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BOND HOPKINS, Benjamin (?1745-94), of Painshill, Surr.
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Family and Education
b. ?1745, 1st s. of Benjamin Bond, Turkey merchant, of Leadenhall Street, London by Elizabeth, da. of John Hopkins of Bretons, nr. Dagenham, Essex. m. (1) 8 Mar. 1770, Elizabeth Chamberlayn (d. 3 Jan. 1771) of Worcester, s.p.s.; (2) 20 May 1773, Alicia (d. 28 Sept. 1788), da. of Capt. Tomkins of Downing Street, Westminster, 1da. surv.; (3) 22 Feb. 1791 Jane Davies alias Knight of Clapham, Surr., spinster, illegit. da. of Robert Knight†, 1st Earl of Catherlough [I], s.p. suc. to estates of grandmother’s cousin John Hopkins† of Broad Street, London and took surname Hopkins 12 Dec. 1772; fa. 1785.
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Biography
Bond Hopkins was lifted out of obscurity by the windfall of the estates of ‘Vulture’ Hopkins. In his first Parliament he disappointed the hopes of the Whigs by supporting Pitt’s administration. In 1790, at a loss for a seat, he contested Stafford, but his long purse was not enough there. Instead, he became the guest of Edmund Wilkins at Malmesbury. He was still reckoned favourable to relief for religious dissenters in April 1791, but left no mark on that Parliament, dying 30 Jan. 1794, ‘in his 48th year’. He had ‘laboured under a complication of diseases for a long period’. He bequeathed his wealth to his surviving daughter, who married Richard Mansel Philipps*, and his realty to an illegitimate son. He had rebuilt Painshill and was building ‘an expensive and large house’ at Broadstairs at the time of his death.
Manning and Bray, Surr. iii. 279; Brayley and Walford, Surr. ii. 119; Gent. Mag. (1794), i. 183.