JCU - Abstracts of the BAUS 2018 Scientific Meeting - June 2018 - 4

775309

URO

Journal of Clinical UrologyGoddard

Original Article
Journal of Clinical Urology
2018, Vol. 11(1S) 4-8
© British Association of
Urological Surgeons 2018
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https://doi.org/10.1177/2051415818775309
DOI: 10.1177/2051415818775309
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A Series of Fortunate Events:
Harold Hopkins
Jonathan Charles Goddard1,2

Abstract
Harold Hopkins is known to most urologists for his innovations in the field of endourology: fibreoptics which led to the
flexible cystoscopes and ureteroscopes and the rod lens system that revolutionised rigid cystoscopy and endourological
surgery. Of course these inventions have benefitted many other areas of medicine such as gynaecology, orthopaedics
and gastroenterology. Harold Hopkins however was an optical physicist; his genius was not limited to medical devices.
Indeed he could quite easily have concentrated his skills in theoretical physics, optical theory or applied it to optics and
lenses in industry. In fact, he could have become an expert linguist eschewing science altogether. As a matter of fact
Hopkins did all of these things but it was a series of coincidences that led him to pursue the path of optics and that
brought him together with certain doctors in need of a genius with the ability to see novel approaches to their problems.
Keywords
Harold Hopkins, James (Jim) Gow, Karl Storz, Rod lens, optics, fibreoptics

In 1957 James Gordon Gow (Figure 1), a urologist in
Liverpool, was becoming increasingly frustrated by his
attempts to photograph tumours inside the bladder. Gow, a
keen photographer, wished to record the images he saw
down his cystoscope; he felt he was seeing an increase in the
number of bladder tumours in his practice and wanted to
include a photographic record of them in the patient's notes.1
This is the beginning of the story. The end of the story (so
far) can be seen by walking around the exhibition at this
year's BAUS annual meeting in Liverpool and looking at the
most up to date endoscopic equipment on offer, which allows
us to see and operate with relative ease in the urinary tract.
This is a story that we see often in life, of a series of events
and decisions, of coincidences and actions that could lead
one down many paths. The story has been told many times
before and I'm not simply going to repeat it, I want to look at
the Harold Hopkins story from the point of view of these
multiple coincidences, which make a remarkably fortunate
tale that has benefited urology immeasurably.

A change of headmaster
Harold Horace Hopkins was born on 6th December 1918 in
Leicester; his father William Hopkins was a baker. The last
child of six, Harold's family struggled financially in the

hard economic times of the 1920's and 30's. His father was
often out of work; his mother, Teresa worked hard to educate and bring up her children well. Harold attended the
local state school and Sunday school. His mother promoted extracurricular activities and encouraged him to
take up free organ lessons at Church and took him to concerts of the Leicester Symphony Orchestra. Even at this
early age Harold must have made an impression, as one of
his teachers said to his mother, 'Mrs Hopkins, do you realise that your son is a genius?'.2 His mother's encouragement paid off as in 1929 he won a scholarship to the local
technical college, Gateway Grammar School. At Gateway
he excelled in languages and literature but his headmaster
felt not in science and he encouraged Harold to avoid those
subjects. That headmaster was Harold Collett Dent (1894
- 1995), the first headmaster of Gateway College. As luck
1Consultant

Urological Surgeon, Leicester General Hospital, Leicester,
UK
2Curator of The Museum of Urology, British Association of Urological
Surgeons, London, UK
Corresponding author:
Jonathan Charles Goddard, Department of Urology, Leicester General
Hospital, Gwendolen Road, Leicester, LE5 4PW, UK.
Email: jonathan.goddard@uhl-tr.nhs.uk

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