Robert Stephen Hawker

About

British poet and Anglican priest who published a famous 1825 work entitled The Song of the Western Men. His other works include Echoes from Old Cornwall and Tendrils.

Before Fame

He studied at Pembroke College, Oxford, and was awarded the Newdigate Prize for poetry in the year of his graduation (1827).

Trivia

He was an eccentric personality who occasionally dressed as a mermaid, kept a pet pig, and allegedly excommunicated his cat for hunting mice on Sundays.

Family Life

His first wife Charlotte was twenty-two years his senior. After her death, he married Pauline Kuczynski (who was forty years his junior) and had three daughters.

Associated With

Charles Dickens gave Hawker credit for having written The Song of the Western Men, which had originally been falsely attributed to someone else.