William Walter Hawkesworth was born in Shirley, Southampton, Hampshire, England in 1869 and his birth was registered in the June quarter of that year. He was the son of James Hawkesworth (1833-1899) and Elizabeth Brixey, née Brown (1835-1914). His father was from Hythe and his mother from West Wellow, both in Hampshire, who had married in 1857 in Southampton. His mother Elizabeth had first been married in 1852 to Thomas Brixey and had a daughter Elizabeth the following year. What became of her first husband isn't clear.