Hopkins, Professor Harold Horace (1918 – 1994), physicist and endoscopist
“In recognition of his many contributions to the theory and design of optical instruments, especially of a wide variety of important new medical instruments which have made a major contribution to clinical diagnosis and surgery.”
The reason he was awarded the Rumford Medal from the Royal Society in 1984.
Born from a poor family in Leicester he graduated in physics and mathematics at University College Leicester (1939). Optics company Taylor, Taylor & Hobson provided an introduction to optical design, in which he obtained a PhD in 1945. He began a research fellowship at Imperial College London in 1947, lecturing in optics. Hopkins achieved a number of major advances in the field of optics. Practical results included designing for the BBC the first zoom lens that worked as standard fixed-focus lens as well, revolutionising the filming of outdoor events. He also worked on the design of Phillips’ laser disc. In the early 1950s he co-designed a “fibroscope” (a flexible bundle of glass fibres), which proved useful both medically and industrially, paving the way for modern fibre optic cables.
He refined his ideas with a German manufacturer, resulting in a design breakthrough in 1967 which enabled surgeons to view and photograph inaccessible areas of the body in detail. This vital contribution to medicine earned him numerous awards. In 1967 he took a new chair in applied optics at Reading University where he was Head of Physics from 1977 to 1980, retiring in 1984. He did much of his early works on endoscopes in concert with surgeons at the Royal Berkshire Hospital. The Physics Department at Reading is still known today for its work in optical physics. He died in Reading in October 1994.
Link to the Dictionary of National Biography (only from a Library terminal).
Professor Harold Hopkins
The Berkshire Medical Centre have a special section devoted to Harold Hopkins endoscopic
work. They are located in the Royal Berkshire Hospital.
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