HMS Hawkins Heavy cruiser Country: UK Type: Heavy cruiser Service: 1919 - 1945 Laid down: 3 June 1916 Launched: 1 October 1917 Commissioned: 25 July 1919 Decommissioned: 1945 Fate: Scrapped 21 August 1947

The Hawkins class was a class of five heavy cruisers of the Royal Navy designed in 1915 and constructed throughout the First World War. This class formed the basis for the definition of the heavy cruiser type under the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922. The three ships remaining as cruisers in 1939 served in the Second World War. With the conversion of her sister, HMS Cavendish, to become the aircraft carrier HMS Vindictive, HMS Hawkins became the name ship of her class. HMS Hawkins was heavy cruiser of the Royal Navy. She was built at Chatham Dockyard. Launched on 1 October 1917, HMS Hawkins was not commissioned until 1919. Within a decade she was sent to be refit, her coal fired boilers were removed and the remaining oil fired boilers modified. She was recommissioned in December 1929. Hawkins was decommissioned again in May 1930 and reduced to the Reserve Fleet. She was recommissioned again in 1932 only to be reduced to the reserve again in April 1935. The terms of the London Naval Treaty meant that in 1937 HMS Hawkins was disarmed. When the Second World War broke out in 1939, Hawkins was rearmed and recommissioned. She served in the the Royal Navy until the end of the war. In 1945 Hawkins was reduced to reserve for the last time. In January 1947 she was allocated for ship target trials. She was sold for scrap on 21 August 1947 and broken up in December that year at the yards of Arnott Young at Dalmuir.