HAWKER, ROBERT: Church of England; b. at Exeter Apr. 13, 1753; d. at Plymouth Apr. 6, 1827. Following his father, he adopted surgery as his pro-

fession, and spent three years as assistant surgeon in the Royal Marines. In May, 1778, he entered Magdalen Hall, Oxford, took holy orders, and became curate of Charles, near Plymouth, in Dec., 1778, succeeding to the vicarage of Charles in 1784. In 1797 he became deputy-chaplain of the garrison at Plymouth. In 1802 he founded the Great Western Society for Dispensing Religious Tracts among the Poor in the Western District, and in 1813 he established the Corpus Christi Society in his parish. He became one of the most popular extemporaneous preachers in England, and on the occasion of his annual visits to London preached to crowded congregations in the leading churches. In theology he was a high Calvinist. The list of his works, some of which passed through many editions, occupies six columns in the British Museum catalogue. The best known are: Sermons on the Divinity of Christ (London, 1792); The Poor Man's Morning Portion (London, 1809); The Poor Man's Commentary on the New Testament (4 vols.,1816); The PoorMan's Evening Portion (1819); and The Poor Man's Commentary on the Old Testament (6 vols., 1822). His Works, exclusive of the two commentaries, were edited, with a Memoir, by John Williams (10 vols., 1831).

Bibliography: Besides the Memoir by Williams, ut sup., consult: G. C. Boase and W. P. Courtney, Bibliotheca Cornubieneis, passim, 3 vols., London, 1874-82; DNB, xxv. 201.

HAWKER, ROBERT STEPHEN: English clergyman, poet, and antiquary, grandson of Robert Hawker (q.v.); b. at Stoke Damerel (2 m. n. of Plymouth) Dec. 3, 1803; d. at Plymouth Aug. 15, 1875. He was educated at the Cheltenham grammarschool, and at Pembroke College and Magdalen Hall, Oxford (B.A., 1828; M.A., 1836). In 1827 he won the Newdigate prize by a poem on Pompeii, which subsequently secured him preferment through Bishop Phillpotts. In Dec., 1834, he was instituted to the vicarage of Morwenstow, on the northwest coast of Cornwall, and in 1851 he was instituted to the adjoining vicarage of Wellcombe. During a ministry of forty years in this wild region he did much good, particularly for seafaring then. In theology he held essentially the views of the Tractarians; and shortly before his death he was received into the Roman Catholie Church. As a poet he is likely to have a place in English literature. His ballads are simple and direct, and have the true flavor of antiquity. His most famous composition is the ballad Trelawny, which, published anonymously as an ancient ballad, deceived even such experts as Scott and Dickens. The most important collections of his poems are: Eccksia (Oxford, 1840); Reeds Shaken with the Wind (London, 1843); Echoes from Old Cornwall (1846); The Quest of the Sangraal (Exeter, 1864); and Cornish Ballads (London,1869). His Poetical Works have been edited by J. G. Godwin (1879; also ed. A. Wallis, 1899), as also his Prose Works (1893).

Bibliography: F. G. Lee, Memorials of . . . Rev. R. S. Hawker, London, 1876; S. Baring-Gould, Vicar of MorwenaG):o; .Memoir of R. S. Hawker, ib. 1875 (this ed. was severely criticized in the Athenaam, Mar. 26, 1876, and was withdrawn from the market and new editions issued, 1876); G. C. Boase and W. P. Courtney, Bibliotheca Cornubienais, i. 220-222, iii. 1222-23, 3 vols., ib. 1874-82; DNB, xxv. 202-203.

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