John Hopkins (lawyer)

John Hopkins (born 1936) is an Emeritus fellow of Downing College, Cambridge. He is married to Cherry, a retired fellow and Director of Studies in law of Girton College, Cambridge.

He read law at Queens' College, Cambridge, was awarded his B.A. in 1960, and his LLB the following year, accompanied by the Whewell Scholarship in International Law. He was elected to a fellowship at Downing in October 1961. He was called to the Bar by Gray's Inn in 1964. Thereafter, he held many positions in college, including Tutor, Senior Tutor and Director of Studies in Law, retiring in 2004. He has been Visiting Professor at City University, London since 1980. In 1981, he was elected Honorary Bencher of Middle Temple, London. He is a former governor of Harrow School, Sherbourne School and Eastbourne College, and is a governor of Wellington College.

In his capacity as Director of Studies in Law at Downing for over 40 years, and also as a University Lecturer, John Hopkins guided generations of students through the highs and lows of Constitutional, Equity and International Law, regaling them with scores of (often the same) humorous stories and jokes.

His love of Winnie-the-Pooh is legendary. His style of supervision, delivered in the old style, pipe in hand,(smoking matches, as the pipe never seemed to light, and banging the pipe on the bottom of his shoe) has had a widespread influence on generations of lawyers who read law at Cambridge. He taught John Cleese Equity when he read law at Downing....
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