life of the College  was  enormously appreciated by my wife, Clare, and myself, and I know by the many members of the College, above and below the salt, who encountered them both.

Mine too has been a non-linear mapping. But just perhaps, when seen by historians of the future, what Frank Cooper achieved for Imperial College may seem every bit as important as his brilliant career before he joined us.