Gladys Hooper, who was raised in Rottingdean before the First World War, died in a nursing home in Ryde on the Isle of Wight yesterday lunchtime (Saturday 9 July).
Mrs Hooper was the oldest person in Britain at the time of her death and the 12th oldest in the world.
She was born Gladys Nash in January 1903, the oldest of six children – five girls and a boy.
Mrs Hooper, a former concert pianist, also managed Kingscliff House, formerly Brighton College’s pre-prep school, and ran a car hire business in the 1920s.
She moved to the Isle of Wight to be near her son Derek Hermiston after her husband Leslie died in 1977.
