[3] He then entered Lincoln's Inn (the family tradition was the practice of law), but decided to travel instead, and in Germany he studied mining and mineralogy.

[1] Hawkins was a man of considerable means, owning much Cornish mining property, and inherited the Trewithen Estate near Probus.

In 1826–32 he rebuilt the house[5] as a secondary residence more convenient to Westminster than his Cornish estate, and collected a great number of valuable paintings and drawings to add to his antiquities.

[2] Hawkins, who was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1791,[1] wrote a number of papers on scientific subjects, most of them connected with the geology of Cornwall (a full list is given in Boase and Courtney's Bibliotheca Cornubiensis, i.

[1] Hawkins was a correspondent of Davies Gilbert, Gideon Mantell,[1] Philip Rashleigh and William Gregor, the discover of titanium.