It’s with great sadness that we announce the passing of John Coope (June 9 1931-December 27 2025). Born in Liverpool in 1931, John moved to Vancouver Island with his sister Felicity and mother Rosalind in 1940. There he attended Duncan Grammar School and Qualicum College and evidently distinguished himself as an extraordinary student as he was able to graduate at fourteen. He attended Victoria College 1946 and then UBC with many returning War veterans a decade older than him. A PhD with Charles Coulson at Oxford led to a faculty position at UBC’s Chemistry Department starting in 1956 at the age of 25. John worked in the Department of Chemistry for forty years, until 1997, doing theoretical chemistry and teaching. His work was largely around calculating electron structures of small molecules to determine properties like thermal conductivity, magnetic susceptibility and absorption spectra. Solving the Schrödinger equation for anything more complicated than hydrogen is obviously daunting, so John also did considerable work in mathematical strategies to enable simplification, both for analytic calculation and numerical methods.
Upon leaving UBC, John pursued a developing interest in the complex world of alpine plant botany, pulling invasive weeds out of Jericho Park and building a trail over David Peak north of the Lions. John, who eventually cataloged more than 300 plant species at Jericho, pulled so much purple loosestrife, blackberry and knotweed out of the park over almost thirty years, that it helped inspired the creation of the Jericho Stewardship Group and led to considerable recognition late in life. Nature Vancouver recognized John’s work with the Davidson award for conservation in 2014. In 2019, John received a Nature Inspiration award from the Canadian Museum of Nature in the Lifetime Achievement category and in 2025 he received the Sovereign’s Medal for volunteers, awarded by the office of the Governor General.
John leaves his wife Marian, children Anne Katherine (Graham) and Robin (Stacey), grandsons Ben and Sheldon, sister Felicity and nephews Peter (Marika) and Ron. He will be greatly missed.
A Celebration of Life is planned for June 17, 2026.
