He was born in Bonchurch, near Ventnor on the Isle of Wight, England in 1642. Orphaned at an early age, he was fostered and apprenticed as a tailor in nearby Niton. As a young man he and children of the village sighted the fleet passing to the south of the Island and ran down to the sea to wave at it from Puckaster Cove. Hopsonn, however, took a rowing boat and literally ran away to sea to join the Navy in about 1662. He was knighted in 1702 by Queen Anne, and died on 12 October 1717, the fifteenth anniversary of the Battle of Vigo Bay.