Author: Hopkins, Benjamin
Biography:
HOPKINS, Benjamin (1802-72: ancestry.co.uk)
He was baptised on 18 Aug. 1802 at Pontefract, Yorkshire, the youngest of six children of the Rev. Robert Hopkins (1758-1827), a Wesleyan minister, and his wife Esther Thomas (1760-1859), who had married at Stokesley, Yorkshire, in 1784. At his death in Rotherham in 1827, his father had been a travelling preacher for 48 years and was regarded as the father of Wesleyan Methodismin in Yorkshire. Benjamin Hopkins was educated at Woodhouse Grove school, Apperley Bridge, Bradford, established in 1812 for the sons of Methodist ministers. He then proceeded to St. John’s College, Cambridge (Matric. 1821, BA 1826), and was ordained in 1827. He was Curate of Darfield, Yorks, and Thurgarton and Hoveringham, Nottinghamshire, before becoming Vicar of Barbon, Westmorland, from 1842 until his death. He married Elizabeth Sanderson on 17 Jan. 1833, at Tankersley, Yorkshire. There was no issue. She died at the parsonage at Barbon on 1 Mar. 1849, aged 49. He died of chronic heart disease at Fern Bank, Birkswell, near Coventry (where he had been lodging) on 7 Feb. 1872, leaving an estate of under £200 to his brother, John Henry Hopkins. His poem Sculpture 1825) failed to win the Chancellor’s Medal at Cambridge, which was won by Edward Lytton Bulwer (q.v.). His other works, Sermons (1831) and Parochial Sermons (1842) are no longer read but his life of his father, The Life of the Reverend Robert Hopkins (1828), is still of value in the history of Methodism. (ancestry.co.uk 2 Apr. 2022; findmypast.co.uk 2 Apr. 2022; CCEd 2 Apr. 2022; Crockford’s Directories; Stamford Mercury 9 Mar. 1827; Westmorland Gazette 10 Mar. 1849; Barnsley Chronicle 26 Mar. 1859; Coventry Standard 16 Feb. 1872) AA