Edward Hopkins

Edward John Hopkins (London, 1818–1901) was an English organist and composer and a member of a large family of musicians. His father, George Hopkins (1789–1869), was a clarinettist and bandmaster, and both his younger brother, John Hopkins (1822–1900), and his first cousin, John Larkin Hopkins (1819–1873), served as cathedral organists and composed sacred music, placing Edward within a deeply rooted family tradition in nineteenth-century British musical life.

He was a chorister of the Chapel Royal from 1826 to 1833 and afterwards a pupil of T. F. Walmisley. In 1834 he became organist of the Church of St Peter and St Paul in Mitcham and, after further ecclesiastical appointments, was elected organist of the Temple Church in London in 1843. There he distinguished himself above all as a choir director. When the church was restored, the benchers decided to introduce a choir of men and boys in surplices and a fully sung service, and Hopkins made the music of the church a model for the choral services that spread through parishes across the country. He remained in the post until his retirement in 1898, and in 1893 he received an award from the two Honourable Societies of the Temple for fifty years of service.

He took part in founding the College of Organists (1869) and the Musical Association (1874), and in 1882 he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Music by Lambeth. He composed prolifically in sacred and organ music, and his hymns and services were much in demand in his day, although today his tune 'Ellers' (1869) is barely remembered. He considered it to be in the Mixolydian mode, since it begins and ends on the fifth degree of the scale.

His legacy rests above all on his treatise The Organ: its History and Construction, published alongside Rimbault's History of the Organ (1855), a work that remains an indispensable resource for organ research. He also edited madrigals by Bennet and Weelkes for the Musical Antiquarian Society, and Purcell's organ music for Novello. In 1894 he founded the journal The Organist and Choirmaster, which he edited until his death.