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| March 4th | Joseph Hocken (Death, 1937) | ||||
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Joseph Hocking (1860 – 1937), born in St. Stephen-in-Brannel near St. Austell, was a novelist and minister in the United Methodist Free Church. The son of a mine owner, Hocking was ordained when he was 24 and worked in many parts of Britain, as well as in the Middle East, acquiring a reputation for his preaching and sermons. At the same time, he started writing fiction which he believed to be a very effective method of conveying his Christian beliefs. He is believed to have written over one hundred books and, although many are now largely forgotten, he was extremely popular in the first decades of the 20th century. He was a member of an extremely accomplished literary family. His brother was Silas Hocking (15th September) who became the first writer to sell over half a million copies of his works in his own lifetime and his sister was the novelist Salome Hocking (10th April). All three of his daughters (Anne Hocking, Elizabeth Nisot and Joan Shill) became successful novelists. Hocking’s most popular works were ‘Harry Penhale: The Trial of his Faith’ (1887), ‘Lest We Forget’ (1901), ‘Follow the gleam: a tale of the time of Oliver Cromwell’ (1903) and ‘The Bells of St Ia’ (1911). He died in St Ives, having been married to Annie Brown for 50 years. | ||||