Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hopkins, William (1706-1786)
HOPKINS, WILLIAM (1706–1786), Arian writer, born in 1706, was the son of John Hopkins of Monmouth. After attending Monmouth grammar school, he matriculated at All Souls College, Oxford, on 19 Nov. 1724, and graduated B.A. in 1728 (Foster, Alumni Oxon., 1715–1886, ii. 689). He became in 1729 curate of Waldron, Sussex; in 1731 curate of Buxted and Cuckfield in the same county, an assistant master of Cuckfield grammar school, and vicar of the neighbouring village of Bolney. In 1753 he published anonymously ‘An Appeal to the Common Sense of all Christian People, more particularly the members of the Church of England, with regard to an important point of faith and practice imposed upon their consciences by Church authority, by a Member of the Church of England’ (other editions in 1754, 1775, and 1787), which excited some controversy. He was elected master of Cuckfield school in 1756. His next attack on the church was published without his name in 1763 as ‘The Liturgy of the Church of England reduced nearer to the standard of Scripture.’ This was followed about 1765 by another anonymous treatise, entitled ‘An Attempt to restore Scripture forms of Worship; or a friendly Dialogue between a common Unitarian Christian and an Athanasian’ (other editions in 1784 and 1787). In 1766 Hopkins undertook the curacy of Slaugham, Sussex, and officiated there many years, and in his own parish of Bolney, making what alterations he pleased in the service, with the connivance of his churchwardens. He supported the petition to parliament for relief in the matter of subscription to the liturgy and Thirty-nine Articles, and published anonymously in 1772 two pamphlets on the subject: 1. ‘Queries recommended to the consideration of the public with regard to the Thirty-nine Articles,’ and 2. ‘A Letter to the Rev. Josiah Tucker, Dean of Gloucester, occasioned by his Apology for the present Church of England.’ His last work, issued in 1784, was ‘Exodus.’ A corrected Translation, with Notes critical and explanatory, in which notes he renewed his attack on the articles and liturgy. He died in 1786.
[Life prefixed to An Appeal (ed. 1787); Robert Williams's Eminent Welshmen, p. 220.]