A couple of years ago I wrote an item for the Gazette about the Hopkins brothers. This resulted from one isolated mention of them in the history of the Anerley Bicycle Club.
“Two keen clubmen, the brothers G.L and O.J Hopkins, left in 1906 for the wilds of Canada. They subsequently started a little town there and induced the Government to provide a post office and to call the place Anerley, so we are on the map in two places!”
I followed this up, and via the marvels of the internet discovered for example:
Anerley, a hamlet in the province of Saskatchewan. Oswald James Hopkins (1877 to 1940), the first postmaster, had been a member of the Anerley Bicycle Club when he lived in London”
This and other information from the internet provided the material for my article.
Then, 18 months later and out of the blue, our club web site received an e-mail from Saskatchewan.
James Hopkins, the grandson of O.J was researching the family history and hoping that the Anerley Bicycle Club could help with some info. Unfortunately not!
But James was able to provide information for our club archive.
It transpires that G.L and O.J were a bit more than just “keen clubmen”. Copies of some Anerley Gazettes from 1903 to 1906 were forwarded to me, showing that both had been Racing Secretaries of the Anerley, with a bevy of racing successes to their names on both road and track. Whilst both raced solo, their forte was to pair up in tandem races, achieving national records in 1903.
These records were surpassed, and more added in 1904 during the Anerley B.C 100 at Crystal Palace. Their record breaking ride, shown above, even made the front page of the national newspaper, Sporting Life!
Another memento from 1904 is their National Cyclists’ Union Certificate of Record.
