Hawkins Family

They were Fighting-Seaman-Leaders

This Naval History continues on from: "Ex Warrant Officers"

There had been Hawkinses, merchants of Plymouth, for many generations; they were reasonably prosperous folk, but not very wealthy. But the head of the firm in King Henry's time, William and usually called "The elder" began to take his own ships to sea, and, in addition, to enlarge the scope of his maritime ventures.

He went so far afield as Brazil-a very enterprising and hazardous thing to do in those days. Success deservedly crowned his efforts. He "made his pile." We may be sure too, that he was a sensible man and that he knew well enough which was the goose that laid the golden egg.

He intended that his sons John and William the youngest, should come into, and inherit, the family business, But he insisted, the lads should start at the bottom, just like his father had made him do. This meant that they learnt the seaman's trade at first hand, and it explains why, throughout life they were such fine seamen.

But John was more than that. He was a wealthy man; a man, in the second generation of wealth, and, in his younger days, he was aspiring to rise in the social status. Many will have perceived their impression of the man from the illustration and strong images of him in "Westard Ho!"

There we see an elderly, gnarled and altogether uncouth old sea-dog, clad in "greasy seastained garments" which are hardly less weather-beaten than his face. It has a fine word-picture.

The only fault that the historian will find with it, is that it is totally wrong! Kingsley is at least one generation out. Had he applied his description to John's father, it might have been right. Old William may well have been rather a "tough character"; certainly a good deal tougher than his son.

Ex Warrant Officers

John was far otherwise

He was clean cut, and liked to be neat and tidy, in person as well as mind-possibly too much. He was known, to take as many as fifty suits of clothes to sea with him, and he liked dinning off gold plate to the accompaniment of a band. John was exhibiting characteristics often associated with the second generation of prosperity. He was over-rather than under-doing it.

This very fact is important. With the old "landed" families he was not popular. He was aping his betters; he was what other ages would have called a "New Rich," people who retuned from other continents with a large fortune.

He was never accepted as one of them. Yet he was rising in the social scale, in his own eyes, anyway. For money "talked" in Elizabeth's time quite as loudly as it does now-more loudly, perhaps, since there was less of it.

He was in every respect a very solid man, and by all accounts a most charming one. All through his life, he was exercising more and more of that quality which we have called the "habit of command," so exclusively used by land-owners as a special right for the privilege they enjoyed as a result of one's position.

John rose to great heights of responsibility. While remaining a "merchant prince," he became a national as well as a pre-eminent local figure; he built up the Queen's Ships into an effective force, fought them when the war came, and was knighted for his services.

He became, a fighter on the sea, and a good one. But-and here is the real point-he remained a seaman, and a seaman of first importance-and of the best possible quality. He was at the time of his death, in addition to several other things, beyond all doubt a Fighting-Seaman-Leader.

John's son Richard

It is still interesting to follow the Hawkins' family briefly into a third generation. His son Richard-also knighted-shows us on the pages of history, that he was a most accomplished and well-educated man, with a taste for literature and the fine arts, with most of the ostentation of the second generation left behind.

He was accepted to a much greater extent by the "best people" of the day. He too saw much fighting at sea; and became, something of an acknowledged authority on the subject. But-again-he was brought up from boyhood as a seaman. That difficult gap had been bridged at last.

The continuation of this Naval History will be: "Magellan"

Hawkins Family Magellan

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