Thomas Hopsonn

Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Hopsonn (April 1643 – 12 October 1717) was a Royal Navy officer and politician. 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.

Early life and career 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. His great grandfather was the Elizabethan explorer Anthony Jenkinson.

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 fought in the Battle of Solebay aboard this vessel, and in all the other battles of the war. On 5 November 1677, he followed Strickland to the , and then to the on 10 December 1677. On 21 March 1678, vice admiral Herbert gave him his first command: the Tiger, which had been taken as a prize.

On returning to England, Hopsonn was knighted by Queen Anne for his actions at Vigo Bay and retired from active service. He was made an Extra Commissioner of the Navy and served as governor of Greenwich Hospital from 1704 to 1708. Hopson died there on 12 October 1717. The couple had eight children: Mary (1682–1715) Elizabeth (1686–1758) Charles (born 1688) Ann (1692–1763) Grace (1693–1768) Peregrine Thomas (1696–1759) James (born 1700) Martha (born 1702)

His nephew, erroneously supposed by some sources to have been his younger brother, Edward Hopson (1671–1728) also went into the navy and rose to the rank of vice-admiral of the white.