Hawke, SIR EDWARD, LORD HAWKE OF TOWTON (1705-81), was the son of a lawyer of good middle-class stock. He was born in 1705 in London, and entered the navy while very young. The long quiet which followed the peace of Utrecht gave him no opportunity of seeing active service. He, however, attained the rank of commander in 1733. In 1744 he commanded the Berwick (70 guns) in the fleet under Admiral Mathews which was lying at Hyères Bay to watch the combined French and Spanish fleets in Toulou.
In the disgracefully-conducted battle of the 11th February of that year the Berwick was one of the few ships which were handled with spirit. Hawke followed his admiral in bearing down out of the line of battle to attack the Spanish ships which formed the rear of the allied fleet. This movement was considered irregular according to the pedantic tactical rules of the time, and, conjoined with his own violent conduct to his subordinate Lestock, proved ruinous to Admiral Mathews. But Hawke established his reputation as a daring officer. The Spanish line-of-battle ship, the Poder, the only vessel captured, surrendered to the Berwick; and it was not Hawke's fault that she was retaken by the enemy. In 1747 he was made rear-admiral of the white squadron, and the same year was despatched with a fleet of fourteen sail to intercept a French convoy of 252 merchant ships known to be leaving for the West Indies. On the 14th October Hawke caught the convoy off Cape Finisterre. It was guarded by a squadron of nine ships of war under M. L'Etendùere. The French admiral formed line of battle, and fought heroically to save his charge. The odds were great—fourteen English ships with 784 guns to nine French with 556—and after desperate fighting six of L'Etendùere's ships struck. But he saved his convoy, which fled during the battle. In the same year Hawke became member of parliament for Bristol. By 1755 he had attained the rank of full admiral. In the following year he was sent out to supersede the unhappy Byng, who had just disgraced himself and his country at Minorca. There was, however, nothing to do in the Mediterranean. During 1757 and 1758 he was in command in the Channel directing the naval half of the combined operations on the French coast sent out by the elder Pitt. His great feat—one of the greatest ever performed by a British admiral—came in 1759. During that year the French were preparing fleets at Brest and Rochefort to cover an invasion of England. The Brest fleet, the more powerful of the two, under the command of M. de Conflans, consisted of twenty ships carrying 1412 guns. It was watched by Hawke with a fleet of twenty-three ships carrying 1666 guns. On the 14th November the English fleet was driven off its station by a succession of furious gales, and M. de Conflans seized the chance to slip to sea. Hawke, who had anchored at Torbay, had, however, left lookout frigates, by whom he was informed of the sailing of the French admiral. Concluding at once that M. de Conflans would make for Rochefort, Hawke steered to cut him off at Quiberon. His calculation proved accurate. On the 20th November he caught the French, and, although it was blowing a fresh gale, attacked at once. The battle was one of the most heroic ever fought on sea. In a gale of wind, on the afternoon of a November day, and with one of the most terrible coasts in the world under his lee, Hawke forced on a close action. A famous story tells how his sailing-master expostulated at the order to take the flagship, the Royal George of 100 guns, into the dangerous Bay of Quiberon in such a gale and in the dark, and how Hawke replied: 'Mr Robinson, you have done your duty in pointing out the danger; you are now to obey my orders, and lay me alongside the French admiral.' The result was the destruction of the French fleet, and the collapse of the invasion scheme. It is curious that Hawke, who had been made a knight for the capture of L'Etendùere's squadron, did not receive the peerage this victory so well deserved till 1776, when he was made Baron Hawke of Towton. It is just possible that the freedom with which he rebuked the Admiralty for its management of the fleet may have had something to do with the delay. He was First Lord himself in the administration of 1765, but had no further chance of distinguished sea service. He died at Shepperton, Middlesex, 17th October 1781. See the excellent Life by Professor Captain Montagu Burrows (1883).