Hawker, Robert Stephen

(1803-1875)

   Born in Plymouth, Devon, the son of a doctor, he was educated at Cheltenham grammar school and graduated M.A. from Magdalen Hall in 1836. Ordained in 1831, he was appointed in 1834 as vicar to the Cornish parish of Morwenstow, where he spent most of his life. Imprudent in money matters, he suffered acutely from poverty for many years before he died in Plymouth, where he was buried. His unfinished poem "The Quest of the Sangraal" shows his fondness for the romance of medieval stories. Several of his articles on Cornish legends are in Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall (1870), edited by C.E. Byles. Some of his other poetic publications: Records of the Western Shore, 1832, 1836. Reeds Shaken with the Wind, 1843, 1844. Echoes from Old Cornwall, 1846. Cornish Ballads and Other Poems, 1869. Some of his other poems: "A Rapture on the Cornish Hills," "Aishah Schechinah," "Aunt Mary," "Be of Good Cheer!" "King Arthur's Waes-hael," "Morwennæ Station," "Queen Guennivar's Round," "The Silent Tower of Bottreaux," "The Tamar Spring."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). Everyman's Book of Victorian Verse. J.R. Watson, ed. J.M. Dent, 1982. I Sing of a Maiden: The Mary Book of Verse. Sister M. Therese, ed. Macmillan, 1947. Selected Poems of Robert Stephen Hawker. Cecil Woolf, ed. Cecil Woolf, 1975. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Cyber Hymnal (http://www.cyberhymnal.org/index.htm). The Golden Book of Catholic Poetry. Alfred Noyes, ed. J.B. Lippincott, 1946. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.