PLYMOUTH |
The Encyclopaedia of Plymouth History |
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Reverend ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER (1803-1875)
Robert Stephen Hawker was born in the Vicarage of Charles Church, number 6 Norley Street, Plymouth, on Saturday December 3rd 1803. He was the eldest of nine children born to Mr Jacob Stephen Hawker and his wife, Jane Elizabeth. Although born in the vicarage of Charles' Church in Plymouth, the home of his grandfather, the Reverend Doctor Robert Hawker, he was baptised at Stoke Damerel Parish Church by another member of the family, the Reverend John Hawker. A few years later his father took holy orders and left the young Robert to be brought up by his grandfather. By the age of ten was reading and writing poetry and playing practical jokes on all and sundry. He ran away from school on many occasions until he was sent to Liskeard Grammar School, in Cornwall. Although he left school to train as a solicitor, he soon changed his mind and went to Cheltenham Grammar School, Gloucestershire, to train for the clergy. At the age of 19 Mr Robert Stephen Hawker married the 41-years-old Miss Charlotte I'ans. She was receiving an annual income of £200, which, along with a legacy, helped to finance his studies at Pembroke College, Oxford, and later Magdalene Hall. The marriage was a happy one and the couple at first lived at North Tamerton, Cornwall. In 1825 he published anonymously "The Song of the Western Men", which has become the Cornish National Anthem thanks to its stirring chorus: 'And shall Trelawney die, There's 20,000 Cornish men shall know the reason why.' Although born and buried in Plymouth, and regarded as a son of the Town, he was more known as the eccentric vicar of Morwenstow, in Cornwall, to which he was appointed in 1834. It was a very bleak and remote parish and the very survival in those days depended on gathering a good harvest. Realising this as an important event, he organised the first Harvest Thanksgiving in the village in 1843, which has since become a major event in the Church calendar. He was a deeply compassionate person and like his grandfather before him, gave Christian burials to shipwrecked seamen washed up on the shores of the parish. He used the timbers from ships that had been wrecked to build a hut on the cliff from which he watched for shipwrecks. Charlotte died on February 2nd 1863 and the following year, at the age of 60, he married the 20-years-old Miss Pauline Anne Kuczynski. Again it turned out to be a happy marriage and they had three daughters. The Reverend Robert Stephen Hawker died in Plymouth, at number 17 Lockyer Street, on August 15th 1875. He shocked everyone by being baptised as a Roman Catholic 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. Sources:
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