William Hopkins was a portrait painter, copyist and perhaps a pupil of Sir William Beechey, copies of whose portraits he made. Hopkins's career has sunk into obscurity, but he appears to have been commissioned to paint the portraits of a number of people in the royal household. He exhibited 13 works at the Royal Academy between 1803 and 1811, during which time his address is given as Windsor Castle. Several of his sitters apparently lived in and around Windsor.