† DAVID HOPKINSON, SHA – Heraldic Artist

David began his career with the Ordnance Survey as a cartographic draughtsman/surveyor, swiftly advancing through the ranks at Essex and Middlesex county councils. “I then saw that the whole of my work was going mechanical and I did not want to spend the rest of my life staring at a screen correcting mistakes with a mouse, so I decided I would follow my own star – heraldry.”

That star had already flickered into existence in the mid-1950s then flared into brightness under the tutelage of Gilbert “Gillie” Potter, Norman Manwaring, and Anthony Wood, a galaxy of seminal post-war artists who were responsible for re-invigorating English heraldry with a technical and encyclopaedic expertise which David’s trapdoor mind rapidly absorbed and practised, hence the reference in the title above to another artist’s solecism!

Besides his private clients, David was responsible for a steady flow of registration paintings for the College of Arms, work of the highest quality which by its very nature is rarely seen by a wider audience. So, too, his output of English civic heraldry, numbering almost fifty achievements. “Civic arms are rather prone to being bashed around over time and I enjoy trying to re-invest them with their original dignity – it is rather a busman’s holiday!”

Despite their obvious quality, few have ever been seen save by those who attend the biennial conferences of the (English) Heraldry Society where David led the way in organising exhibitions with John Ferguson, FSHA and others. He was also one of the first members of the SHA and served as Hon Membership Secretary.