The Third Clothworker Lord Mayor, in 1574-5, was Sir James Hawes, who had been Master of The Clothworkers’ Company in 1560-1.
Hawes entered the Company through apprenticeship and rose to became a great City merchant, importing luxury goods from overseas. His wealth was such that he was able to loan £30,000 to the Crown in 1575. He died in 1582 and was buried in St Mary Abchurch.
The Hawes family was firmly woven into the City hierarchy: Sir James’s brother John, another Clothworker, was Sheriff in 1558-9. It was at his house on Mincing Lane in 1559 that the Marian (and therefore Roman Catholic) Bishops of Winchester and Lincoln were deprived of their sees by Queen Elizabeth. John Hawes was a Clothworker benefactor, establishing a loan trust worth £100 a year and giving the Company a silver gilt rosewater dish and ewer, presumably sold in 1643.
Another younger relation, Humphrey Hawes, also a Clothworker, was one of the early investors in the Virginia Company of London in 1609.
Sir James had four children: a son, John, and three daughters. Two of his daughters married future Lord Mayors – Mary was the wife of Sir Robert Lee, Merchant Taylor, Lord Mayor 1602-3; Margaret married Sir John Watts, Clothworker, Lord Mayor in 1606-7, with whom James I dined on the day he became Free of the Company. Elizabeth wed Sir Thomas Wilford, Chamberlain of the City.