OBITUARY NOTICES OF FELLOWS DECEASED. 



SIR JOHN HAWKSHAW, civil engineer, was born at Leeds in 1811, 

 and was educated at the Grammar School of that town. After 

 serving a pupilage to an engineer of large practice in Yorkshire, he 

 went to South America for a few years to superintend some large 

 copper mines, and soon after his return succeeded George Stephenson 

 as engineer to a railway between Manchester and Leeds. This led to 

 a further connexion with the railways which afterwards expanded 

 into the great group called the " Lancashire and Yorkshire " system, 

 and he soon took a position as one of the most eminent railway 

 engineers in the country. 



After he established himself in London, his practice extended to 

 other branches of engineering, and about 1856 he succeeded Mr. J. 

 M. Rendel in directing the construction of the great Harbour of 

 Refuge at Holyhead. He made, with the sanction of the Government, 

 extensive alterations of the original design, and, in consideration of 

 his important services on the work, he received in 1873 the honour 

 of knighthood. 



Among other large works of his in Great Britain maybe mentioned 

 docks in London, Hull, and Fleetwood ; a main drainage system for 

 Brighton; waterworks for Dublin; important improvements in the 

 drainage of the Fen districts ; the foundations of the great iron forts 

 at Spithead, and the tunnel, 4 miles long, lately formed under the 

 Severn. He also devoted much attention to the proposed great 

 tunnel under the Straits of Dover, and considered he had favourably 

 solved the question from an engineering point of view. But, sub- 

 sequently, he doubted the expediency, on grounds of national policy, 

 of forming such a connexion between the two countries, and withdrew 

 his support from the scheme. 



He is best known to Londoners by his extension of the South 

 Eastern Railway from London Bridge to new termini at Charing 

 Cross and Cannon Street, a very difficult and expensive work, cutting 

 through the heart of London, and requiring two large new bridges 

 across the Thames. And though artistic critics doubt whether this 

 has contributed, like the Thames Embankment, to the embellishment 

 of the Metropolis, there can be no question that it has been of immense 

 benefit to the inhabitants ; and Sir John always held that aesthetic 

 considerations were out of place if they interfered with works of 



public utility. 



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