Introducing John Hopkinson & Alice Dewhurst

Last year I began a new blog called 'The Engineering Hopkinsons'.  

Alice Dewhurst of Skipton was the daughter of John Dewhurst of the Bellevue Mill.  (Readers may remember buying the familiar Dewhurst sewing thread)  

In 1848 she married John Hopkinson, millwright and engineer of Manchester, and they had a large family.  Three of their four sons were engineers:

John Hopkinson FRS was a noted physicist, electrical engineer and professor who died untimely with three of his children in a climbing accident in the Alps.

Edward Hopkinson, engineer and MP, designed the first City & South London Railway's electric locomotives

Charles Hopkinson was a consulting engineer.  With his nephew Bertram Hopkinson and Ernest Talbot, they worked on the electrification of the Newcastle upon Tyne and Leeds tramway systems

Sir Alfred Hopkinson, John and Alice's second son, was the only one to follow the arts rather than the sciences.  He was a lawyer, academic and MP

Albert Hopkinson, the youngest son, was a general practitioner and influential teacher of anatomy.

This is the first article on 'The Engineering Hopkinsons' to give readers an idea of the story that follows:

Introduction

On Monday 7 February 1848, four days before his 24th birthday, a young engineer called John Hopkinson wrote his first and only letter of proposal of marriage

My dear Miss Dewhirst,

I wish to ask you one question, one which I have never proposed to any other, soliciting for it a patient consideration, because your answer may possibly affect your own happiness, and is to me an object of deepest concern.  Most respectfully yet most anxiously I ask, Will you be mine?

He had come to know Alice Dewhurst – in his anxiety, he misspells her surname in his carefully written letter – when she came to Manchester on visits to her married sister Ellen.  From the start he had been attracted by her "intelligence, unaffected piety, and genuine worth."  Admiration and esteem had become love, "deep and fervent."  He had never spoken to her about it because, as an apprentice and then an employee of Messrs Wren & Bennett, Millwrights & Engineers, he wasn't in a position to look after a wife.  Now he was a partner in the firm.  Casting aside formality, he wrote

I do love you.  I am yours devotedly.  Dearest let me call you my Alice and the future shall bear witness to the fervency of my gratitude.  

His proposal wasn't made lightly – deep feelings, long thought and prayer lay behind it.  His closing words were 

In tendering to you my warmest affections and in soliciting a return I have taken council of my own heart, but not less have I sought direction from God.  To His guidance I commend you, confident that in His hands the result will be right even though it should blast my most fondly cherished hopes – for He is wiser than men. 

Ever am I 

Yours very sincerely

John Hopkinson

That Friday, on his birthday, he visited her at her parents' home in Skipton and they were engaged.  They were married seven months later in the Zion Chapel in Skipton.  They remained a devoted, loving couple until John's death in 1902.

"That Tiresome Lady Architect": Mrs Annabel Dott

Five years ago, on Thursday 21 February 2019, I published here the first of my pieces on the redoubtable and remarkable Mrs Annabel Dott, woman architect and builder.  I first came across her when I read the entry for Goathland in a copy of the old Harmsworth's Universal Encyclopedia, Volume 6:

Goathland.  Parish and village of N.R. Yorkshire, England.  It is 8 m. S.W. of Whitby, on the N.E. Rly.  Here is a cottage colony for disabled officers.  Goathland Moor lies 2 m. S. of the village, and is noted for its cataracts.  Pop. 519.

I had never heard of the cottage colony for disabled officers and I was intrigued.  In the end, I found I had written twelve posts after the introductory one, which is called Mrs Annabel Dott & the Goathland Homes for Officers.  On the way I encountered other Dott enthusiasts.

And now two of them, Lynne Dixon and Dorothy Reed, have written a wonderful book

I'm afraid the cover looks a little bent - that's because I had started reading it greedily before I remembered to photograph it.  I recommend it highly!  Buy it from Brown Dogs Books.