Sir Christopher Hawkins, 1st Baronet
Sir Christopher Hawkins, 1st Baronet (1758–1829) was a powerful Cornish landowner, mine-owner, Tory Member of Parliament, and an early supporter of steam power. He served as Recorder of Grampound, Tregony, and St Ives in Cornwall.
He was the second son of Thomas Hawkins of Trewithen, who left him large estates when he died in 1766. Christopher became High Sheriff of Cornwall in 1783 and then entered Parliament at age 26. Hawkins earned a notorious reputation as a “boroughmonger,” buying and selling rotten boroughs—small constituencies that could be controlled by influence and money. At his peak he controlled six boroughs that returned two MPs each, and he usually placed government supporters in these seats.
He was MP for Grampound (1800–1807), Mitchell (1784–1799 and 1806–1807), Penryn (1806–1807 and 1818–1820), and St Ives (1821–1828). He spoke only a few times in Parliament. After the 1806 Penryn election a parliamentary committee found him guilty of bribery and he lost that seat, though he remained in Parliament for his other boroughs. He was tried at Bodmin in 1808 and acquitted. In 1810 he even fought a duel with Lord Dunstanville.
Hawkins was known as a miser and was said to have reduced the number of electors by pulling down houses on his land. In 1791 William Pitt the Younger made him a baronet, and he was, by the time of his death, the longest-serving MP known as Father of the House.
Beyond politics, Hawkins bought many lands to gain influence. He developed mines and metal works, including the Old Shepherds Mine for lead and silver at Cargoll. East Wheal Rose (1812) became Cornwall’s largest lead mine for a time. He opened St Ives Consols (copper and tin) in 1818 and found gold at Ladock, sending a sample to the Royal Geological Society.
He was a partner in the Cornish Copper Company, which built a smelting works at Copperhouse, created a canal to Hayle, and expanded the Hayle harbour to export metal and import coal and timber. He owned china clay mines near St Austell and helped rebuild Pentewan harbour, connected to St Austell by the Pentewan Railway, a horse-drawn line. As Vice Lord Warden of the Stannaries, he wielded considerable influence over Cornwall’s mining.
Trewithen, the family home near Probus, remained in the family and is now a Grade I listed house with a notable garden. Hawkins himself was never married, and after his death his estate passed to his youngest brother John and then to his nephew Christopher Henry Thomas Hawkins.
Sir Christopher was a patron of science and industry. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Royal Horticultural Society, and the Antiquarian Society, and a life subscriber to the Royal Institution. In 1811 he published Observations on the Tin Trade of the Ancients in Cornwall, arguing for Phoenician involvement in tin.
He supported steam pioneer Richard Trevithick and in 1812 commissioned what is described as the world's first steam threshing machine. The machine stayed in use until the 1880s and is now kept by the Science Museum in London. In 1813 the Royal Horticultural Society awarded him a silver medal for promoting the Cornish Gillyflower apple, which is still grown today.
Hawkins never married. After his death in 1829, his estate went to his youngest brother, John, and then to his nephew Christopher Hawkins Henry Thomas Hawkins. In the Poldark novels by Winston Graham, he appears as a corrupt boroughmonger who is nevertheless generous to his friends.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 12:02 (CET).