Colonel Peter Hawker (24 November 1786 – 7 August 1853) was a celebrated diarist and author, and a shooting sportsman accounted one of the "great shots" of the 19th century. His sporting exploits were widely followed and on occasion considered worth reporting in ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
''.
Early life
Born in London to Colonel Peter Ryves Hawker and Mary Wilson Hawker (née Yonge), Peter Hawker was educated at
Eton Eton most commonly refers to Eton College, a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England.
Eton may also refer to:
Places
*Eton, Berkshire, a town in Berkshire, England
* Eton, Georgia, a town in the United States
* Éton, a commune in the Meuse dep ...
and entered military service in 1801 by purchasing a commission as a
cornet
The cornet (, ) is a brass instrument similar to the trumpet but distinguished from it by its conical bore, more compact shape, and mellower tone quality. The most common cornet is a transposing instrument in B, though there is also a sopr ...
in
The Royal Dragoons (1st Dragoons), soon gaining purchased promotion to captain. Hawker notes in his diary that: "I was a Captain of Dragoons soon after I was seventeen years old, but paid dearer for it than anyone in the service."
Military career
Hawker served with the
14th Light Dragoons
The 14th King's Hussars was a cavalry regiment in the British Army, first raised in 1715. It saw service for two centuries, including the First World War, before being amalgamated with the 20th Hussars to form the 14th/20th King's Hussars in 192 ...
under the
Duke of Wellington
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, (1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852) was an Anglo-Irish soldier and Tory statesman who was one of the leading military and political figures of 19th-century Britain, serving twice as prime minister of ...
during the
Peninsular War
The Peninsular War (1807–1814) was the military conflict fought in the Iberian Peninsula by Spain, Portugal, and the United Kingdom against the invading and occupying forces of the First French Empire during the Napoleonic Wars. In Spain ...
. He led his squadron in the
Battle of Douro
The Second Battle of Porto, also known as the Battle of the Douro or the Crossing of the Douro, was a battle in which General Arthur Wellesley's Anglo-Portuguese Army defeated Marshal Soult's French troops on 12 May 1809 and took back the ...
(6 May 1809), his regiment thereby earning the
battle honour
A battle honour is an award of a right by a government or sovereign to a military unit to emblazon the name of a battle or operation on its flags ("colours"), uniforms or other accessories where ornamentation is possible.
In European military t ...
"Douro" for its colours. He received a serious thigh wound in the following
Battle of Talavera
The Battle of Talavera (27–28 July 1809) was fought just outside the town of Talavera de la Reina, Spain some southwest of Madrid, during the Peninsular War. At Talavera, a British army under Sir Arthur Wellesley combined with a Spanish ar ...
(28 July 1809), was declared unfit, and so resigned and sold his commission. In recognition of his service, Hawker was awarded a modest annual pension of £100. Despite his injuries and consequent ill health, he was later able in 1815 to accept an active commission as major of the
North Hampshire Militia; he was recommended for the post by the then
Duke of Clarence
Duke of Clarence is a substantive title which has been traditionally awarded to junior members of the British Royal Family. All three creations were in the Peerage of England.
The title was first granted to Lionel of Antwerp, the second son ...
, heir to the throne and future
King William IV
William IV (William Henry; 21 August 1765 – 20 June 1837) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 26 June 1830 until his death in 1837. The third son of George III, William succeeded h ...
. Hawker was made a lieutenant-colonel of the militia in 1821 and ultimately became deputy lieutenant for his county.
Sportsman and author
Hawker is best known today for his published works on the sporting activities of shooting,
wildfowling
Waterfowl hunting (also called wildfowling or waterfowl shooting in the UK) is the practice of hunting ducks, geese, or other waterfowl for food and sport.
Many types of ducks and geese share the same habitat, have overlapping or identical hunt ...
and fishing. Hawker published his "Advice to Young Sportsmen" in 1814, a popular work with nine impressions in his lifetime, the latest paper edition appearing in 1975. Forty years after Hawker's death, an Australian book reviewer stated, "Probably no book on the subject of sport ever enjoyed so wide or so long sustained a popularity as the ''Instructions to Young Sportsmen''".
Hawker kept a regular diary which contains observations of Europe before and after the Napoleonic period and of wild-fowling, game-bird shooting and detailed hunting techniques and conditions prevalent in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His diary, printed in an abridged form in two volumes, became a popular work. The most recent paper edition appeared in 1988. Hawker also published an originally anonymous memoir of the Peninsula War.
Revisionist views
Hawker's attitudes to guns and shooting have been criticised and parodied from a modern viewpoint in ''
The Economist
''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Econo ...
'' (in connection with teaching children how to shoot), and in ''The Times'' (as being overly bloodthirsty). He was even mildly criticised by
Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, who described Hawker as "something of an egotist" albeit a "good-natured" one) in the introduction to the 1893 edition of the diary. Colin Laurie McKelvie, in a forward to the 1988 edition of the diary, found Hawker's personality "unattractive" and observed that he "appears unacceptably self-absorbed, cock-sure and downright arrogant." McKelvie mitigates this criticism with praise for Hawker's knowledge, fairness, energy and enthusiasm.
The musician
Hawker was a keen amateur musician, studying the piano under
Henri Bertini
Henri Jérôme Bertini (28 October 1798 – 30 September 1876) was a French classical composer and pianist. He was born into a family of musicians and attracted the attention of François-Joseph Fétis when he toured Europe as a child prodigy. ...
and regularly playing the organ at his local church. This interest in music was not limited to playing. He devised and patented a device to assist in piano teaching: his "hand moulds".
Development of firearms
![Peter_Hawker_and_Joe_Manton](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Peter_Hawker_and_Joe_Manton.jpg)
Hawker's inventiveness extended to the development of "detonating" firearms – the
percussion lock
The percussion cap or percussion primer, introduced in the early 1820s, is a type of single-use percussion ignition device for muzzle loader firearm locks enabling them to fire reliably in any weather condition. This crucial invention gave rise ...
) and
punt gun
A punt gun is a type of extremely large shotgun used in the 19th and early 20th centuries for shooting large numbers of waterfowl for commercial harvesting operations. These weapons are characteristically too large for an individual to fire from ...
ning. He also claims in his diary to have invented a "smokeless chimney". Hawker was a firm friend of the noted gunsmith
Joe Manton, using Manton's guns, taking an interest in their design, and participating in the manufacture of some of his own commissions.
Hawker designed a
breech-loading
A breechloader is a firearm in which the user loads the ammunition (cartridge or shell) via the rear (breech) end of its barrel, as opposed to a muzzleloader, which loads ammunition via the front ( muzzle).
Modern firearms are generally breech ...
swivel gun
The term swivel gun (or simply swivel) usually refers to a small cannon, mounted on a swiveling stand or fork which allows a very wide arc of movement. Another type of firearm referred to as a swivel gun was an early flintlock combination gun wi ...
mounted on a four-wheeled carriage, a model of which was reportedly on display at the Rotunda, Woolwich.
In later life Hawker designed a "military musket" and commissioned the manufacture of several prototypes at his own expense. Hawker's musket was favourably received by the
Board of Ordnance
The Board of Ordnance was a British government body. Established in the Tudor period, it had its headquarters in the Tower of London. Its primary responsibilities were 'to act as custodian of the lands, depots and forts required for the defence ...
, but it was not adopted, being set aside in preference to the
Enfield Rifle-Musket, although elements of Hawker's design were incorporated into the final version of the Enfield.
Family life
Hawker was married first in 1811 to Julia, only daughter of Major Hooker Barttelot, making the family home in
Longparish
Longparish is a village and civil parish in Hampshire, England. It is composed of the four hamlets of Middleton, East Aston, West Aston and Forton that over time have expanded and effectively joined up to become one village. Longparish is situate ...
with a cottage in
Keyhaven
Keyhaven is a hamlet on the south coast of England in the county of Hampshire. It is a fishing village, but the trade has been in decline for a period of years and its main draw now is tourism, especially sailing.
Overview
Keyhaven lies in the ...
. After Julia's death in 1844, Hawker married Helen Susan Symonds (née Chatterton), herself a widow. Colonel Hawker had two sons and two daughters by his first wife. Hawker's granddaughter,
Mary Elizabeth Hawker, was a noted late Victorian author under the pseudonym "Lanoe Falconer". Hawker's cottage in
Keyhaven
Keyhaven is a hamlet on the south coast of England in the county of Hampshire. It is a fishing village, but the trade has been in decline for a period of years and its main draw now is tourism, especially sailing.
Overview
Keyhaven lies in the ...
, Hampshire, still stands as "Hawker's Cottage", immediately north of the ''Gun Inn'' public house, which reportedly was named originally to mark Hawker's punt-gunning exploits.
Hawker was
Lanoe Hawker
Lanoe George Hawker, (30 December 1890 – 23 November 1916) was a British flying ace of the First World War. Having seven credited victories, he was the third pilot to receive the Victoria Cross, the highest decoration for gallantry awar ...
's great-grandfather through Lanoe's mother.
[''A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Colonial Gentry'', vol. II, ed. Ashworth P. Burke, 1895, pp. 776–777.]
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hawker, Peter
1786 births
1853 deaths
English hunters
British diarists
British sportswriters
British male sport shooters
19th-century English writers
People educated at Eton College
19th-century English male writers