[1] The last lines of Secret Orders, written in appreciation of the Destroyers for Bases Agreement (a predecessor to Lend Lease), harken to the Second World War bond between the two navies.

[3] Promoted to commander on 26 June 1902,[6] he was posted to the cruiser HMS Hawke as she conveyed troops to the Mediterranean from January to March 1903.

Late in his military career, Admiral Hopwood wrote Our Fathers,[C] The Old Way,[D] as well as The Secret of the Ships, and The New Navy, "all of which were steeped in the tradition of the Service.

Steeped in the history of the British Navy through the centuries, they speak of something which may be called, quite simply, the soul of England, something that has saved her from a thousand perils in the past and is her only safeguard for the future.

On 21 October 1925, 120 years after the Battle of Trafalgar, Hopwood appeared before the Royal United Services Institution to lecture on "The Ancestry of Nelson's Ships.

It follows that there are sufficient joints in her harness to offer targets enough to provide for the efforts of the most prolific inventor.The 23 July 1896 issue of the British Army and Navy Gazette presented a poem that was destined to become one of the Naval World's literary classics.

Hopwood's work, entitled The Laws of the Navy, set forth what might safely be termed the "wisdom of the ages" for all who seek to make their way in large, hierarchical organizations, with special emphasis on the seagoing versions.

During the Great War era, Lieutenant Rowland Langmaid, R.N.,[F] made a series of drawings to accompany the poem, which was published in the version illustrated here.

The commonsense, the mild cynicism ("there be those who have risen thereby"), the jingling metre, accentuated by the illustrations of [Langmaid],[G] have left their marks upon the memories of those who have come across the twin frames which hang upon the bulkheads and walls of ships and naval establishments.

It has been featured in the annual editions of this publication to the present day, and many a former Plebe can recite its words by heart, having been made to memorize them as an essential part of the educational process.

Its inspiration comes from the metaphor in the fifth stanza of "Secret Orders": That even while Goering was spinning his webs, Ere Goebbels consigned the flotilla to flames, As trim and excited as so many debs The fifty were bound for the Court of St. James, Displaying the emblems that none can mistake Their feathers—of steam, and the trains—in their wake.

[10][H] Though the fifty in truth were not much liked by their new crews,[16] Hopwood was moved to poetry by the image of old ships returning to duty: When orders arrive, irrespective of man, To waken for service as fast as [they] can!

The mothers of pilgrims brought up over there Are waiting with pride to convey them to Court, As daughters of Freedom presenting their claim To champion her cause in the family name!

...After his retirement, and as long as his health allowed he took a keen interest in many naval institutions, among them being the Queen Adelaide Naval Fund,[J] the Royal Humane Society, the Royal Sailors' Daughters' School and Home[20][K] at Hampstead, and the Chelsea Branch of the R.N.L.I.Hopwood has two portraits in the National Portrait Gallery, London, by Walter Stoneman.