1686, 8vo; also 1688, 8vo; and ‘Animadversions on Mr. Johnson's Answer to Jovian’ (i.e. Hickes), 1691, 8vo. ‘Seventeen Sermons’ by him were published by Hickes after his death, with a memoir, London, 1708, 12mo. Hopkins also collected materials for a history of Worcester Cathedral, and helped Bishop Gibson in his editions of the ‘Saxon Chronicle’ and Camden's ‘Britannia.’
[Life of Hickes prefixed to the Seventeen Sermons; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iv. 680–681; Chalmers's Biog. Dict.; Green's Hist. of Worcester, ii. 102, 103.]
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.]
HOPKINS, WILLIAM (1793–1866), mathematician and geologist, born 2 Feb. 1793 at Kingston in Derbyshire, was the only son of William Hopkins, a gentleman farmer. After spending some time in Norfolk, learning practical farming, his father bought for him a small property near Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk, which he attempted to farm, but without success. The occupation had always been uncongenial, and after the death of his first wife, a Miss Braithwaite, Hopkins sold the farm to pay his debts, and made a fresh start in life by entering himself in 1822, when in his thirtieth year, at Peterhouse, Cambridge.
Graduating seventh wrangler in 1827, when De Morgan was fourth, Hopkins settled in Cambridge as a private tutor, having married his second wife, Caroline Boys, while an undergraduate. His success as a mathematical teacher was so remarkable that he soon became known as the ‘senior wrangler maker,’ and in 1849, according to Mr. Rouse Ball, ‘he was able to say that he had had among his pupils nearly two hundred wranglers, of whom seventeen had been senior and forty-four in one of the first three places.’ Although so successful in this respect, he was conspicuous for encouraging in his pupils a disinterested love of their studies, instead of limiting their aspirations to examination honours. He formed a select class of those who had shown in their first year promise of becoming high wranglers. Among his pupils were Professors Stokes, Sir W. Thomson, Tait, Fawcett, James Clerk-Maxwell, and Todhunter. Fawcett was a favourite pupil, and when he became blind in 1858, was first roused to resolute acceptance of his position by a letter of manly advice from Hopkins.
Chosen senior esquire bedell of the university in 1827, Hopkins proceeded M.A. in 1830. He was appointed in 1835 and again in 1837 a syndic for building the Fitzwilliam Museum.
About 1833 Hopkins acquired through Professor Sedgwick a taste for geology, and afterwards devoted much of his time to the physical theories of the science, applying mathematical methods to test them, and in certain cases suggesting important modifications of accepted views. In 1850 he received the Wollaston medal for his researches on the application of mathematics to physics and
