Godfrey Thurston Hopkins(16 April 1913 – 27 October 2014), known asThurston Hopkins, was a BritishPicture Postphotojournalist and acentenarian.
Thurston Hopkins was born on 16 April 1913 in south London, son of Sybil (née Bateley) andRobert Thurston Hopkins (1884–1958), a bank cashier and prolific author of topographical works, ghost stories, and biographies of British writersOscar Wilde,H. G. Wells andRudyard Kipling. The family lived inSussex and Godfrey, who came to be known by part of his last name (Thurston) was educated at St Joseph'sSalesian school atBurwash, near Kipling's home inEast Sussex, and atMontpelier college,Brighton.[citation needed]
Thurston Hopkins studied under Morgan Rendle atBrighton College of Art in graphic art and taught himself photography,[1] his pictures being used for some of his father's books. He found employment with a publisher adding decorative frames to portraits ofEdward VIII, which the King's abdication on 10 December 1936 brought to an abrupt end. With the shift to photography from illustration amongst newspaper publishers, he joined the PhotoPress Agency.[2] They lent him his first camera; aGoerz Anschutz which he found cumbersome. It was not until serving in the RAF Photographic Unit during theSecond World War in Italy and theMiddle East from 1940 that he acquired a more portable35 mm formatLeica which apart from occasional use of aRolleiflex, he continued to prefer for the rest of his career.
After being demobilised, Thurston Hopkins hitchhiked around Europe for a while taking photographs. Back in England he worked forCamera Press,[2] the agency founded in London in 1947 by Tom Blau. Having seen issues ofPicture Post at military posts everywhere during his service he developed a keen ambition to work for this.[1]
Founded in 1938 and funded by publisherEdward Hulton, the magazine's first editor was Hungarian émigréStefan Lorant (1901–1997)[3] assisted byTom Hopkinson (1905–1990), who took over as editor from 1940. The image-centric format, left-leaning and reasonably-priced publication was highly successful and circulation soon rose to over a million. Its photographers, includingBert Hardy,Kurt Hutton,Humphrey Spender, Leonard McCombe, John Chillingworth[4] andBill Brandt, went out with the writers on stories together, working as colleagues, not competitors.[5] By producing a dummy issue composed entirely of his own features, Thurston Hopkins persuadedPicture Post to take him on as a freelancer, and from the mid-1950s as a staffer working exclusively for the magazine.[6][7] over the years during changes of management and editors at the Magazine Thurston Hopkins worked as both a staffer and a freelancer.
One of his first essays was his popular 'Cats of London' (24 February 1951),[8] a series made whilst working as a freelancer on other stories during which he would find stray cats living in the many bomb sites and back alleys. His best known photograph, done while freelancing, drew on this talent with animals. EntitledLa Dolce Vita,Knightsbridge, London, 1953 the picture shows a limousine owner-driver with a regal poodle sitting bolt upright in the passenger seat. Ripe for commercial exploitation, it became a best selling postcard, poster and calendar image.
In support of thePost's social consciousness, Thurston Hopkins produced stories on children playing on the city streets[9] in an effort to have the need for dedicated playgrounds recognised.
His 1956 story on the slums of Liverpool, however, was spiked when the municipal administrators protested to the magazine's proprietor Edward Hulton, over its negative portrayal of the city.
AtPicture Post Thurston Hopkins met, and in 1955 married,[10] another photographer:Grace Robertson,[11] who worked under the bylineDick Muir to get work at Simon Guttman'sReport agency in an era when women were at a disadvantage in the industry.[12]
With the closure ofPicture Post in 1957, Thurston Hopkins conducted business as one of London's more successful advertising photographers from his studio inChiswick[13] before taking up teaching at theGuildford School of Art, a major British course in photography under Ifor Thomas.[7] In his rural retirement Thurston Hopkins returned to his interest in painting.[14]
Thurston Hopkins worked well into his old age[15] and died acentenarian on 27 October 2014,[16][17][18][19] survived by wife Grace, (daughter ofFyfe Robertson), his daughter, Joanna, his son, Robert, and a granddaughter, Cressida.[20]
Photographs by salaried staff ofPicture Post were retained in copyright by the Hulton empire; and when the magazine closed, the archive was sold to theBritish Broadcasting Corporation, and then to Brian Deutsch. The collection, including a large body of Thurston Hopkins pictures he made for thePost, is now owned and managed byGetty Images.[citation needed]
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