Thomas Hawksley
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| Thomas Hawksley | |
 Thomas Hawksley |
|
| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Name | Thomas Hawksley |
| Nationality | English |
| Birth date | 12 July 1807 |
| Birth place | Arnold, Nottinghamshire |
| Date of death | 15 September 1893 |
| Place of death | Kensington, London |
| Education | Self-taught from age 15 |
| Work | |
| Engineering Discipline | Civil engineering |
| Institution memberships | Institution of Civil Engineers (president), Institution of Gas Engineers and Managers (president), Fellow of the Royal Society |
| Significant projects | Lindley Wood, Swinsty and Fewston reservoirs |
Thomas Hawksley (12 July 1807-15 September 1893) was an English civil engineer of the 19th century, particularly associated with water engineering projects.
Born in Arnold, near Nottingham on 12 July 1807[1], Hawksley was largely self-taught from the age of 15 onwards, having at that point become articled to a local firm of architects that also undertook a variety of water-related engineering projects.
He remains particularly associated with schemes in his home county. He was engineer to the Nottingham gas and water companies for more than half a century, having, early in his career, completed the Trent Bridge waterworks (1831). This scheme delivered Britain’s first high pressure ‘constant supply’, preventing contamination entering the supply of clean water mains.[2]
This achievement led him to be appointed to many major water supply projects across England, including schemes for Liverpool, Sheffield, Leicester, Leeds, Derby, Darlington, Oxford, Cambridge, Sunderland, Wakefield and Northampton. He also undertook drainage projects, including schemes for Birmingham, Worcester and Windsor.
In 1852, Hawksley set up his own engineering practice in Westminster, London. He was the first president of the Institution of Gas Engineers and Managers[3] (serving for three years from 1863), a Fellow of the Royal Society[4], and was elected President of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1872 (a post his son Charles later occupied in 1901).[5]
Between 1869 and 1879, Hawksley acted as consultant to the construction of Lindley Wood, Swinsty and Fewston reservoirs for the Leeds Waterworks Company.[6]
He died in Kensington, London in 1893[7] and is buried in his family plot at Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey. In December 2007 a granite memorial was placed over his previously unmarked grave.[8]
[edit] References
- ^ IMechE biography.
- ^ Nottingham Water Supply - history.
- ^ IGEM History.
- ^ Royal Society list of fellows.
- ^ Watson, Garth (1988), The Civils, London: Thomas Telford Ltd, p. 251, ISBN 0-727-70392-7
- ^ Bowtell, Harold D (1991). Lesser Railways of the Yorkshire Dales and the Dam Builders in the Age of Steam. Plateway Press. ISBN 1-871980-09-7.
- ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
- ^ Brookwood Cemetery press release
