geology, and in the following year he was elected president of the Geological Society. He became president of the British Association in 1853, then held at Hull, and in his address referred to a series of important experiments which he had instituted at Manchester, with the advice of Sir William Thomson and the assistance of Messrs. Joule and Fairbairn, to determine the temperature of melting of substances under great pressure. These were connected with his speculations on the interior of the earth. He concluded that the conducting power of the strata, or the temperature at which they melt, increases considerably with their depth. Hopkins also applied the astronomical phenomena of ‘precession of the equinoxes’ to test whether the interior of the earth is solid or molten.
Hopkins died at Cambridge 13 Oct. 1866, in his seventy-fourth year. He was a man of marked dignity of character and most affectionate nature. He took a keen pleasure in poetry and music, had great conversational power, and his sense of natural beauty led to his taking up, not unsuccessfully, landscape-painting late in life as a recreation. By his second marriage Hopkins left one son and three daughters. After his death the Cambridge Philosophical Society founded a prize in his honour (first awarded in 1867 and triennially since) ‘for the best original memoir, invention, or discovery in connection with mathematico-physical or mathematico-experimental science.’ Hitherto ‘only the very best mathematicians,’ writes Dr. Routh, ‘have had this prize awarded to them.’
Hopkins published: 1. ‘Elements of Trigonometry,’ London, 1833, containing a good historical sketch of that branch of mathematics. 2. ‘Abstract of a Memoir on Physical Geology,’ Cambridge, 1836, an attempt to explain dislocations by estimating the ‘effects of an elevatory force acting at every point beneath extensive portions of the earth's crust.’ 3. ‘Investigation of Effects of the Sun's and Moon's Attraction according as the earth is solid, or a fluid surrounded by a rigid shell;’ before the Royal Society, and again with additions before the British Association in 1847, in a report on the geological theories of elevation and of earthquakes. 4. ‘Researches in Physical Geology,’ ‘Philosophical Transactions’ for 1839 and 1840. 5. ‘Theoretical Investigations on the Motion of Glaciers,’ Cambridge, 1842. 6. ‘Transport of Erratic Blocks,’ ‘Transactions of Cambridge Philosophical Society,’ vol. viii. pt. ii., 1844. 7. Address as president of the Geological Society, mainly occupied with drift accumulations in relation to the theories of transport of glaciers and floating ice, London, 1852. 8. ‘Geology,’ a paper setting forth clearly the primary principles of speculative geology in ‘Cambridge Essays,’ 1857.
For his other papers see ‘Geological Society's Journal,’ iv. 70, viii. 20; ‘Transactions,’ vii. 1; ‘Proceedings,’ iii. 363; ‘Fraser's Magazine,’ 1863.
There is a painting of Hopkins in the hall of Peterhouse, Cambridge.
[Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. xxiii. p. xxix, &c.; Gent. Mag. 1866; Bury Post, October 1866; Times, October 1866; private information; Abstr. Phil. Trans. vi. 347; Admiralty Manual of Scientific Inquiry, p. 283 n.; Nichols's Cycl. pp. 225, 830; L. Stephen's Life of Henry Fawcett, pp. 24, 26, 27, 48–51, 99; Clark and Hughes's Life of Sedgwick, ii. 74, 154, 323.]
HOPKINSON, JOHN (1610–1680), antiquary, son of George Hopkinson of Lofthouse, near Leeds, by his second wife, Judith, daughter of John Langley of Horbury, was born at Lofthouse in 1610. He states that he was a member of Lincoln's Inn, and for some part of the reign of Charles I he was clerk of the peace for the county of York. Thoresby, in his ‘Diary,’ infers that he had been Norroy king-of-arms, meaning really deputy to that officer. When Sir William Dugdale made a visitation of the county of York in 1665–6, Hopkinson accompanied him as his secretary. In spare moments he employed himself in transcribing old deeds connected with Yorkshire families, and also in drawing out the pedigrees of the Yorkshire gentry. In this way he slowly accumulated a very extensive antiquarian miscellany in manuscript, which has been largely used by local historians and genealogists. Hopkinson was well enough known and respected to have special letters of protection granted to him and his father during the civil war by both the Marquis of Newcastle and Fairfax. He died 28 Feb. 1680, and was buried at Rothwell, near Leeds, where there is a monument to his memory in the chancel of the church.
Hopkinson's collections, which comprised at least eighty volumes, passed on his death to his sister Jane, who had married Richard Richardson. About half came by descent into the possession of Frances Mary Richardson Currer [q. v.] of North Bierley and Eshton in Yorkshire, and from her passed to her relative, Sir Matthew Wilson. These have been catalogued by the Historical Manuscripts Commission. The other portion are in the possession of J. G. F. Smyth of Heath, near Wakefield, who is also descended from Richard Richardson and Jane Hopkinson.
Many copies of Hopkinson's various collections have been made, especially of the genealogies of the West Riding families. One
