at Bromley, Kent, where he and his wife had kept a school. Hawkesworth was a close imitator of Johnson both in style and thought, and was at one time on very friendly terms with him. It is said that he presumed on his success, and lost Johnson’s friendship as early as 1756.
HAWKHURST, a town in the southern parliamentary division
of Kent, England, 47 m. S.E. of London, on a branch
of the South-Eastern & Chatham railway. Pop. (1901), 3136.
It lies mainly on a ridge above the valley of the Kent Ditch,
a tributary of the Rother. The neighbouring country is hilly,
rich and well wooded, and the pleasant and healthy situation
has led to the considerable extension of the old village as a
residential locality. The Kent Sanatorium and one of the
Barnardo homes are established here. The church of St Lawrence,
founded from Battle Abbey in Sussex, is Decorated and Perpendicular
and its east window, of the earlier period, is specially
beautiful.
HAWKINS, CAESAR HENRY (1798–1884), British surgeon,
son of the Rev. E. Hawkins and grandson of the Sir Caesar
Hawkins (1711–1786), who was serjeant-surgeon to Kings
George II. and George III., was born at Bisley, Gloucestershire,
on the 19th of September 1798, was educated at Christ’s Hospital,
and entered St George’s Hospital, London, in 1818. He was
surgeon to the hospital from 1829 to 1861, and in 1862 was made
serjeant-surgeon to Queen Victoria. He was president of
the College of Surgeons in 1852, and again in 1861; and he
delivered the Hunterian oration in 1849. His success in complex
surgical cases gave him a great reputation. For long he was
noted as the only surgeon who had succeeded in the operation
of ovariotomy in a London hospital. This occurred in 1846,
when anaesthetics were unknown. He did much to popularize
colotomy. A successful operator, he nevertheless was attached
to conservative surgery, and was always more anxious to teach
his pupils how to save a limb than how to remove it. He reprinted
his contributions to the medical journals in two volumes,
1874, the more valuable papers being on Tumours, Excision of
the Ovarium, Hydrophobia and Snake-bites, Stricture of the Colon,
and The Relative Claims of Sir Charles Bell and Magendie to the
Discovery of the Functions of the Spinal Nerves. He died on the
20th of July 1884. His brother, Edward Hawkins (1789–1882),
was the well-known provost of Oriel, Oxford, who played so
great a part in the Tractarian movement.
HAWKINS, or Hawkyns, SIR JOHN (1532–1595), British
admiral, was born at Plymouth in 1532, and belonged to a
family of Devonshire shipowners and skippers—occupations
then more closely connected than is now usual. His father,
William Hawkins (d. 1553), was a prosperous freeman of Plymouth,
who thrice represented that town in parliament, and is
described by Hakluyt as one of the principal sea-captains in the
west parts of England; his elder brother, also called William
(d. 1589), was closely associated with him in his Spanish expeditions,
and took an active part in fitting out ships to meet the
Armada; and his nephew, the eldest son of the last named and
of the same name, sailed with Sir Francis Drake to the South
Sea in 1577, and served as lieutenant under Edward Fenton
(q.v.) in the expedition which started for the East Indies and
China in 1582. His son, Sir Richard Hawkins, is separately
noticed.
Sir John Hawkins was bred to the sea in the ships of his family. When the great epoch of Elizabethan maritime adventure began, he took an active part by sailing to the Guinea coast, where he robbed the Portuguese slavers, and then smuggled the negroes he had captured into the Spanish possessions in the New World. After a first successful voyage in 1562–1563, two vessels which he had rashly sent to Seville were confiscated by the Spanish government. With the help of friends, and the open approval of the queen, who hired one of her vessels to him, he sailed again in 1564, and repeated his voyage with success, trading with the Creoles by force when the officials of the king endeavoured to prevent him. These two voyages brought him reputation, and he was granted a coat of arms with a demi-Moor, or negro, chained, as his crest. The rivalry with Spain was now becoming very acute, and when Hawkins sailed for the third time in 1567, he went in fact, though not technically, on a national venture. Again he kidnapped negroes, and forced his goods on the Spanish colonies. Encouraged by his discovery that these settlements were small and unfortified, he on this occasion ventured to enter Vera Cruz, the port of Mexico, after capturing some Spaniards at sea to be held as hostages. He alleged that he had been driven in by bad weather. The falsity of the story was glaring, but the Spanish officers on the spot were too weak to offer resistance. Hawkins was allowed to enter the harbour, and to refit at the small rocky island of San Juan de Ulloa by which it is formed. Unfortunately for him, and for a French corsair whom he had in his company, a strong Spanish force arrived, bringing the new viceroy. The Spaniards, who were no more scrupulous of the truth than himself, pretended to accept the arrangement made before their arrival, and then when they thought he was off his guard attacked him on the 24th of September. Only two vessels escaped, his own, the “Minion,” and the “Judith,” a small vessel belonging to his cousin Francis Drake. The voyage home was miserable, and the sufferings of all were great.
For some years Hawkins did not return to the sea, though he continued to be interested in privateering voyages as a capitalist. In the course of 1572 he recovered part of his loss by pretending to betray the queen for a bribe to Spain. He acted with the knowledge of Lord Burleigh. In 1573 he became treasurer of the navy in succession to his father-in-law Benjamin Gonson. The office of comptroller was conferred on him soon after, and for the rest of his life he remained the principal administrative officer of the navy. Burleigh noted that he was suspected of fraud in his office, but the queen’s ships were kept by him in good condition. In 1588 he served as rear-admiral against the Spanish Armada and was knighted. In 1590 he was sent to the coast of Portugal to intercept the Spanish treasure fleet, but did not meet it. In giving an account of his failure to the queen he quoted the text “Paul doth plant, Apollo doth water, but God giveth the increase,” which exhibition of piety is said to have provoked the queen into exclaiming, “God’s death! This fool went out a soldier, and has come home a divine.” In 1595 he accompanied Drake on another treasure-hunting voyage to the West Indies, which was even less successful, and he died at sea off Porto Rico on the 12th of November 1595.
Hawkins was twice married, first to Katharine Gonson and then to Margaret Vaughan. He was counted a puritan when puritanism meant little beyond hatred of Spain and popery, and when these principles were an ever-ready excuse for voyages in search of slaves and plunder. In the course of one of his voyages, when he was becalmed and his negroes were dying, he consoled himself by the reflection that God would not suffer His elect to perish. Contemporary evidence can be produced to show that he was greedy, unscrupulous and rude. But if he had been a more delicate man he would not have risked the gallows by making piratical attacks on the Portuguese and by appearing in the West Indies as an armed smuggler; and in that case he would not have played an important part in history by setting the example of breaking down the pretension of the Spaniards to exclude all comers from the New World. His morality was that of the average stirring man of his time, whether in England or elsewhere.
See R. A. J. Walling, A Sea-dog of Devon (1907); and Southey in his British Admirals, vol. iii. The original accounts of his voyages compiled by Hakluyt have been reprinted by the Hakluyt Society, with a preface by Sir C. R. Markham.
HAWKINS, SIR JOHN (1719–1789), English writer on music,
was born on the 30th of March 1719, in London, the son of an
architect who destined him for his own profession. Ultimately,
however, Hawkins took to the law, devoting his leisure hours
to his favourite study of music. A wealthy marriage in 1753
enabled him to indulge his passion for acquiring rare works of
music, and he bought, for example, the collection formed by
Dr Pepusch, and subsequently presented by Hawkins to the
British Museum. It was on such materials that Hawkins
