Cecil's Own Book was printed for private circulation in 1871. There is no record of where it was printed, nor of how many copies were produced. The collection's three short stories and ten poems are accompanied by eight monochrome watercolours which have been pasted in after printing: four of the illustrations are signed ‘H. M. M.’ It is likely that the books were presented as gifts to family and friends, with the primary recipient Cecil Wedgwood, the Hawkshaws’ young grandson, who was eight years old in 1871. Cecil had been born at Hem Heath, Trentham, near Stafford on 28 March 1863 to the Hawkshaws’ eldest daughter Mary and her husband Godfrey Wedgwood. Mary contracted puerperal mania and lived for only 11 days following Cecil's birth. She died at Hem Heath on 7 April 1863. In the weeks following her daughter's sudden death, Ann herself became ill, and in letters written to her son Henry she speaks of her illness and of Godfrey's loss and his dependence on the Hawkshaws for emotional support. As expressed in ‘In Memoriam’, the poignant elegy of remembrance which draws Cecil's Own Book to a close, the loss of three of her six children, and particularly Mary, affected Hawkshaw deeply.

As he grew up, Cecil spent a good deal of time with his grandparents and extended family: the Hawkshaws' eldest son John Clarke had married Godfrey's sister Cecily Wedgwood in 1865 and they went on to have several children.