Thomas Hopsonn
| Sir Thomas Hopsonn | |
|---|---|
,_by_Michael_Dahl.jpg)
Portrait of Hopsonn, painted between 1705 and 1708 by Michael Dahl
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| Born | 1643 |
| Died | 12 October 1717 (aged 74) Weybridge |
| Allegiance |
 Kingdom of England
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| Service/branch |
 Royal Navy
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| Years of service | 1662–1702 |
| Rank | Vice Admiral |
| Commands held |
Tiger (prize) Swann Bonaventure York Royal Katherine St Michael |
| Battles/wars | |
| Relations |
Peregrine Hopson (son) Edward Hopson (nephew) |
Sir Thomas Hopsonn or Hopson (1643 – 1717) was an English naval officer and member of parliament. His most famous action was the breaking of the boom during the battle of Vigo Bay in 1702. After retiring from active service, he became a Navy Commissioner and the governor of Greenwich Hospital.
Hopsonn was born in Shalfleet on the Isle of Wight, where he was baptised on 6 April 1643, the second son of Captain Anthony Hopson (d. 1667) and his wife Anne Kinge. According to local tradition, he was orphaned early in life and apprenticed to a tailor in Bonchurch, near Ventnor, before running off to sea. Samuel Smiles tells the tale thus in Self Help:
He was working as a tailor’s apprentice near Bonchurch, in the Isle of Wight, when the news flew through the village that a squadron of men-of-war was sailing off the island. He sprang from the shopboard, and ran down with his comrades to the beach, to gaze upon the glorious sight. The boy was suddenly inflamed with the ambition to be a sailor; and springing into a boat, he rowed off to the squadron, gained the admiral’s ship, and was accepted as a volunteer.
According to John Knox Laughton in the Dictionary of National Biography, this colourful story "rests on no historical foundation."
However it happened, Hopsonn seems to have joined the navy by 1662, and was mentioned as a "particular friend" of Samuel Pepys' brother-in-law Balthazar St Michel in 1666. He was given his first commission, as second lieutenant of the Dreadnought, on the outbreak of the Third Anglo-Dutch War in 1672. He fought in the Battle of Solebay aboard this vessel, and in all the other battles of the war.
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