New research into one of the ministers associated with Selina, Countess of Huntingdon — and an appeal for further information
Among the many people who passed through the remarkable religious network created by Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, there are ministers whose lives have been well documented and others who have almost disappeared from history.
One of the latter was Rev. John Hawksworth, or Hawkesworth, as his name is often spelt in contemporary and later accounts.
Hawksworth was sufficiently important to the Countess for her to take a personal interest in his career. He served her Connexion in Dublin, was eventually ordained for its congregation, and then made a decision which caused her considerable distress: in 1782 he left her Connexion and joined the Moravian Church.
His subsequent life took him from Dublin to Wem, Fulneck and London, before he retired to Horsley in Gloucestershire, where the surviving account says that he died in 1810.
Yet much about him remains mysterious. We do not know with certainty where he was born, who his parents were, where exactly he died or where he was buried. Most intriguing of all, there is evidence connecting him with the Hawksworth family of Silkstone, Yorkshire, but the precise relationship has yet to be established.
This article brings together what we have so far discovered and, we hope, may attract further information from researchers of the Countess of Huntingdon, the Moravians, Fulneck and the Möller family.
A young minister in Selina’s circle
John Hawksworth became associated with Selina, Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion in the early 1770s.
In April 1772 he went to Dublin to serve the Connexional chapel in Plunkett Street. His work there brought him directly into the expanding evangelical network which Selina was establishing in Ireland.
His path to ordination was not straightforward.
According to Alan Harding’s history of the Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion, Selina agreed in October 1773 that Hawksworth should be ordained. The actual ordination did not take place until September 1774. Because the Irish dissenting ministers were unwilling to ordain him for the Connexion, Hawksworth travelled to Plymouth, where he was ordained by the Independent minister Andrew Kinsman at his Tabernacle.
This episode gives us a particularly interesting glimpse of the way Selina’s organisation operated. Hawksworth was not simply an anonymous preacher attached to one chapel: his ordination was a matter discussed directly with the Countess, and his work in Ireland formed part of her wider plans for the Connexion.
The surviving scholarship also shows that Selina corresponded directly with Hawksworth about the Dublin work. One later study cites a letter from Selina to Hawksworth concerning the management of the Dublin mission and the expenses of another of her students there.
Hawksworth was therefore a genuine member of Selina’s ministerial network, rather than someone whose connection with her has been inferred retrospectively.
A marriage which changed the course of his life
The decisive change came through Hawksworth’s marriage.
On 25 May 1782, he married Maria Möller in Dublin.
Maria was the sister of Andrew Möller, a member of the Moravian Church. The connection proved significant. The history of the Huntingdon Connexion records that the marriage brought Hawksworth into close contact with the United Brethren — the Moravians — and that, around the beginning of 1782, he withdrew from Selina’s Connexion and joined the Moravian Church.
For Selina, this was a painful development.
The account says that the Countess was greatly distressed by Hawksworth’s decision. She believed that his departure would diminish his usefulness as a minister and made several unsuccessful attempts to persuade him to return.
The episode tells us something about the relationship between the Countess and her ministers. Hawksworth was not merely an employee moving from one denomination to another. His decision appears to have been personally important to Selina, who regarded his departure as a serious loss.
From Dublin to Wem
After leaving the Huntingdon Connexion, Hawksworth returned to England and settled at Wem in Shropshire.
He had previously worked in the chapel there, which had been built by Mr Henshaw and supplied for many years by students from Trevecca, the college established by the Countess of Huntingdon for the training of ministers.
This gives Hawksworth another connection with the wider Huntingdon story. Even after leaving the Connexion, he returned to a place where he had previously ministered within its orbit.
He and Maria also began a family.
Their known children include:
- John Hawksworth, born at Wem in 1785;
- Andrew Henry Hawksworth, born at Wem in 1787;
- Joseph Hawksworth, born at Wem in 1789;
- George Hawksworth, born at Fulneck in 1793;
- Maria Hawksworth, born at Fulneck in 1795.
The family therefore provides another way of tracing John Hawksworth through the records.
Fulneck and the Moravian connection
Hawksworth subsequently moved to Fulneck in Yorkshire, one of the principal Moravian settlements in Britain.
The Fulneck records are particularly valuable because they provide contemporary evidence linking Hawksworth, Maria Möller and their children.
George Hawksworth was born on 23 July 1793 and baptised at Fulneck. The record identifies him as the son of John Hawksworth and Maria Moller and describes John as a formerly dissenting minister.
A daughter, Maria Hawksworth, was born at Fulneck on 4 May 1795, again to John Hawksworth and Maria Moller.
These records are important for another reason. They use the spelling Hawksworth, helping to resolve one of the problems which originally surrounded this family.
John’s surname appears in different sources as both Hawksworth and Hawkesworth. The Huntingdon literature generally uses Hawkesworth, while the Fulneck records use Hawksworth.
At present, the evidence suggests that Hawksworth was the family’s normal surname, although Hawkesworth was certainly used by contemporaries and later writers.
George sadly died in infancy.
London and the final years
After Fulneck, Hawksworth moved to London.
At some point he withdrew from the Church of the United Brethren as well. He eventually retired to Horsley in Gloucestershire.
The history of the Huntingdon Connexion gives the final episode very briefly:
he retired to Horsley, in Gloucestershire, “where he ended his days in peace, in the year 1810.”
This is currently our principal evidence for the place of his death.
The Henry Salt Foundation’s family research provides another important clue. The genealogical record identifies John Hawksworth as having died in 1810 and cites the Prerogative Court of Canterbury wills, 1384–1858, noting that the date is specified in his will.
We have not yet examined the original will.
That document may prove to be the key to the remaining mystery.
Where did John Hawksworth die?
At present, we can say that Horsley in Gloucestershire is the reported place of his death, but we should distinguish this from a statement based on a burial entry.
No death or burial record has yet been found.
This is particularly interesting because the Horsley parish records survive for the relevant period. There are also Bishops’ Transcripts and records relating to nonconformist congregations in the area.
If Hawksworth’s burial does not appear in the Anglican parish register, other possibilities will need to be considered.
His religious history was unusual. He had been a minister in the Huntingdon Connexion, had joined the Moravians, and had subsequently withdrawn from the United Brethren. His final years appear to have been spent in retirement rather than as an active minister.
It is therefore possible that the eventual burial took place outside the Anglican parish system.
For now, 1810 should be regarded as well supported, while the precise date and place of burial remain unknown.
The Silkstone mystery
There is another reason why John Hawksworth has attracted our attention.
The Henry Salt Foundation’s original research began with a photograph in Henry Salt’s collection labelled “The Rev Hawkesworth”. Later genealogical material, particularly Burke’s Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry, described Maria Möller as having married the Rev. John Hawkesworth “of Silkstone Castle, Yorkshire”.
This led to the search for Silkstone Castle.
No convincing evidence for a building actually called Silkstone Castle has yet been found.
There is, however, definite evidence for an established Hawksworth family of Silkstone.
Documents concerning local property refer to Joshua Hawksworth of Silkstone. Property belonging to him in 1760 subsequently passed through the Shaw family.
There are also surviving Hawksworth memorials in the churchyard of All Saints and St James the Great, Silkstone.
One raised graveslab commemorates Joshua Hawksworth, yeoman of Silkstone, who died on 14 April 1762 aged 73, together with his wife Sarah and later family members.
This establishes that the Hawksworth family was indeed present at Silkstone in the eighteenth century.
What it does not yet establish is the precise relationship between this family and Rev. John Hawksworth.
Was Joshua Hawksworth his father?
This is one of the questions which remains tantalisingly close to an answer.
An earlier hypothesis suggested that John Hawksworth might have been the son of Joshua Hawksworth of Silkstone, and a possible baptism on 25 March 1748 was investigated.
That identification has not been proved.
Indeed, subsequent research has introduced further uncertainty about John’s date of birth. One source suggested a birth around 1757, while the supposed 1748 baptism has not been securely connected with our minister.
It would therefore be premature to describe Joshua Hawksworth as John’s father.
The property evidence does, however, make the Silkstone connection worthy of further investigation.
A family that crossed religious boundaries
What makes Hawksworth particularly interesting is the way his life crosses several important strands of eighteenth-century religious history.
He began within the evangelical movement associated with Selina, Countess of Huntingdon.
He served in Dublin and was ordained for her Connexion.
He then married into a family connected with the Moravians, left Selina’s Connexion and joined the United Brethren.
He lived at Wem and Fulneck, both places with important religious histories, before moving to London and finally retiring to Gloucestershire.
His children subsequently followed rather different paths.
His eldest son, John Hawksworth (1785–1876), became an Anglican clergyman. He entered Oxford in 1811 and later became Vicar of Woore and Broughton.
John junior also married within the extended Möller family: his wife, Ellen Maria Möller, was his first cousin.
The family therefore connects dissenting Protestantism, the Huntingdon Connexion, the Moravian movement and the established Church of England.
What we know — and what we don’t
At this stage, the evidence allows us to construct a reasonably secure outline of Rev. John Hawksworth’s life:
1772 — associated with Selina, Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion in Dublin.
1774 — ordained at Plymouth by Andrew Kinsman for the Dublin congregation.
1782 — married Maria Möller and left the Huntingdon Connexion for the Moravian Church.
1780s — settled at Wem in Shropshire.
1785–1789 — three sons born at Wem.
1793–1795 — two further children born at Fulneck.
Later — moved to London and subsequently withdrew from the United Brethren.
By 1810 — retired to Horsley in Gloucestershire.
1810 — died, according to the surviving biographical and probate evidence.
What we still do not know is equally interesting:
- Where was John Hawksworth born?
- Who were his parents?
- Was he actually a member of the Hawksworth family of Silkstone?
- Was Joshua Hawksworth his father?
- Was there ever a property actually known as Silkstone Castle?
- What was John Hawksworth’s precise address at Horsley?
- What was the exact date of his death?
- Where was he buried?
Can you help?
This is where we hope that bringing the story to a wider audience may help.
Researchers interested in Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, the Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion, Trevecca, the Dublin congregation, the Moravians at Fulneck, or the Möller family may have encountered John Hawksworth in correspondence, diaries, registers or other records without realising that he is the same man.
We would particularly like to hear from anyone who has access to:
- the original will of Rev. John Hawksworth/Hawkesworth, proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury;
- the Horsley, Gloucestershire, burial register for around 1810;
- the Horsley Bishops’ Transcripts;
- Moravian records relating to Hawksworth or Maria Möller;
- correspondence between Selina, Countess of Huntingdon and John Hawksworth;
- records of the Huntingdon Connexion’s Dublin congregation;
- or documentary evidence connecting John Hawksworth with the Hawksworth family of Silkstone.
One document in particular may hold the key: John Hawksworth’s will.
If it can be located, it may tell us where he was living, identify his family and executors, and perhaps provide clues about his property and his connection with Silkstone.
Until then, the story of Rev. John Hawksworth remains unfinished.
But it is a story which takes us from the evangelical revival of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, through Dublin and the Moravian community at Fulneck, to a quiet retirement in Gloucestershire — and perhaps, somewhere in the surviving archives, the missing pieces of his life are still waiting to be found.
If you have information about Rev. John Hawksworth/Hawkesworth, we would be very pleased to hear from you.
