Educated at Merchant Taylors' School and St John's College, Oxford (where he was a scholar and gained first class Honours in Law), Hawke was called to the bar from the Middle Temple in 1892.
He joined the Western Circuit in 1893 and went on to become Attorney-General to the Prince of Wales (1923–1928)[2] and Recorder of Plymouth.
He was a member of the Carlton, Garrick, Devon and Exeter, and Royal Western Yacht clubs.
[5] Hawke sat with Lord Chief Justice Hewart and Mr Justice Branson in the Court of Criminal Appeal on 18 and 19 May 1931 to hear an appeal against a conviction for murder in R. v. Wallace.
For the first time ever, the Court overturned a conviction in a capital case on the ground that the verdict "can not be supported having regard to the evidence".