Charles Gordon Hopkins

Charles Gordon Hopkins (1822–1886) was a British-born politician and newspaper editor of the Hawaiian Kingdom. He served several posts in the Hawaiian government including Minister of Finance and Minister of the Interior. He became an intimate friend and advisor to three successive Hawaiian monarchs. From 1865 to 1866, he accompanied Queen Dowager Emma (widow of Kamehameha IV) on her trip to Europe and the United States.

Early life He was born in 1822 as the fourth of five children of Edward Martin Hopkins, a London broker, and Ann Manley Hopkins, from an old Devonshire family. His siblings were Ann Eleanor, Manley, Edward Martin and Thomas Marsland Hopkins. His eldest brother Manley supported the family after their father's early death in 1836 while his second older brother Edward Martin Hopkins, worked as a Hudson's Bay Company official and traveled as a private secretary with Governor George Simpson around the world in 1841–42. Hopkins was enticed by the tales of Edward's travels and encouraged to go to Hawaii. In December 1843, Simpson wrote to William Richards, an American advisor and envoy of King Kamehameha III, recommending Charles Hopkins as an official in the Hawaiian monarchy which had recently adopted a Western style constitution and government and was in need of foreign councillors.

Career in Hawaii Hopkins arrived in Honolulu in February 1845 on the Hudson's Bay Company packet ship Nepaul. He initially served minor posts as a government clerk and a police magistrate while he learned the Hawaiian language. He soon became a naturalized subject of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

He briefly served as editor pro tempore of The Polynesian, the official newspaper of the government, from December 23, 1848, to May 12, 1849. He later resumed as editor of the Polynesian and director of the government press from July 7, 1855, to October 6, 1860. An advocate of the Native Hawaiian people, he wrote an editorial in 1849 promoting the idea of building a free public hospital for the Hawaiians. This idea may have later influenced the foundation of The Queen's Hospital in 1859. One of Manley's sons was the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins.

In his capacity as a royal favorite and agent of the king, Hopkins acquired lands for ranching at Kahuku on the windward side of the island of Oahu from the royal crown lands. The Euro-American community, especially the American Protestant missionaries, disapproved of Hopkins close association with the Hawaiians and his private life. Hopkins had a son Charles Louis Kamohoalii Hopkins (1853–1918) out of wedlock with a Hawaiian woman.

Later life and death On November 17, 1867, Hopkins left Hawaii on a steamer for New York. He returned to England by 1868 and spent his latter life in Toulon, in southern France where he died in 1886. All of his private correspondence with his family was lost or destroyed.

His son would serve as deputy-marshal and later marshal of the Hawaiian Kingdom during the reign of King Kalākaua, and in his capacity as marshal, proclaimed the accession of Queen Liliuokalani in 1891.