Betty Hooper died in Australia in late May 2026 aged 97 as the College was informed by Jim and Karen McBroom. She had been suffering from dementia and was the widow of Morton Hooper, ‘Hoops’ to everyone who knew him, who served on the Staff in many capacities between 1954-86.

An American by birth, and the daughter of the headmaster of Governor Drummer Academy in Massachusetts where Hoops taught for two years before arriving at the Nautical College, Betty Eames married Morton in the USA in 1958 and returned to England with him. By then Hoops was Housemaster of Croft House – the junior house at the bottom of the old Prince of Wales Drive also known as the Port Jackson Division. The Log records that the Captain Superintendent, Hugh Skinner, granted a half-day holiday on March 18th in recognition, it was rumoured, of this contribution to Anglo-American understanding.

By Christmas that year the newlywed couple were installed in a new house built adjacent to Croft House called Little Croft. Before long they had two sons, Edward and Bruce. In 1961 Port Jackson moved to Bowden Green, but the Hoopers stayed put with Hoops taking charge of Illawarra Division which had moved into Croft House “to put it on the right track” in Lionel Stephens’ words. There the couple remained until 1967 when Hoops spent a year’s sabbatical leave in Oxford.

Betty also was much involved in Hoops’ varied extra-curricular activities at Pangbourne including the Literary & Fine Arts Society intended to civilize the cadets and a Political Group that was formed in 1962. Here, according to The Log, “Mrs Hooper corrected several misapprehensions over the American mode of government.”

In 1971 Peter Points asked the Hoopers to take over the running of the new Junior School at Bowden Green which they did for the next 13 years, living in Glenelg next door. “In terms of numbers, the decision saved the school,” reckoned Points. Much of the Junior School’s success was down to Betty and the full part she played in the life of the new facility.

“It was always her smile, her laugh, her maternal approach to those young boys,” that I recall writes Ian Busby who arrived at Pangbourne College in 1972. “Her commitment, her sociability, her involvement with Hoops’ 25 drama productions over the years – Betty was always there, involved – the maternal controller. Above all, her care and commitment to what Hoops and she had taken on was total. Betty had style. She was a true carer.”

 In 1984 Hoops resigned having completed 25 years as a housemaster at Pangbourne. Betty had been with him throughout. The couple then took a second sabbatical year, this time at Tabor Academy in Massachusetts, returning to Pangbourne for a year before Hoops finally retired from the College staff in 1986.

By this time Betty was a de facto primary school teacher and expert in the many types of learning difficulties, especially dyslexia. It seemed right to the couple to make a new start in the United States. So Hoops took a full-time teaching post in the English Faculty at Tabor. “Betty and I owe a great debt to Tabor for giving our teaching careers a fresh and invigorating lease of life,” wrote Hoops in the 1990 issue of The Pangbournian. Many people in the local community were to be helped by Betty during the decade the Hoopers lived in America.

The Hoopers returned to England in the mid-1990s and moved to a retirement complex called Pegasus Grange in Oxford and soon became involved in the life of the city. Betty soon became a volunteer at the Ashmolean Museum. Both of their sons were living in Perth, Western Australia by this time.

When Hoops died suddenly at the end of 2007 Betty, then aged 80, decided to move to Perth. Here she had many years helping her grandchildren grow up and was deeply involved in church and volunteering endeavours. Edward, her oldest son, died a few years ago but Betty continued to be active until dementia took its toll. In the words of Karen McBroom who lived close to the Hoopers on Bowden Green for many years, “Betty was the best neighbour we have ever had. Her enthusiasm, energy and involvement were so beneficial. A lively lady, rightly described by Bruce as a ‘tour de force.’”