Researching John Cooper

Charles Cooper ran a small garage in Surbiton that specialised in maintaining racing cars. His son John left school at age 15 to become an apprentice toolmaker and served in the Royal Air Force as an instrument maker in World War II. After the war, he and his father began building simple, inexpensive single-seat racers for privateers, often from surplus military hardware. The cars were extremely successful and quickly in high demand, and in 1948, they founded their own company to build more.

In stereotypical British fashion, Cooper always downplayed the story about how they decided to put the engine in the back of their racing cars, insisting it was a matter of convenience. The original design for the first rear-engined Cooper racing car was drawn up by Owen Maddock, a designer employed by Cooper Car Company.Because the car was powered by a motorcycle engine, they put the engine in the back, driving a chain. "We certainly had no feeling that we were creating some scientific breakthrough!...We put the engine at the rear...because it was the practical thing to do," Cooper said.

Initially, John raced his own cars on a regular basis, but as the company grew, he found less time available to compete. He did, however, find time to set a number of records at Montlhéry at the end of 1953.

In the early 1950s, it seemed as if every aspiring young British racing driver began behind the wheel of a Cooper, and Cooper's Formula One cars were driven by the legendary drivers of the time – Jack Brabham, Stirling Moss, Maurice Trintignant, and Bruce McLaren. In a nine-year period, the team took 16 Grand Prix wins, as Brabham and the team won back-to-back World Championships in 1959 and 1960.

While in Sebring, Florida, for the 1959 United States Grand Prix, Cooper got to know American driver Rodger Ward, the reigning USAC national champion and Indianapolis 500 winner. After Ward had been astounded by the cornering ability of Cooper's little cars on the road course, he offered to arrange a test for them at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, saying, "You've got to try out your car around the Oval. Indy's waiting for you!" Cooper took one of his Formula One cars to the Speedway in the autumn of 1960, as drivers, constructors and racing personalities gathered in "amused tolerance, mixed with obvious curiosity," according to Cooper. When Brabham, an Indy rookie, began his warmup laps, he was unaware of the requirement to gradually build up his speed on the track. He clocked his second lap at 144.8 miles per hour, fast enough for the third row on the previous race's grid! Ward was so enthused, Cooper had to agree to let him drive the car, too. From that point, the Indianapolis establishment realised the writing was on the wall and the days of their front-engined roadsters were numbered. Within a few years, John Cooper's revolution of open-wheeled racing was complete.

Cooper's development of the British Motor Corporation Mini – the Mini Cooper – was adored by both rally racers and ordinary road drivers. Before John Cooper's death, the Cooper name was licensed to BMW for the higher-performance versions of the cars, inspired by the original Mini, sold as the MINI. John, along with his son Mike Cooper, served in an advisory role to BMW and Rover's New MINI design team.

Cooper was the last surviving Formula One team principal from the formative years of the sport, and he often lamented later in life that the fun had long since gone out of racing. He helped establish Britain's domination of motorsport technology, which continues today, and he received the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to British motorsport. He remained head of the West Sussex family garage business (which had outlets for Mini Cooper at East Preston and Honda at Ferring) until his death at age 77 in 2000.

Cooper's first political service was as a member of the Kentucky House of Representatives from 1927 to 1929. In 1930, he was elected county judge of Pulaski County. After a failed gubernatorial bid in 1939, he joined the U.S. Army in 1942. During World War II, he earned the Bronze Star Medal for reorganizing the Bavarian judicial system after the allied victory in Europe. While still in Germany, he was elected circuit judge for Kentucky's 28th district. He returned home to accept the judgeship, which he held for less than a year before resigning to seek election to A. B. "Happy" Chandler's vacated seat in the U.S. Senate. He won the seat by 41,823 votes, the largest victory margin by any Republican for any office in Kentucky up to that time.

During his first term in the Senate, Cooper voted with the majority of his party just 51% of the time. He was defeated in his re-election bid in 1948, after which he accepted an appointment by President Harry S. Truman as a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly and served as a special assistant to Secretary of State Dean Acheson during the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Cooper was again elected to a partial term in the Senate in 1952. The popular Cooper appeared likely to be re-elected in 1954 until the Democrats nominated former Vice-President Alben W. Barkley. Cooper lost the general election and was appointed Ambassador to India by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1955. Cooper gained the confidence of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and dramatically improved relations between the U.S. and the recently independent state of India, helping rebuff Soviet hopes of expanding communism in Asia. Barkley died in 1956, and Eisenhower requested that Cooper seek Barkley's open seat. Cooper reluctantly acquiesced and was elected to serve the rest of Barkley's term.

In 1960, Cooper was re-elected, securing his first full, six-year term in the Senate. Newly elected President John F. Kennedy – Cooper's former Senate colleague – chose Cooper to conduct a secret fact-finding mission to Moscow and New Delhi. Following Kennedy's assassination in November 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Cooper to the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination. Cooper soon became an outspoken opponent of Johnson's decision to escalate U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War, consistently advocating negotiation with the North Vietnamese instead. After Cooper's re-election in 1966, he worked with Idaho Democrat Frank Church on a series of amendments designed to de-fund further U.S. military operations in the region. These amendments were hailed as the first serious attempt by Congress to curb presidential authority over military operations during an ongoing war. Aging and increasingly deaf, Cooper did not seek re-election in 1972. His last acts of public service were as Ambassador to East Germany from 1974 to 1976 and as an alternate delegate to the United Nations in 1981. He died in a Washington, D.C., retirement home on February 21, 1991, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

His first such award came about because of his actions aboard the during the Battle of Mobile Bay, August 5, 1864. The second award was a result of an accidental fire in which Cooper advanced through the burning area in order to rescue a wounded man from certain death on April 26, 1865.

He was buried at Cypress Hills National Cemetery, Section 2, Grave 5022, in Brooklyn, New York.

He competed for Great Britain in the 1964 Summer Olympics held in Tokyo, Japan in the 400 metre hurdles, where he won the silver medal. He then joined with teammates Tim Graham, Adrian Metcalfe, and Robbie Brightwell in the 4 x 400 metres relay, where they won the silver medal. Cooper also competed in the 400 metre hurdles at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico, serving as Great Britain's third-string athlete in this event, behind gold medallist David Hemery and bronze medallist John Sherwood.

Cooper originally went to school at Lutterworth Grammar School. He was killed in the Turkish Airlines Flight 981 crash near Paris, France, on 3 March 1974.

He is the younger brother of four-time Grand Slam tournament winner Ashley Cooper.

Born near Woodbury in Gloucester County, New Jersey, he was a member of the Gloucester County Committee of Correspondence in 1774. He served in the Provincial Congress of New Jersey in 1775 and 1776 and served on the committee that drafted New Jersey's first constitution. He was elected to the Second Continental Congress in 1776, but did not attend. He was elected a judge in the Gloucester County courts in 1779 and served until his death.

John's older brother was David Cooper, a noted Quaker and abolitionist who worked earnestly with the Quakers in their efforts to petition the U.S. Government to abolish slavery.

On 26 May 2011, Cooper was given a whole life order for the 1985 double murder of siblings Richard and Helen Thomas, and the 1989 double murder of Peter and Gwenda Dixon. The murders were known in the media as the "Pembrokeshire Murders" or the "Coastal Murders". Cooper was also sentenced for the rape of a 16-year-old girl and a sexual assault on a 15-year-old girl, both carried out while a group of five teenagers were held at gunpoint in March 1996, in a wooded area behind the Mount Estate in Cooper's hometown of Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire.

Cooper had a history of criminal activities, including 30 robberies and violent assault. Footage from the television game show Bullseye in May 1989, in which he appeared as a contestant, was later used as evidence against him, comparing his image with a sketch of a suspect in the Dixons' murder.

Cooper was sentenced to 14 years in 1998 for robbery and burglary. He was released from prison in January 2009. Because of subsequent developments in DNA and forensic science, the police carried out a cold case review in April 2009 and were able to identify Cooper's shotgun as being the murder weapon. Further DNA evidence was provided by forensic scientist Professor Angela Gallop. The police collected further evidence against him and Cooper was arrested again in May of that year. He was convicted, in May 2011, for the double murders and sexual assaults and sentenced to a whole life order.

Cooper has been linked to other, unsolved, crimes.

He ran for the House of Commons as a candidate for the Labour Party in the 1987 election in North West Surrey and in the 1992 election in Amber Valley. He was a councillor on Watford Borough Council from 1990 to 1994.

He is a member of '25 Bedford Row' Chambers in London. He specialises in cases of homicide and serious violence, serious fraud and drug offences. He has also acted in cases such as the Jacintha Saldanha inquest, Duchess of Cambridge Prank Call case, the largest ever import of heroin in the UK, and represented Nicola Edgington during her murder trial.

In 2012, he successfully acted for Paul Chambers, in his appeal over the Twitter Joke Trial.

Cooper was born in Featherstone, West Yorkshire, in 1942. In 1963 he became a freelance artist, and illustrated the comic strips "Captain Scarlet", "Thunderbirds" and "Secret Agent 21" for TV Century 21. In 1975 he co-created "One-Eyed Jack" for Valiant, with writer John Wagner. He later became the regular artist on "Johnny Red" for Battle Picture Weekly, drawing over 300 episodes, as well as "Action Force" and "Dredger" for the same title. For 2000 AD he drew "Judge Dredd," "M.A.C.H. 1", Alan Moore's "Abelard Snazz" and some "Future Shocks". He also worked on Starlord, Eagle, Scream!, Marvel UK, Roy of the Rovers, Warlord, the Judge Dredd Megazine and Private Eye.

As well as his work on comics, he also painted detailed maritime scenes by private commission, and did some work as a courtroom artist.

He was married twice, and had two children from his first marriage.