William Hopkins

Hopkins’ first wife passed away in the year 1821 and William then remarried. His second marriage to Caroline Frances Boys, lasted until the former’s death and the couple had four children.

Towards the later stages of his life, William suffered from chronic mania and exhaustion and breathed his last on 13 October 1866, in a psychiatric hospital in the Stoke Newington district of Hackney.

William Hopkins was the son of a gentleman farmer, who rented his farmland to others and earned a share of the produce or profit. When William was born on February 2, 1793, the family stayed in the village of Kingston-on-Soar in the county of Nottinghamshire but later they shifted to Norfolk.

In Norfolk, William was educated in practices of agriculture but he never developed a liking for the occupation. After the death of his wife, he started out afresh and used the money earned from selling his plot of land to embark on educational pursuits.

In 1822, he enrolled at the ‘Peterhouse College’ affiliated to the ‘Cambridge University’. He completed his bachelor’s degree in mathematics, with distinction, in the year 1827.

After his glorious performance in college, he started his career working as a tutor, teaching undergraduate students in the University. He was equally successful in this endeavour and produced about 20 top mathematics undergraduates, with an annual income of £700–800.

His students included the future mathematician Edward Routh, physicist James Clerk Maxwell and chemist William Thomson. The latter worked on the ‘Green’s theorem’ propounded by mathematician George Green after acquiring his notes in possession of Hopkins, in 1828.

William’s association with geology began in 1833 when he joined his Cambridge colleague Adam Sedgwick in numerous geological expeditions undertaken by the latter. He set about applying mathematics to explain the formation of fissures and faults across the earth’s surface.

He propounded that an elevatory force which is in action below the earth’s crust is created by the hot vapours or fluid present below and is the reason for creation of fissures or faults on the surface. His theories contradicted the views or his nemesis Charles Lyell and were eventually proved wrong.

Also in 1833, he wrote his famous book on the trigonometry, a branch of mathematics, titled ‘Elements of Trigonometry’.

William Hopkins most important contribution to the field of science was his theory which described the relationship between pressure and melting point of a substance. He proved that the two are directly proportional and thus melting point rises as pressure applied on the substance increases.