days before his death, which took place at his house at Hawksfold, on 

 the 1st of June, 1898. He is greatly missed by a large circle of 

 friends, to whom his kindly nature and unassuming manner, to say 

 nothing of the breadth of his scientific views, had greatly endeared him. 



A. N. 



JOHN HOPKINSON was born on July 27, 1849, son of Alderman 

 Hopkinson, of Manchester, and of a daughter of Mr. John Dewhurst, of 

 Skipton. He was the eldest of a distinguished family of brothers. 

 Alfred Hopkinson, Q.C., is now Principal of Owens College, Charles 

 Hopkinson and Edward Hopkinson, are engineers, and Albert Hopkin- 

 son is a doctor of medicine. 



After an early training at Lindow Grove School and Queenwood, 

 John entered Owens College before he was 16 years of age. He 

 showed marked taste and capacity for mathematics and physics, 

 and at the age of 18 went on to Cambridge, entering Trinity College. 

 His academic career was one of particular distinction. In 1871 he was 

 Senior Wrangler and first Smith's Prizeman, having meantime taken 

 the London degree of D.Sc., as well as a Whitworth Scholarship. He 

 was elected to a fellowship at Trinity, but he went down from the 

 University immediately after taking his degree to become an engi- 

 neering pupil in the works of Messrs. Wren and Hopkinson, where his 

 father was a partner. A very short time spent there sufficed to 

 complete his preparation for professional work, for in 1872 he entered 

 the service of Messrs. Chance Brothers and Company, glassmakers, of 

 Birmingham, as their engineering manager. An important section of 

 Messrs. Chance's work related to lighthouse illumination, and in this 

 field Hopkinson's scientific genius at once found scope. He set him- 

 self to the improvement of dioptric lights and introduced the system 

 of producing a group of flashes by the rotation of the apparatus, for 

 the purpose of giving a wider variety to aid sailors in distinguishing 

 between different lights. In 1874 he issued a pamphlet pointing out 

 the advantages of group-flashing lights and showing a simple dioptric 

 apparatus suited to produce them. He also pointed out how easily 

 the group flash could be given with catoptric apparatus. The system 

 has found extensive application. It was applied for the first time in 

 1875 to the catoptric floating light on the Royal Sovereign Shoals, near 

 Beachy Head, and has since been applied to several lightships by the 

 Trinity Corporation. The first land light on Hopkinson's system was 

 made in 1875, for Tampico Lighthouse, in the Gulf of Mexico, and 

 this was soon followed by many more. Later, when the question 

 arose of adopting electricity in lighthouses, Hopkinson's work did 

 much to overcome the difficulties which attended the use of the new 

 illuminant, and several of the early electric lighthouses were equipped 

 to his designs. Probably the designs of no lighthouse engineer hava 



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