SIR RICHARD HOPKINS

Published date01 June 1956
Date01 June 1956
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1956.tb01480.x
Sir
Richard
Hopkins
This appreciation was prepared
by
a former
Treasury
oficial with rke
assistance of
many
orher frierids of Sir Richard
Hopkins,
both
in and
out
of the Civil Seroice.
ITH
the death of Sir Richard Hopkins in March, 1955, there was lost to
W
this country a devoted and
a
great public servant. In this note an
attempt is made to describe, and to assess, the main features of that service.
Within its compass, much is necessarily omitted and attention is concentrated
primarily on his career as a civil servant. The picture would be incomplete,
however, without the inclusion of at least a short summary of his work for
the Church
of
England and for the University of London, and of some
references to his activities in other spheres.
Richard Valentine Nind Hopkins was born in Birmingham
in
1880
and was educated at King Edward’s School, Birmingham, and then at
Emmanuel College, Cambridge. For both, he cherished warm affection and
interest throughout his life. Academically, his record was one
of
outstanding
brilliance, culminating with a First in Classics followed by a First in History.
More surprising to his friends in later life might seem
his
achievements
as a member of the Rugby
XV
and
of
the Cricket
XI,
and in athletics.
Inland Revenue Department
From Cambridge, he entered the Inland Revenue Department as a
First Division Clerk in October, 1902. The Inland Revenue, then under
the Chairmanship of Sir Henry Primrose, was a somewhat placid pool in
comparison with what it has since become, and certainly the demands made
upon him by his earliest official duties did not unduly strain his great capacity.
Those circumstances, not to be repeated at any later stage of his career,
did
at least provide him with the opportunity to devote himself to the Bermondsey
Mission, founded by the late Dr.
J.
Scott Lidgztt, of which he was for many
years a loyal and active supporter and where for a time he lived.
It
was only with the appearance of Mr. Lloyd George as Chancellor and
Sir Robert Chalmers as Chairman that he was first able to give a real taste
of his great qualities. His part in the enactment and subsequent administra-
tion of the three controversial Land Values Duties, repealed
in
1920, was a
minor one, but
it
is known that Sir Robert Chalmers did not take long to
realise that here was an officer of exceptional ability.
It
was with the coming of the First World War that he first came right
to the fore, jointly with the first Lord Stamp, as one of the framers
of
a tax
which was not only new but novel, the Excess Profits Duty. One might
say
that Lord Stamp took the leading theoretical part, and Richard Hopkins the
leading practical part, in what was for the purpose an almost ideal combination
of
two men. The tax was one of his major pre-occupations from its inception
until the elaborate legislation which accompanied its repeal in 1921.
The years 1919-22 were probably those of
his
maximum effort and
output in the Department. In 1916 the Board had been reconstituted, when
the Secretaries, of whom he was one, became
ex
oficio
Commissioners. Early
in 1920 he became the second senior Commissioner, and in the same year he
115

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