Contents of medical haversack : Surgeon Captain W F Hopkins, 1st Victorian Mounted Rifles

Contents of haversack (REL/01497.002) including: Lightweight folding splint, two red tourniquets with screw fittings and pads, one cream coloured tourniquet without screw fitting or pads, three round tins of adhesive plaster, one round tin of Isinglass, one small round wooden screwtop portable antiseptic vaseline tin, Sal Volatile (smelling salt) in long wooden case, one thin black mortar and pestle, one small suede bag with "CAPT. HOPKINS" written on front, one rectangular tin with metholated spirit wick holder and compartment to wax vestas, aluminium hyperdermic case containing syringe and drugs, leather wallet containing needles, silk, pins, safety pins and probe, and a notebook containing casualty labels.

Used by Surgeon-Captain William Fleming Hopkins while serving in South Africa. Hopkins was born in Maryborough, Victoria in 1864. He studied at the Adelaide University before teaching classics at the Melbourne Scotch College. In 1891 he graduated with an MB and BS from Melbourne University. Hopkins joined the Victorian Rangers Medical Staff in 1892 as a captain, while still working as a resident surgeon at Stawell Hospital. In 1895 he married Rose Margaret Lamond and in 1897 they had a son, Ronald Nicholas Lamond Hopkins, who would go on to serve as a career army officer, serving from 1917 to 1954.

When the Anglo-Boer war started Hopkins was accepted into the First Victorian Contingent as its medical officer. On 28 October 1899 he left for South Africa on board the Medic, arriving a month later. On 12 February Hopkins was involved in an action at Rensburg, tending to the wounded while under fire. Five Australians were killed during the battle. Hopkins later contracted Enteric Fever and was moved to Naauwport Hospital, where he died on 27 March.