Career
Hopkins joined the Royal Navy in 1848. Promoted to Captain in 1867, he commanded successively HMS Liverpool, HMS Narcissus, HMS Royal Adelaide and HMS Temeraire. He became Commander of HMS Excellent, the Gunnery School at Portsmouth, in 1880.
In 1881 he became Private Secretary to the First Lord of the Admiralty and in 1883 he was made Captain-superintendent of Sheerness Dockyard and then Director of Heavy Ordnance.
He went on to be Admiral-superintendent of Portsmouth Dockyard in 1886 and Junior Naval Lord and then Third Naval Lord and Controller of the Navy in 1888. He had the distinction in 1893 of parading his brigade of Royal Marines in New York in the first display of British military force in that City since the American Revolutionary War.
Promoted to Vice Admiral in 1891 Hopkins was appointed Commander-in-Chief, North American and West Indies Station later that year before being made Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet in 1897 during which tour he hosted a visit to Malta by the Kaisar Wilhelm World War II He was a supporter of improvements in gunnery and at this time experimented with a new type of salvo firing. In 1903 he served on the Royal Commission responsible for examining the conduct of the Second Boer War.
Hopkins predicted the threat from Zeppelins as the threat of World War I approached and lobbied for investment in aerial defence.
He died in 1916.
