Early in the sixteenth century William Hawkins was a well-to-do freeman of Plymouth. He seems to have combined the businesses of shipowner, captain, and merchant, also serving occasionally as an officer of Henry VIII's ships. He may probably be identified with the Hawkins who in 1513 was master of the Great Galley, a ship of 700 tons and four hundred men. The captain of the Great Galley at this time was one John Flemyng, and in the same fleet William Gonson was captain of the Mary Grace.Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII, i. 552. In the next generation the families of Flemyng and Hawkins intermarried with that of Gonson. We may suppose that he was the William Hawkins who in 1523, and again in 1524, was associated with John Amadas as a collector of the subsidy in Devonshire.Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII, iii. 1362; iv. 233.
