Eynon Hawkins

Hawkins won 6-caps for Wales between 1949, and 1953 while at Salford and the Rochdale Hornets.

On 11 January 1943 Eynon was a Royal Navy able-seaman serving as a gunner aboard the British Tanker Company's MV British Dominion, one of a 14-strong convoy en route to Malta from the West Indies.

For his great courage in saving life at sea, Hawkins was awarded the Albert medal in bronze, which he received from King George VI at Buckingham Palace on 16 November 1943. He later also received the Lloyds medal for bravery at sea.

The son of a miner, Eynon Hawkins was born in Llanharan, in Glamorgan. His birth was registered in Bridgend district. Educated locally, he left school at 14 and went into the mining industry working in Llanharan Powell Duffryn colliery, playing rugby union for Llanharan RFC, Bridgend RFC and Glamorgan County RFC in his spare time. He joined the navy in 1940, and, after training at HMS Raleigh and HMS Drake, he spent nine months on a trawler patrolling the English Channel, before transferring as a seaman gunner to the defensively armed merchant ship (Dems), with whom he served in the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Indian oceans.

Eynon Hawkins (26 June 1920 – 17 December 2001) was an Albert Medal and George Cross World War II hero and a Welsh rugby union and rugby league footballer who played in the 1940s and 1950s. He played representative level rugby union (RU) for Glamorgan County RFC, and at club level for Llanharan RFC and Bridgend RFC, and representative level rugby league (RL) for Wales, and at club level for Salford and Rochdale Hornets, as a prop, during the era of contested scrums.