Deceased Members–2008

In Memory of G. Ashley Cooper

G. Ashley Cooper, ASA, died at his home at Stonebridge in Skillman, New Jersey on April 15. Son of John Sisson Cooper and Nora McDonald Cooper, he was born in Shanghai, China on May 8, 1925. At the age of 9, he was sent off to school in Stancliff Hall in Derbyshire England. He continued his education at Oundle School in England and graduated at 18. The scholarship he won to Cambridge was postponed as he joined The Life Guard Regiment instead. After six months at Sandhurst, he had further training at Windsor as a Second Lieutenant.

At the end of the war, he was ordered to Germany as a regimental signals officer and received his Captain's bars. He was then posted to Egypt and later to Palestine. In 1947 he left the military and returned to England where he joined an insurance company and later passed his actuarial examinations. The company sent him to Cairo where he stayed for five years before leaving due to the Suez crisis.

He moved to the United States in 1957 when he was then hired by TPF & C, a pension consulting firm in Philadelphia, where he met his wife. In 1966 he joined the Wyatt Company and started an International Pensions Division. This endeavor led to much foreign travel in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands. For a number of years he acted as pension consultant to the United Nations, during which time he lived for six years in the Washington area, moving to Princeton in 1972.

Upon retirement he moved to Pennington and later Stonebridge. While in Pennington, he helped to start the Princeton Officer's Society and served as its president for several years.

He is survived by his wife of 47 years, the former Betty Edwards; a son, Grant Ashley Cooper, of Haddonfield, New Jersey; two daughters, Dr. Carol Cooper of London, England, a child from his first marriage, and Lucy Cooper Reicheneker of Middle Village, New York; his step-son Robert Malcolm McNair Jr., of Newtown Square Pennsylvania; and seven grandchildren.