66. "Impossible for us to be Conservatives": being a Nonconformist

Nearly all the religious disabilities set up after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 had been removed when John was a little boy, but they were not quite gone and they were not forgotten.  Alfred wrote that 

It was impossible for us to be Conservatives – to be content with existing conditions at a time when Nonconformists were excluded from the Public Schools and the Universities; when contribution to Church Rates was compulsory and when even the graveyards by the churches which were called national, were closed to almost half of the nation [1]

The Great Gate of Trinity College
by Andrew Dunn

The last of the old religious "Tests" that restricted the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Durham to members of the Church of England had not yet been abolished.  So when Alfred's elder brother John reached the peak of his academic career at Trinity College, Cambridge, the Manchester Evening News of 9 February 1871 quickly picked up the report coming from the Cambridge correspondent of the Daily News (the paper founded by Charles Dickens as a radical rival to the right-wing Morning Chronicle):

A general rumour prevails that Dr Hopkinson, the senior wrangler and first Smith's Prizeman, will be unable to be presented to a fellowship of his college in consequence of his being a Nonconformist, his religious convictions preventing his signing the Thirty-nine Articles, and, possessing a stalwart conscience, he cannot consider signing these Articles a mere matter of form.

Incidentally, John didn't actually have strong religious convictions but, as his son Bertram wrote "at Cambridge he greatly relished his position as a Nonconformist and Radical among the Tory Churchmen, and seized every opportunity of playing the Philistine."  [2]

In the 1850s non-Anglicans had at last been allowed to go to the universities, but men who were serious in their own religious convictions were never able to take up professorships, fellowships and other senior positions because of the barrier of having to subscribe to the Thirty Nine Articles of the Church of England.  This had continued to be "a cause of dispute and bitterness both within and beyond" the universities, as The Times noted on 14 June 1871.  The University Tests Bill, which would abolish the restriction that fettered professorships, fellowships and the like, was making its way through Parliament and on 17 March 1871 The Times reported that it would probably become law, its opponents having at last reached the position that they were 

only anxious that the change shall be made consistently with the full maintenance of Christian teaching.  Such language is very different from what we have heard in years past, when the struggle was avowedly one of Church against Dissent, and the clerical garrisons of the Universities thought it their duty to defend the fortress against every one beyond their pale ... Within the last few years two Senior Wranglers have been prevented, and a third, if this Bill does not pass, will be prevented, from obtaining a Fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge.  The individual suffers, the College suffers, ability and industry are discouraged.

The third Senior Wrangler was young John.  In fact, Trinity College changed its own laws before the Bill passed.  But John found himself in the eye of the storm and his brother Alfred wrote years later 

I remember well how at various meetings my brother's case was alluded to, as he had been both Senior Wrangler and first Smith's Prizeman, and how he used to say: "They made a little lion of me and made me roar against the disabilities of Nonconformists"  [3]

We can see how the memory of the civic disabilities stayed with old John Hopkinson from a letter he wrote on 29 November 1885 when Alfred had just had an unsuccessful run at being elected to Parliament and the Liberals had lost the election

the Tories can't do much harm in home legislation … They can't re-impose the Test Acts or treat dissenters as criminals … They can't restore the power of the landlords or take back the franchise  [4]

The Nonconformists in Manchester lived in a culture of striving.  Perhaps this came from their history – the Church of England's long struggle for sole supremacy in England and Wales from the time of Charles II's restoration had kept Protestant Nonconformists outside the power and status of the ruling classes.  It was true that they had been left free to succeed in the new and competitive fields of commerce and finance, but they were very conscious of their excluded position.  The effect of this culture of striving seemed, to later generations, strangely paradoxical.  As Gerald Hurst wrote in his Preface

The parents' Puritanism had windows which opened on two worlds.  One window always faced 'eternity'; the other, disregarding the mediaeval conceit that citizenship is in Heaven, constantly contemplated hard work, self-help, conquest. [5]

Alfred's eldest son Arthur, who became an Anglican priest, wrote of his grandparents' Puritanism

I was sorely puzzled by its inconsistencies, particularly the assumption that God will bless His own with worldly success, and that failure to achieve it is a sign of divine disapproval [6]

Alfred himself felt his parents' attitude was more nuanced.  Without denying that they welcomed and applauded worldly success, he explained that it was secondary to their faith:

In my old home Evangelical religion certainly prevailed and religion was the subject which was regarded by our parents as the most important of any, but it did not lead either of them to endeavour to impose their views upon their children after they were in a position really to think for themselves, but by precept and by practice they presented Evangelical religion in a favourable light.  

Their adhesion to it did mean undoubtedly that there was something, in their opinion, more important than worldly success and not dependent on the opinions held by other people.  It is true that, out of kindly consideration for the habits and opinions of others on matters that were not vital, they would conform to the customs current amongst the people they associated with.  

For example, my father, I know, disliked the paraphernalia then thought necessary at funerals in all classes and the extravagant expense to which people even of very small means were put in order to give what they thought a becoming funeral to their relatives or friends; but I have seen him on a hot day, when he would gladly have worn a straw hat, walking down to the old chapel with a heavy crape band round his silk hat and a scarf over his shoulders tied with a bow at the back.  The cost of providing crape and various signs of mourning, including black gloves, for everybody invited to a funeral, must have been a terrible burden to many families. [7]

Historian Tom Holland in Dominion (2019) in his description of the industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie gives us an understanding of how the emphasis on worldly success could come about.  When Carnegie's Scottish Presbyterian parents, he wrote, travelled to America

they had brought with them, just as the Pilgrim Fathers had once done, the knowledge that regeneration did not come easily to fallen humanity.  A man had to live in obedience to his calling.  Only if he laboured as though everything were dependent on his own exertions would reward then come from God.

And this striving and this view of life was especially unsurprising as John was raised and formed in 19th century Manchester – a city of competition, dynamic, innovative, immensely proud of its importance to the nation and Empire and keen to trumpet all its citizens' achievements to the world.

Notes

[1] Sir Alfred Hopkinson, K.C., LL.D., Penultima (1930) pub. Martin Hopkinson Ltd, p. 36

[2] Original Papers by the late John Hopkinson, D.Sc., F.R.S. edited with a Memoir by B. Hopkinson, B.Sc (1901), Vol 1, pub. CUP, p. xxvi

(available online at archive.org)

[3] Penultima, p. 243

[4] John and Alice Hopkinson 1824-1910 (1948) ed. Mary Hopkinson and her niece Lady Ewing, with a Preface by Sir Gerald Hurst, K.C., p. 90

[5] ibid., p. XI

[6] Arthur W Hopkinson, Pastor's Progress (1942) pub. Michael Joseph Ltd., p. 217 of Religious Book Club edition

[7] Penultima, p. 131-2