Stannator for Tywarnhaile, Tywarnhayle, Cornwall

The Hawkins fortune was comparatively recent. Philip Hawkins I had prospered as a local lawyer in the employment of the Godolphin family, thus enabling his son, Philip II (TN32 and TN33), to purchase the Trewithen estate in 1727.⁴ Being a lawyer in Cornwall in the eighteenth century was a lucrative business. Borlase, in a section on ‘ill manners’, noted: ‘the lower sort of people is reckoned litigious; the truth is, that in mining as well as fishing there are very numerous minute subdivisions of property’, explaining that ‘those little adventures do oftentimes shift hands, are bought and sold, and bought again: this produces wranglings, and frequent application to the law-courts.’⁵ Borlase goes on to explain the byzantine local court structures, from the Duke of Cornwall in Council to Stannary-Courts ‘held every three weeks for tin-causes’. He adds: ‘By means of all these there is too open and easy access to law-contentions for the advantage of private families.’⁶ He further specifically articulates the distinction between Cornwall and ‘counties where husbandry is the chief or sole employ’, stating that the problem lay with the wealth being in so many hands. The Hawkins family were direct beneficiaries of the property structure and the unreformed legal system.⁷

Borlase’s observation that the economy of Cornwall was not primarily agricultural is significant; mining – both tin and copper – and fishing were of equal importance. Surveying the Hawkins’ relations and neighbours is instructive for seeing how diverse the sources of their wealth were. The Boscawens of Tregothnan derived a considerable income from copper mines at Chacewater and Gwennap.⁸ The Basset family of Tehidy owned profitable mines, including Dolcoath which Borlase describes as ‘very considerable’ and Cook’s Kitchen near Camborne. The St Aubyn family of Clowance and St Michael’s Mount owed their wealth to property: they owned the manor of Stoke Damerel, near Plymouth, which was leased for Devonport dockyard and generated considerable rents.⁹ The Edgcumbe family similarly profited from the expansion of Devonport, developing their land around Stonehouse. A pair of roundels by William Tomkins, preserved at Mount Edgcumbe, celebrates the family’s industrial and infrastructure interests around Plymouth, specifically the shipyard and ferry at Cremyll. Several families, such as the Rashleighs at Menabilly, made money from fishing.¹⁰ Cornwall’s economy was therefore unusual in its diversity. But as with counties where the wealth was based largely on land ownership, wealth enabled participation in local and national politics.