HOPKINS, Edward (?1675-1736), of Coventry.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1715-1754, ed. R. Sedgwick, 1970
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

1701 - 1702
25 Feb. 1707 - 1710
1713 - 1727

Family and Education

b. ?1675, s. of Richard Hopkins, M.P., of Coventry by Mary, da. of Alderman Johnson. educ. Eton; Trinity, Oxf. 2 July 1692, aged 17; Grand Tour (Flanders, France, Italy) 1696-1700. m. 1 Mar. 1725, Anna Maria, da. and coh. of Dr. Hugh Chamberlayne1 of Alderton Manor and Hinton Hall, Suff., 3s. 2da. suc. fa. 1707.

Offices Held

M.P. [I] 1721-7.

Commr. of revenue [I] 1716-22; sec. to ld. lt. [I] 1722-4; master of the revels [I] 1722-d.; P.C. [I] 1722.

Biography

Hopkins belonged to a prominent Coventry family who represented the city in most Parliaments from 1660 to 1710, when he transferred to Lord Cornwallis’s borough of Eye. A staunch Whig, connected with Lord Sunderland through his uncle, Thomas Hopkins, M.P. Coventry 1701, who had been Sunderland’s secretary,2 he voted with the Government in all recorded divisions after George I’s accession. Rewarded with an Irish place, he exchanged it to become secretary to the Duke of Grafton as lord lieutenant, from whom he obtained the post of master of the revels, or censor of plays, in Ireland at £300 p.a.3 On 26 Apr. 1723 he supported the bill for a special tax on Roman Catholics, but declared that the second reading should be postponed to give the House more time to consider it, in which Walpole acquiesced.4 He did not stand in 1727, dying 17 Jan. 1736.

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: Romney R. Sedgwick

Notes

  • 1. Nichols, Atterbury Corresp. v. 48.
  • 2. M. D. Harris, 'Mems. of Edward Hopkins', EHR, xxxiv. 491-504.
  • 3. Chas. Maddox to Edw. Hopkins, 3 Oct. 1722, Hopkins mss.
  • 4. Knatchbull Diary.