Robert Stephen Hawker
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Robert Stephen Hawker (3 December 1803 – 15 August 1875), was a Cornish poet, antiquarian of Cornwall, Anglican clergyman and reputed eccentric. He is best known as the writer of Cornwall's "national anthem" "The Song of the Western Men", that includes the chorus line "And shall Trelawney die? There's 20,000 Cornish men shall know the reason why", which he published anonymously in 1825. His name became known after Charles Dickens acknowledged his authorship of "The Song of the Western Men" in the serial magazine Household Words.
Hawker was born in the vicarage of Charles Church, Stoke Damerel, Plymouth, on December 3, 1803, the eldest of ten children. By the age of ten was already reading and writing poetry. He was educated at Liskeard Grammar School and Cheltenham Grammar School. As an undergraduate, aged 19, he was married to his godmother, Charlotte I'ans, aged 41. This marriage, along with a legacy, helped to finance his studies at Pembroke College, Oxford. He graduated in 1827 and won the 1827 Newdigate Prize for poetry.
He took Anglican orders in 1831, became curate at North Tamerton and then vicar of Morwenstow, where he remained throughout his life. When Hawker arrived at Morwenstow there had not been a vicar in residence for over a century. Smugglers and wreckers were apparently numerous in the area. A contemporary report says the Morwenstow wreckers "allowed a fainting brother to perish in the sea without extending a hand of safety."
Hawker was regarded as deeply compassionate person giving Christian burials to shipwrecked seamen washed up on the shores of the parish. Prior to this the bodies of shipwrecked sailors were often either buried on the beach where they were found or left to the sea. At the entrance to Morwenstow churchyard stands the figurehead of the ship 'The Caledonia' which foundered in September 1842. The figurehead marks the grave of nine of the ten man crew. Hawker described the wrecking in his book Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall. Nearby stands a granite cross marked "Unknown Yet Well Known", marking the mass grave of 30 or more seafarers, including the captain of the Alonzo', also wrecked in 1842.
The Harvest Festival that we know today was introduced in the small village of Morwenstow in 1843 by the Reverend Hawker. He invited his parishioners to a Harvest service. He wanted to give thanks to God for providing such plenty in a more fitting way. This service took place on the 1st of October and bread made from the first cut of corn was taken at communion.
"Parson Hawker", as he was known to his parishioners, was something of an eccentric, both in his clothes and his habits. He loved bright colours and it seems the only black things he wore were his socks. He built a small hut (that became known as Hawker's Hut) from driftwood on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, where he spent many hours writing his poems and smoking opium. This driftwood hut is now the smallest property in the National Trust portfolio. Other eccentricities included dressing up as a mermaid and excommunicating his cat for mousing on Sundays. He dressed in claret-coloured coat, blue fisherman's jersey, long sea-boots, a pink brimless hat and a poncho made from a yellow horse blanket, which he claimed was the ancient habit of St Pardarn. He talked to birds, invited his nine cats into church and kept a huge pig as a pet.
He built himself a remarkable vicarage, with chimneys modeled on the towers of the churches in his life: Tamerton, where he had been curate; Morwenstow and Wellcombe; plus that of Magdalen College, Oxford. The old kitchen chimney is a replica of Hawker's mother's tomb.
His first wife Charlotte died in 1863 and the following year, aged 60, Reverend Hawker married Pauline Kuczynski, aged 20. The couple had three daughters. The Reverend died in January 1875, having converted to the Roman Catholic Church on his deathbed. He was buried in Plymouth's Ford Park Cemetery. His funeral was noteworthy because the mourners wore purple instead of the traditional black.
[edit] Works
- Tendrils (1821),
- Records of the Western Shore Oxford (1832)
- Ecclesia: A Volume of Poems Oxford (1840)
- Reeds Shaken with the Wind (1843)
- Echoes from Old Cornwall (1846)
- The Quest of the Sangraal: Chant the First Exeter (1864) from an unfinished Arthurian poem
- Cornish Ballads & Other Poems, Introduction by C.E. Byles (1908)
- Selected Poems: Robert Stephen Hawker. Ed. Cecil Woolf (1975)
[edit] References
- The Vicar of Morwenstow (1875) by Sabine Baring-Gould
- The Life and Letters of R. S. Hawker (sometime Vicar of Morwenstow)(1906) by C. E. Byles,
- Hawker of Morwenstow (2002) by Piers Brendon, Random House
- The Wreck at Sharpnose Point (2002) by Jeremy Seal ISBN 0-330-37465-6
