1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hawksley, Thomas

HAWKSLEY, THOMAS (1807–1893), English engineer, was born on the 12th of July 1807, at Arnold, near Nottingham. He was at Nottingham grammar school till the age of fifteen, but was indebted to his private studies for his knowledge of mathematics, chemistry and geology. In 1822 he was articled to an architect in Nottingham, subsequently becoming a partner in the firm, which also undertook engineering work; and in 1852 he removed to London, where he continued in active practice till he was well past eighty. His work was chiefly concerned with water and gas supply and with main-drainage. Of waterworks he used to say that he had constructed 150, and a long list might be drawn up of important towns that owe their water to his skill, including Liverpool, Sheffield, Leicester, Leeds, Derby, Darlington, Oxford, Cambridge and Northampton in England, and Stockholm, Altona and Bridgetown (Barbados) in other countries. To his native town of Nottingham he was water engineer for fifty years, and the system he designed for it was noteworthy from the fact that the principle of constant supply was adopted for the first time. The gas-works at Nottingham, and at many other towns for which he provided water supplies were also constructed by him. He designed main-drainage systems for Birmingham, Worcester and Windsor among other places, and in 1857 he was called in, together with G. P. Bidder and Sir J. Bazalgette, to report on the best solution of the vexed question of a main-drainage scheme for London. In 1872 he was president of the Institution of Civil Engineers—an office in which his son Charles followed him in 1901. He died in London on the 23rd of September 1893.