Gerard Hopkins (1892–1961)

MR GERARD HOPKINS

A GREATLY GIFTED TRANSLATOR

Gerard Hopkins, M.C., who died yesterday at the age of 68, was the most distinguished translator from the French in this country and one of the best-loved men in London. His work formed an important link between our literature and that of France, which honoured him by making him a Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur in 1951. His sympathy, wit and charm extended far beyond the field in which he was an expert; his fine imposing head and gentle humourous manner symbolised a life that kept a style and set its standards with a complete absence of fuss or ostentation.

Born on April 12, 1892, the son of Everard Hopkins and Amy Sichel, and a nephew of Gerard Manley Hopkins, Gerard Walter Sturgis Hopkins was educated and Marlborough and Balliol, where he was president of the O.U.D.S. and took a second in Greats. On going down from Oxford he served with great distinction in the First World War, being awarded the Military Cross. In 1919 he joined the Oxford University Press. He early became publicity manager and much later editorial adviser, although his editorial advice was taken throughout his time at the O.U.P. It was at his instigation that the Press became publishers of Christopher Fry, while he had much to do with their publication of his uncle's poems, letters and diaries. He revolutionised publicity at the Press, so that it became, in the words of The Bookseller on his retirement in 1957, "a Rolls Royce among bubble-cars".

He was the author of seven novels in the 1920s and 1930s, but what was to be the major work of his life began with Jules Romain's "Men of Good Will", of which he translated volumes 7-27. His own typically modest account of this gift was that it started when he went to the sanitorium at Marlborough with measles, and found himself reading and enjoying a book in French. He never made any formal study of French, but to a wide reading in that language and his own he added immense industry, far ranging information and deep critical sense. After the Second World War, he undertook an English edition of the works of Francois Mauriac. These superb translations not only introduced the French writer to a general reading public in this country, but may also be found to have influenced our own novelists. Their success made him sought after as a translator not only for novels , but for biography, memoirs, works of information, broadcasts and plays. Among these more recent translations were some of the big Andre Maurois biographies and Proust's "Jean Santeuil", the quality of which led him to be compared to Scott-Moncrieff.

In his daily work, which he kept up until a few weeks before his death, he moved with the deceptively easy rhythm of self-discipline. From each session of concentrated drafting and re-drafting he would appear relaxed and sociable, whether at home where he entertained many friends or at his much loved club, the Garrick. Reticent about his own feelings, he inspired deep confidence in others, especially among younger people; he himself in his gusto, enthusiasm and appreciation of life never grew old. Shortly before his death he was received into the Roman Catholic Church.

He was twice married, first to Mabel Muirhead and then in 1949 to Babette Johanna, widow of Peter Cornwallis and daughter of Ernest Stern, the stage designer.

The Times 21 Mar 1961 Obituaries