“SELL THAT THOU HAST”

Taranaki Daily News, 23 July 1921, Page 11

“SELL THAT THOU HAST”

A SELF-DENYING PROGRAMME, London. April 3. Mr. Austin Hopkinson. M.P., for the Mossley Division of Lancashire, has left his £30,000 mansion to .live, on the canal side in an old barn, which he has converted into a neat little bungalow. He gave the mansion, Pyecroft Hall, Audenshaw, to the local council with grounds, free of any conditions whatever, together with 20 houses, which cost him £750 per house some twelve years ago. The council took up their quarters in the spacious Tudor mansion this Easter. Mr. Hopkinson disposed of the furniture partly by private treaty —and many people acquired astonishing bargains—and partly by giving articles away.

Mr. Hopkinson has gone so far in His plan to live the life of a working man that a short time ago he gave his Limousine car to his chauffeur, who has started a motor business, and now the M.P. pays the fare to his former servant whenever he wants to travel by car. Although eminently successful in business as an engineer, Mr. Hopkinson is determined to show by precept that he is sincere, when he talks about sacrifice as the only way of avoiding revolution in this country. By the pro-fit-sharing scheme at his model works the greater the profits the less money he receives.

Mr. Hopkinson is not yet 40. He is ft son of the late Professor Hopkinson, Vice-Chancellor of Manchester University, and is an Oxford man who took high degrees. He served during the war first as an officer. After being discharged unfit he rejoined as a private and went to Parliament as a private.