Sir Richard Valentine Nind Hopkins, GCB, PC (13 February 1880 – 30 March 1955) was a British

civil servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

. Born in 1880 to businessman Alfred Nind Hopkins and Eliza Mary Castle, Hopkins was educated at

King Edward's School, Birmingham King Edward's School (KES) is an independent school (UK), independent day school for boys in the British Public school (UK), public school tradition, located in Edgbaston, Birmingham. Founded by Edward VI of England, King Edward VI in 1552, it ...

and

Emmanuel College, Cambridge Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer to Elizabeth I. The site on which the college sits was once a priory for Dominican mon ...

. First serving with the

Board of Inland Revenue The Inland Revenue was, until April 2005, a department of the British Government responsible for the collection of direct taxation, including income tax, national insurance contributions, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, corporation tax, ...

, 'Hoppy' was appointed chairman in 1922. In 1927 Hopkins was transferred to the Treasury, where he became the

Permanent Secretary to the Treasury The UK Permanent Secretary to the Treasury is the most senior civil servant at HM Treasury. The post originated as that of Assistant Secretary to the Treasury in 1805; that office was given new duties and renamed in 1867 as a Permanent Secretaryship ...

in 1942 and served in that position until 1945. He is credited with the (re)introduction of economist

John Maynard Keynes John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes, ( ; 5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946), was an English economist whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. Originally trained in ...

in the Treasury during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, whose influence proved to be essential in many economic policy decisions (Middleton 2004).

References

* * ''John Maynard Keynes: Fighting for Britain 1937-1946'' (published in the United States as ''Fighting for Freedom''), Robert Skidelsky, Papermac, 2001, (US Edition: ) 1880 births 1955 deaths Alumni of Emmanuel College, Cambridge Permanent Secretaries of HM Treasury Chairmen of the Board of Inland Revenue Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom {{UK-gov-bio-stub