BOND HOPKINS, Benjamin (?1745-94), of Painshill, Surr.

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.1Manning and Bray, Surr. iii. 279; Brayley and Walford, Surr. ii. 119; Gent. Mag. (1794), i. 183.