In 1841 in Helston there were two men cutting hair in adjacent streets, both with the surname of Hawke; Richard was a 17-year-old apprentice barber in Wendron Street and John was a 25-year-old hairdresser in Meneage Street. They were probably related, but I’ve found no definite evidence of this.

By 1851 Richard had his own Hairdressing Salon in Fore Street, Liskeard, employing an Assistant and an Apprentice. Richard lived above the premises with his wife Sarah, his mother Margaret, and the assistant, James Couch. John, meanwhile, remained in Helston with a growing family: his wife Priscilla, daughters Maria (12) Priscilla (10) Mary (one), and son John Tresise Gundry Hawke (18, also a hairdresser), all living above the salon.

Much changed in the lives of both the Hawke families in the ten years leading up to 1861. Richard had become a hugely successful mine share broker, enabling him, at only 35 years of age, to buy what was then the grandest residence in Liskeard, Westbourne House. This left Richard’s Fore Street premises empty, until John and his family arrived from Helston and settled into a new life in Liskeard. The following advertisement appeared in the March 21, 1857, issue of the Liskeard Gazette ‘John Hawke, Hair Cutter, Wig, Front, and Hair Guard Maker, Fore Street, Liskeard. Private Hair Cutting Rooms. Second-hand Books. J. Hawke has on Sale several hundred Vols. of Second-hand Books, at extremely low prices’.

John died two years later in 1859, aged only 45, and Priscilla, his mother, carried on the business employing an Assistant, until she died in 1894 aged 83. Richard had died in 1887 aged 64, having become the wealthiest man in Liskeard; he and Sarah had no children and decided to leave their riches to their great friend solicitor William Sargent, whose father had been a saddler and his grandfather a shoemaker.