Meredith Hooper, Antarctic historian and BAMT supporter 1939-2025
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Meredith Hooper, Antarctic historian and author, died on 27 December 2025 at her home in London.
She was a Visiting Scholar at the Scott Polar Research Institute and Wolfson College, Cambridge University and a trustee of the Brussels-based International Polar Foundation and the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust. She was a keen supporter of the British Antarctic Monument Trust.
Not content with reading about Antarctica she took every opportunity to visit the icy continent. She spent three summers there, the first with the Australian Antarctic Division in 1994/5 at their base in East Antarctica. Then she travelled to the Antarctic Peninsula in 1998/99 and again in 2001/02 with the US Antarctic Artists & Writers Programme.
These expeditions inspired her book, The Ferocious Summer, highlighting the warming of Antarctica and the effects of climate change on the Adélie Penguin colony at US base, Palmer. The ecologist Dr Eric Woehler wrote in The Australian, “Hooper has written a book that is unique among the wide-ranging literature of recent times. A delight to read…providing the human and scientific contexts of the research efforts and contribution to climate change science in a remarkably intimate manner.”
A prolific author, she wrote 17 books about the Antarctic starting in 1991 with A for Antarctica, a book for children commissioned by Piccolo/Macmillan. Her 58 fiction and non-fiction titles for children and adults have been published around the world , translated into many languages and awarded a number of prizes.
The Longest Winter powerfully describes how six of Scott’s companions were abandoned and survived a winter in an ice cave. The enduring eye: the Antarctic legacy of Sir Ernest Shackleton and Frank Hurley published in 2016 was the book that accompanied a major exhibition she curated at the Royal Geographical Society London.
She wrote two plays for BBC Radio 4 about Antarctica based on letters and diaries: Kathleen & Con about the meeting and love affair between Captain Scott and his wife, the sculptor, Kathleen Bruce starring Sam West and Emilia Fox; and Beyond Endurance, about Shackleton’s 1914 expedition starring Dominic West.
She was awarded the Antarctica Service Medal by the United States National Science Foundation in 2000 and in 2014 she was awarded Australian of the Year in the UK - other recipients include Professor Germaine Greer, Kylie Minogue AO, OBE, Barry Humphries AO, CBE, and Lord May of Oxford.
She was a valued supporter of the British Antarctic Monument Trust and was keen to see its success in commemorating those Britons that died in in Antarctica in pursuit of science since the first permanent base was founded by the UK in 1944 at Port Lockroy.
Meredith was born in Adelaide, South Australia on 21 October 1939 attending the Wilderness School, North Adelaide, before studying at the University of Adelaide where she was awarded a First-Class Honours degree in history. A postgraduate scholarship took her to Oxford in 1961 where she studied for a B Phil in imperial history first at Lady Margaret Hall and then at Nuffield College, where she was the first female graduate student.
She met her husband Richard Hooper at Oxford and they married in 1964 bringing up three children in London: Rachel who reports on Parliament for the BBC; Tom the Oscar-winning film director (The King’s Speech); Ben, first a barrister and now a management consultant specialising in tech. It was Meredith who went to a play reading of The King’s Speech in North London and recommended to Tom that he make it into a feature film.
Central to Meredith’s life and her writing was her love of Antarctica. She had a natural affinity for the continent and was passionate about it. She gave her time, knowledge and enthusiasm unstintingly to the many organisations concerned with its science, history and preservation.
As a child she lived on the coast of South Australia across the cold Southern Ocean from the great white continent, Antarctica. In later years she returned regularly to find creative peace on its wild shores.