HOPTON, Richard (1685-1764), of Canon Frome, nr. Hereford.

Richard Hopton came of an old Herefordshire family. Immediately on Queen Anne’s death he notified Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, that ‘upon the ... assurances my Lord Scudamore has given me of his desisting I design to offer my service to the county.’21 Aug. 1714, Portland mss. Returned unopposed as a Tory, he spoke against the repeal of the Occasional Conformity and Schism Acts in 1719, voting against the Government except on the peerage bill, when he was absent. He did not stand again, but in 1722 took a leading part in the agitation against the attempt to compromise the Hereford borough election. He died 21 Feb. 1764.