(Sir) John Hawkshaw

OBITUARY - Sir John Hawkshaw, F.R.S.—We have to record the death of Sir John Hawkshaw, F.R.S., F.G.S., the eminent engineer, which took place on Tuesday last, in his eighty-first year. According to “Men of the Time,” he was born at Leeds in 1811, and educated in that town. He was placed at an early age as a pupil with Mr. Charles Fowler, then engaged in the construction of turnpike roads in various parts of the West Riding. A more Famous engineer, Mr. Alexander Nimmo, was young Hawkshaw’s next instructor. His death in 1S31 threw his pupil on his own resources, and, though only twenty years of age, he undertook the management of the Bolivar copper mines, in South America—a post which he occupied for three years. On his return to England, Mr. Hawkshaw became Engineer to the Manchester and Bolton Canal and Railway, and soon afterwards to the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, constructing nearly the whole of their system. Mr. Hawkshaw was nominated one of the Metropolitan Commissioners of Sewers, when that body was formed by the Crown, and in 1860 he was appointed Royal Commissioner to decide between rival schemes for the water-supply of Dublin. Among other achievements may be mentioned the success with which he remedied the disastrous effects of the failure of the great sluice of St. Germains, in Norfolk, in 1862. He was President of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1862-63; he received the honour of knighthood in 1873, and was President of the British Association at the Bristol meeting in 1875. The Penarth Harbour and Dock in Cardiff Roads, the Londonderry Bridge, the line of railway between Charing-cross and Cannon-street, with the two bridges across the Thames, the East London Railway, the Albert Dock it Hull, the South Dock of the East and West India Company, and the foundation of the new forts at Spithead, are among Sir J. Hawkshaw’s many works at home; while of those which he constructed abroad, the most considerable are the Riga and Dunaburg and the Dunaburg and Witepsk Railways in Russia, the Government railways in Mauritius, and the great ship-canal from Amsterdam to the North Sea.

Reference           Builder 6 June 1891 page 457