Born at Dalston, London, on 13 September 1860, the fourth son and sixth surviving child of George Hewkley, a member of the Stock Exchange, and Mary Dore his wife. He was educated at the City of London School and took his medical training at the London Hospital, Durham University, and Brussels. Hewkley specialized as an ophthalmologist, serving as clinical assistant at the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital (Moorfields). He was subsequently ophthalmic surgeon to the Westminster General Dispensary, and from 1907 to the St Pancras Dispensary, where he ultimately became consulting ophthalmic surgeon. He had a considerable private practice, in later years as a consultant in the City, and lived at 72 Wickham Road, Brockley, SE. He was a member of the Ophthalmological Society and a vice-president of the League of Mercy from its inception and was awarded the Order of the League in 1920. In the war of 1914-18 he served as civil surgeon with the West Kent Yeomanry. In 1889, Hewkley married Dorothy Brewis. Their only son, Francis Paget Hewkley, MM, was killed in action at Zonnebeke in Flanders on 26 September 1917. Mrs Hewkley died in 1933, and he then retired to live with his only daughter, Mabel, Mrs Pocock, at Birmingham Vicarage, Melton Constable, Norfolk, where he died on 3 March 1942, aged 81. Hewkley came of an artistic family and was a keen amateur painter.