Hopkins made major contributions in scientific research into three groups of insects – lice, fleas and mosquitoes.
[1] George Henry Evans Hopkins ("Harry") was born in Hanley in Staffordshire on 22 March 1898, the son of the Rev.
He sent a fellow-naturalist, Lieutenant-Colonel (later Brigadier) William Harry Evans, D.S.O., R.E., some specimens of a small Sarangesa (skipper) he had caught during the cold season at St. Thomas Mount in Madras, which were considered new to science and were ultimately described as Sarangesa hopkinsi, Evans 1921.
[6] In the summer of 1923 Dr. Patrick Alfred Buxton accepted a temporary post under the London School of Tropical Medicine to lead a research expedition to Samoa to study filariasis.
On our way through Panama we were most courteously assisted by Colonel H.C. Fisher, the Chief Health Officer, and his staff; during the passage of the ship through the Canal we were able to study the public health arrangements of the Canal Zone, especially the permanent works which are now undertaken to reduce the diseases carried by mosquitoes.
During the five months of my travels in the New Hebrides, he was in charge of the experimental work at Apia, and that says more for the standard of his performance than anything I could write here.
To this end, between 1932 and 1945, he visited all districts collecting those rodents, living in association with humans, that were known to carry the fleas.
Like Pitman, Hopkins made his contributions to the BM(NH) donating 472 specimens, mainly rodents" (Delany).
En route home to England he visited South Africa and spent some days with the staff of the Medical Ecological Centre in Johannesburg, "laying out the foundation and format for their book on fleas and plague in South Africa" (Hubbard).
[18] In recognition of his considerable contribution to medical entomology in Uganda he was created an Officer of the Civil Division of the Order of the British Empire [O.B.E.]
He was appointed as an Honorary Associate of the British Museum (Natural History), Zoological Museum, Tring in Hertfordshire, to collaborate with Miriam Rothschild (Mrs. George Lane) in bringing out An Illustrated Catalogue of the Rothschild Collection of Fleas.
A Course of Study and a Reference Book for Sanitary Inspectors in the Tropics in 1950,[23] and A Check List of the Genera and Species of Mallophaga in collaboration with Dr. Theresa Clay in 1952.
[24] In addition, in 1958 and 1961, Hopkins donated his collection of 11,000 Phthiraptera (lice) specimens to the Natural History Museum.
[25] C. Andresen Hubbard described the end of Hopkins' career in dramatic terms: "One morning during the end of September 1967 Harry came to the siphonapteran laboratory of the Tring Museum as he had for some years, opened his files for volume 5 of the ‘Catalog,’ worked his laboratory day, went home and never again returned.
The book, The Rothschild collection of fleas: the Ceratophyllidae: key to the genera and host relationships, with notes on their evolution, zoogeography and medical importance,[28] was posthumously dedicated to Hopkins.