Sir John, a very industrious writer and valuable magistrate, was born at London in the year 1719, where his father was employed as a builder and surveyor. He received an education for the same profession, but afterwards a clerk to an attorney. His employment being chiefly copying, he improved his mind in knowledge by rising early, and had made very great advances by the time that his clerkship ended. He was soon after admitted as an attorney, and his taste for music made him become a member of the Academy of Ancient Music. Having attained a degree of celebrity by publishing the words of two sets of cantatas, the music of which was furnished by Mr Stanley, he was introduced to some valuable acquaintances who assisted him in carrying forward his professional views. In 1749 he was introduced as a member of a tavern club which had been instituted by Dr Samuel Johnson, and the connection thus formed between that great man and him was only dissolved by death. In 1753 he married a daughter of Peter Storer, Esq. by which he obtained a very handsome fortune; and this being augmented by the death of Mr Hawkins's brother, he laid aside the profession of an attorney, and lived as an independent gentleman. He afterwards became a justice of the peace for the county of Middlesex, and was both an active and useful magistrate. Being extremely fond of angling, he became the editor of Watton's Complete Angler, which he enriched with notes of his own and a life of the author, a work which has been frequently republished since.

His "Observations on the Highways" brought him a liberal share of public approbation, and it has served as a model for all the acts which have since been passed. In 1765 he was chosen chairman to the quarter sessions, and in the year 1772 he obtained the honour of knighthood. Some of the notes to the edition of Shakespeare by Johnfon

Johnson and Steevens were furnished by Sir John, who for many years was engaged in writing the history of music, which he finished in 1776, in five vols. 4to, dedicated to his majesty. It abounds with curious and original information, and may be considered as a repository of many useful things not elsewhere to be met with. His valuable library was destroyed by fire, which interrupted his literary labours, but made no change on the tranquillity of his mind. In the year 1787 his life and works of Dr Samuel Johnson appeared in eleven vols. 8vo. This life is a garrulous miscellany of anecdote, in which the author frequently wanders from his subject; yet it contains many facts respecting that extraordinary man which his enthusiastic admirers could with had been concealed. After this he prepared for the termination of his own life, which he perceived approaching, for he died in the month of May 1789, about 70 years of age.