Life came full circle for Robert Stephen Hawker in Plymouth where he was born on the 3rd of December in 1804 and baptised in Stoke Damerel parish church. His father Jacob worked in medicine and his grandfather Dr Robert Hawker was the vicar of Charles Church.
Robert died on the 15th of August in 1975, having converted from the Anglican Church to Catholicism on his deathbed, in Plymouth. He was laid to rest in Ford Park Cemetery with his second wife Pauline. Mourners wore purple, not traditional black, when they paid their respects at his funeral.
Of his interesting life, Hawker himself wrote: "What a life mine would be if it were all written and published in a book." He is best known as the eccentric parson of Morwenstow who gave Christian burials to sailors who drowned from ship wrecks along the rocky North Cornish coast. It is thought that he turned a blind eye to the activities of “wreckers” who lured ships onto the rocks so that they could salvage the cargo when washed ashore because it provided income and sought after items for the poor rural community.
Rev Hawker is said to have introduced the “Harvest Festival” and is best known as the author of a rousing song called “The Song of the Western Men” or “Trelawney.”
It was first published as a poem in 1826 in the Plymouth Chronicle and the Royal Devonport Telegraph. As a song it is popular to this day and regarded informally as the anthem for Cornwall with the chorus line:
“And shall Trelawney live, and shall Trelawney die, here’s 20,000 Cornish men will know the reason why.”
Many poems and letters were written by Rev Hawker in a hut built from driftwood perched on the cliffs near Morwenstow Church. “Hawker’s Hut” is the smallest property owned by the National Trust.
After his first wife Charlotte died in 1863, Rev Hawker married again and was 60 years old when he married 20 year old Pauline Kuczynski. They had three daughters, Morwenna, Rosalind and Juliet, before Rev Hawker died at the age of 71.
- The final resting place for Rev Hawker can be easily found with its large granite cross. If you walk from the Chapel office towards the nearest gate to Ford Park Road you will see the grave on the left from where you are standing on the main path/vehicular route.
