Hawker

“ Hawker, in the name of the people of Thurso I offer you and Commander Mackenzie-Grieve a welcome, not only to Thurso, but to the shores of Britain. Throughout the length and breadth of the land, and of every land, to-day the news of your safe deliverance is ringing, and hearts everywhere are rejoicing. It is true that you have not achieved what you so gallantly set out for, but to-day you need not worry over that, because you have indeed achieved great things. The names of Hawker and Grieve will live for ever in the annals of Atlantic flight. ”

“ In finding a hawk after a long flight it is useful to bear in mind a few hints which experience has taught. Of course in the case of the bigger hawks the bell is an invaluable guide. The hawker’s ear should be always ready to catch the faintest sound of this well-known tell-tale. But merlins seldom or never wear bells in the field. ”

“ The parish is situate on the north-east corner of Cornwall, and its rocky coast is the scene of many a shipwreck. The mariners who escaped found in Hawker a warm friend, and the bodies of more than forty that perished were buried under his direction. The tithes are commuted at a pound a day, and there is a glebe of seventy-two acres. Hawker was, moreover, instituted in 1851, on the presentation of Lord Clinton, to the adjoining vicarage of Wellcombe. But he was imprudent in money matters, and for many years before his death suffered acutely from poverty. ”

“ After his flight with Harry, Senator Millen said: “I cannot say that there was any feature one could describe as thrilling; nothing can make one feel that one is heroic or any sort of a dare-devil: it seems so beautifully simple, so steady, and so safe.” After stating other opinions of his flight, he said: [151] “My flight with Hawker was one of the most enjoyable experiences I have had. Hawker is master of his machine and seems to manipulate it by a movement of his finger. ”

“ Hawker’s parishioners had an encounter with pixies. Pixies, it must be explained, are elves, who dance on the sward and make fairy-rings; others work in mines; others, again, haunt old houses.
This man had been to Stratton market. On his way home, as he was passing between dense hedges, suddenly he saw a light, and heard music and singing. He stood still, and looked and listened. Passing through the hedge, he saw the little people in a ring dancing; and there sat on a toadstool an elf with a lantern in his hand, made of a campanula, out of which streamed a greenish-blue light. ”

“ Robert Stephen Hawker was born at Stoke Damerel on 3rd December, 1804, and was baptised there in the parish church. His father, Mr. Jacob Stephen Hawker, was at that time a medical man, practising at Plymouth. He afterwards was ordained to Altarnun, and spent thirty years as curate and then vicar of Stratton in Cornwall, where he died in 1845. Mr. J. S. Hawker was the son of the famous Dr. Hawker, incumbent of Charles Church in Plymouth, author of Morning and Evening Portions, a man as remarkable for his abilities as he was for his piety. ”

“ Mr. Hawker, as has been already intimated, was rather peculiar in his dress. At first, soon after his induction to Morwenstow, he wore his cassock; but in time abandoned this inconvenient garb, in which he found it impossible to scramble about his cliffs. He then adopted a claret-coloured coat, with long tails. He had the greatest aversion to anything black: the only black things he would wear were his boots. These claret-coloured coats would button over the breast, but were generally worn open, displaying beneath a knitted blue fisherman’s jersey. ”

“ The arcade is rich and good for the date.
Of the same date are the carved oak benches. A few only are earlier, and bear the symbols of the transfixed heart on the spear, the nails and cross. These Mr. Hawker found laid as flooring under the pews, their faces planed. The rest bear, on shields, sea-monsters. There was a fine oak screen very much earlier in style than the benches. When Mr. Hawker arrived at Morwenstow, the clerk said to him: “Please, your honor, I have done you a very gude turn. I’ve just been and cut down and burned a rubbishing old screen that hid the chancel.” ”

“ Both boys display the aptitude for engineering which undoubtedly runs in the family, the elder having driven and attended to his father’s car at the age of nine years.
Harry Hawker, or—to give the subject of my biography his [26] full names—Harry George Hawker, was born on January 22nd, 1889, at the little village of South Brighton (now known as Moorabbin) in Victoria, where his father had a small blacksmith’s and wheelwright’s shop which brought in enough to keep the family in comfort. ”

“ There lived at Whitstone, near Holsworthy, four Miss I’ans, daughters of Colonel I’ans. They had been left with an annuity of £200 apiece, as well as lands and a handsome place. At the time when Mr. Jacob Hawker announced to his son that a return to Oxford was impossible, the four ladies were at Efford, near Bude, an old manor house leased from Sir Thomas Acland. Directly that Robert Hawker learnt his father’s decision, without waiting to put on his hat, he ran from Stratton to Bude, arrived hot and blown at Efford, and proposed to Miss Charlotte I’ans to become his wife. ”

“ Mr. Hawker thought—rightly or wrongly, who shall decide?—that this man thwarted him at every turn, and urged on the farmers to oppose and upset all his schemes for benefiting the parish, spiritually and temporally. Mutual antipathy caused recriminations, and the hostility became open. The agent thought he had dealt the vicar a severe blow when he persuaded Sir J. Buller to claim St. John’s Well. Mr. Hawker found himself baffled by the coldness of the Dissenters, and the hostility of the agent, which he had probably brought upon himself ”

“ Hawker dropped into the water between the Enchantress and the shore, Mr. Perrin went out to give him a copy of the final rules and regulations and to take the exact time of his start. The pilot and his passenger, young Kauper, had no elaborate flying-suits on. Their coats and caps were of rough waterproof canvas, but they wore their ordinary trousers and boots. They might have been doing an everyday practice flight. ‘Have you got any grub with you?’ I asked them. ”

“ In time he had accumulated a considerable number of broken wine-glasses, and he had them fitted together to form an enormous lantern; and thenceforth, when he went to dine at Stanbury, this testimony to his triumphs was borne lighted before him.
The lantern fell into the hands of Mr. Hawker, and he presented it to the lineal descendant of Mr. E. Waddon, as a family relic. It is still in existence, and duly honoured. ”

“ The most consistently successful types of men at this work taken over a long spell of years are perhaps those represented by a group of three young Australians, Hawker, Pickles, and Busteed, who came over here determined to realise their dreams of lives of adventure in the air on the distinct understanding that there was plenty of money in the venture. ”

“ Hawker represented him as seeing that his end was drawing nigh. Every preparation was made for departure, the boxes were packed, and all was ready, on Monday; his impatience to be gone rapidly growing.
Mrs. Hawker wrote to his nephew at Whitstone, eight miles from Stratton, to say that they would lunch with him on Tuesday, the 10th, on their way back from Plymouth to Morwenstow, intending to drive the distance in the day. ”

“ This earth is no place for Sir Bevil.
So at Stamford he fought, and at Lansdown he fell:
But vain were the visions he cherished;
For the great Cornish heart that the king loved so well,
In the grave of the Grenville it perished. One day, if indeed we may trust the story, Mrs. Hawker, the first wife of the vicar of Morwenstow, when lunching at Stowe in the farmhouse, noticed that a letter in old handwriting was wrapped round the mutton-bone that was brought on the table. Moved by curiosity, she took the paper off, and showed it to Mr. Hawker. ”

“ Hawker’s servant-of-all-work. The vicar had many good stories to relate of his man.
“There have been divers parsons in this parish since I have been here,” said Tristam, “some strict, and some not; and there was one that had very mean notions about running goods, and said it was wrong to do so. But even he never took no part with the gauger—never. And besides,” said old Trim, “wasn’t the exciseman always ready to put us to death if he could?”
One day he asked Mr. Hawker: “Can you tell me the reason, sir, that no grass will ever grow on the grave of a man that’s hanged unjustly?” ”

“ Hawker, thirty years ago, was an impossibility, but when he died he was the idealised sportsman of the youth of the country, and it was rightly so. Modest in triumph, hard-working, a tremendous “sticker,” yet possessed of that vision without which no man can succeed, he stands out a figure whose loss we mourn even to-day, but whose life and career will serve as an example for others to attempt to follow. ”

“ Phillpotts was Bishop of Exeter, a visit of the bishop to Morwenstow had been planned and decided upon. Mrs. Hawker insisted on having the blue room fitted up for his lordship. A fire would have to be lighted in the grate: the chimney would smoke unless cleared of nests.
Mr. Hawker stood by whilst Mrs. Hawker and the maid prepared the blue room. He would not have the jackdaws disturbed; he had given them his word of honour. Mrs. Hawker argued that necessity knows no law: the bishop must have a fire, and the jackdaws must make way for the bishop. ”

“ Hawker returned to Morwenstow, to fresh suffering, disappointment, and anxieties. I give a few of his last letters to one whom he regarded as his best friend.
Morwenstow, Sept. 22, 1874. My dear Valentine,—You brought to my house the solitary blessing of my life. My three daughters came to me through you, as God’s instrument. I must write to you. You will not have many more letters from me.... My mind has been so racked and softened that I shall never be myself again. My health, too, is gone. My legs are healed, but the long drain has enfeebled me exceedingly. ”

“ Hawker had many of the qualities necessary to historical romance. His rich native humour, and his rare gift for telling a story; his vivid presentment of scene, character, and situation, make it a matter of regret that he did not apply his powers more fully in this direction, just as it is a matter of regret that his fine poem, “The Quest of the Sangraal,” is only a fragment, though a fragment worthy to rank beside “Hyperion.” ”

“ Someone else may succeed where I failed, but I hope that, whoever does succeed, the honour will rest with Britain.
“I may say I have been loyally backed up by my wife; and when a man embarks on an adventure of this kind the spirit in which it is taken by his wife counts for a great deal. She has been splendid through it all, and what credit there is for what has been achieved is hers as much as mine.”
Commander Grieve’s message ran:
“I can only say ‘ditto’ to Harry Hawker. ”

“ When the hawkers went abroad on a hunt, gay was the show and lively the sport. On horseback, carrying the hawks on their wrists, the gallant company rode briskly away, all of them dressed in fine robes and the hawks also richly "dressed." The bird might have around its neck a collar of gold filagree and over its head a hood of the finest silk, with a plume of colored feathers on top. ”

“ You do not find Hawker and Company lounging about in clubs in the intervals between their big aviation undertakings, for the sufficient reason that they give themselves no intervals of leisure, because they are always busy working for money, which they know how to look after when they get it. A result is that they never get overawed at the prospect of any one of their aerial feats. Each is to them merely part of the ordinary day’s work, imposing no more strain than any other day’s work. ”

“ Hawker, passed Inverness, you did not give us much of a chance of welcoming you, but we now have the chance, and give you a real Highland welcome. We are delighted to see you, and to congratulate you on your wonderful attempt to cross the Atlantic. We are glad to know that you live to fly another day, and I hope that before long you will win that great prize offered by the Daily Mail. The proprietors of that newspaper have done a generous and patriotic action in stimulating aviation—one that deserves the congratulations of the whole country. ”

“ Hawker had been proving the extraordinary stability of this machine. He used to take her up to 1,000 feet or so, switch off his engine, and let the machine glide. Then he would pull his elevator slowly back to stall her. With the elevator hard back she would neither tail-slide nor dive nor side-slip. She would simply descend on an even keel like a parachute, but moving gently forward and rolling slowly first on to one wing and then back to the other. Occasionally, in a gust, she would slide to one side, descending sideways at about 45 degrees, which is hardly a side-slip. ”

“ At Wellcombe was an old man, Antony Cleverdon, from whom Mr. Hawker learned many charms, some of which he has given in his Footprints of Former Men. This old man, commonly called Uncle Tony, was a source of great amusement to the vicar, who delighted to visit and converse with him.
“Sir,” said Uncle Tony to him one day, “there is one thing I want to ask you, if I may be so free, and it is this: Why should a merrymaid (the local name for mermaid) , that will ride upon the waters in such terrible storms, never lose her looking-glass and comb?” ”

“ The vicar will attend at St. Mark’s schoolroom every Friday at three o’clock, to catechise the scholars, and at the Sunday school at the usual hour. He will not from henceforth show the same kindness to those who keep back their children from school as he will to those who send them. “Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk” (Exod. xxiii. 19) .
Mr. Hawker was a High Churchman, but one of an original type, wholly distinct from the Tractarian of the first period, and the Ritualist of the second period, of the Catholic revival in the English Church. ”