William Hopkins was admitted as a pensioner (age 30) at Peterhouse on 1 May, 1823. [Previously a farmer, near Bury St Edmunds.] Son of William, gentleman-farmer. Born 2 Feb. 1793, at Kingston, Notts. Matriculated Michaelmas 1823; B.A. (7th Wrangler) 1827; M.A. 1830. F.R.S., 1837. Admitted ad eundem at Oxford, 1847. Esquire Bedell, 1827-66. President of the Geological Society, 1851-3; Wollaston medallist, 1850. President of the British Association, 1853. Remarkably successful as a mathematical 'coach' and as a teacher of geology. Had among his pupils nearly 200 wranglers, of whom 17 were Senior and 44 in one of the first three places: these included Stokes, Kelvin, Tait, Fawcett, Clerk Maxwell, Routh, and Todhunter. A Syndic for building the Fitzwilliam Museum, 1835. Married (1) Miss Braithwaite, who died before 1822; (2) while an undergraduate, Caroline Boys, and had issue. Author, Theoretical Investigations on Motion of Glaciers; Elements of Trigonometry; An abstract of a memoir on Physical Geology, etc. Died Oct. 13, 1866, at Cambridge. The Hopkins prize was founded in his memory by the Cambridge Philosophical Society. There is a painting of him in the hall of Peterhouse. (C.U. Hist. Reg.; Al. Oxon.; Boase, I. 1534; T. A. Walker, 417; Crosbie Smith in ODNB)