Roger Hawken

Hawken was born at Darlington, New South Wales, the son of Nicholas Hawken MLC and Mary Jane (née Vance). He attended Newington College (1893–1896)Newington College Register of Past Students 1863–1998 (Sydney, 1999) pp85 and in 1895 won the Wigram Allen Scholarship, awarded by Sir George Wigram Allen, for mathematics.Newington College Register of Past Students 1863–1998 (Sydney, 1999) Part 2 – The Lists{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article71241229 |title=Two Newington Students. |newspaper=Australian Town and Country Journal |volume=LII |issue=1356 |location=New South Wales|date=1 February 1896 |accessdate=6 October 2016 |page=20 |via=National Library of Australia}} His tertiary education was at the University of Sydney (B.C.E., 1900; B.A., 1902).[http://www.bull.usyd.edu.au/as/ Alumni Sidneienses] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080718184400/http://www.bull.usyd.edu.au/as/ |date=18 July 2008 }} He also received a Masters of Engineering from the University of Sydney.

He died on 18 October 1947 after a week's illness and was cremated at Mt Thompson Crematorium. He was survived by his wife and five daughters.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article49662718 |title=Family Notices. |newspaper=The Courier-Mail |location=Brisbane |date=20 October 1947 |accessdate=6 March 2011 |page=10 |via=National Library of Australia}}

Hawken's academic bent was evident by 1903 in a remarkably advanced paper to the Sydney University Engineering Society on the structural analysis of bridges.

Hawken worked as an engineer in the Federated Malay States for four years and then with local government authorities in New South Wales. In 1912 Hawken was appointed as a lecturer at the University of Queensland.

He graduated M.C.E. from Sydney in 1918 after submitting a thesis on column design, a frontier topic of the period, and appears to have had slightly the better of a lively argument with the English engineer, E. H. Salmon, who had written an authoritative text on the subject.{{cn|date=February 2025}}

Hawken was appointed as professor at the University of Queensland in 1919.

Hawken was involved in the founding of IEAust in 1919 and was its president in 1923 and a councillor till his death. At his suggestion in 1928, Queensland became the first state to legislate for compulsory registration of consulting engineers.{{Cite book|url=http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hawken-roger-william-hercules-6602|title=Hawken, Roger William Hercules (1878–1947)|last=|first=|date=|website=|publisher=Australian Dictionary of Biography|access-date=2 February 2017}}

In the 1920s, he turned again to earth pressures and the stability of slopes; he thus was one of the pioneers of the study of soil mechanics, a subject generally neglected until the 1950s. In later work on rainfall runoff and flooding potential and the economic appraisal of engineering schemes, his ideas were well ahead of his time.

Hawken was reserved but excessively formal, with a wry, sometimes biting sense of humour. Engineering and the university was his life. He saw the complete engineer as a combination of wide experience and wide culture, encouraged originality in his students, called himself the 'senior student' and was known as 'hanks'.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article98314547 |title=Prof. Hawken dead at 69; ill for week. |newspaper=Sunday Mail |location=Brisbane |date=19 October 1947 |accessdate=5 June 2014 |page=4 |via=National Library of Australia}}

His work included design of an early version of the Sydney Harbour Bridge that did not proceed to construction, and identification of crossing points for the Brisbane River.{{cn|date=February 2025}} He was involved in many major Brisbane projects including an early Victoria Bridge (the abutment is still standing near QPAC) and the Story Bridge. In 2006, Brisbane City Council proposed Hawken Bridge as one of 5 names for a new green bridge linking the University of Queensland to Dutton Park but ended up choosing the name Eleanor Schonell Bridge.{{cn|date=February 2025}}

In May 1947, he was asked to participate in an inquiry into a railway crash at Camp Mountain.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article56781174 |title=JUDGE MANSFIELD TO HEAD INQUIRY INTO RAILWAY SMASH. |newspaper=The Morning Bulletin |location=Rockhampton, Qld. |date=9 May 1947 |accessdate=6 March 2011 |page=1 |via=National Library of Australia}}

File:Hawken Engineering Building 50.JPG

Two major engineering buildings and library at the University of Queensland have been named in his honour. The first Hawken building was built in about 1964.[http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:177945 Photo of construction of Hawken Building], accessed 6 March 2011. However it was vacated by the Engineering Faculty after the construction of a new building in about the 1990s. The name Hawken Building was then assigned to the new building, and the old Hawken Building was renamed the Prentice Building, reflecting the Prentice Computer Centre which took over the building.[http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:179334 Photo of the first Hawken Building], retrieved 6 March 2011.

The annual Hawken address, presented by the Queensland division of IEAust, is usually held in its Hawken Auditorium, the main lecture theatre in the Hawken Building.

Shortly after his death in 1947, a road leading to the main UQ campus at St Lucia, Queensland (then known as Coronation Drive) was renamed Hawken Drive.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article49927347 |title=Rename drive to honour professor. |newspaper=The Courier-Mail |location=Brisbane |date=15 January 1949 |accessdate=6 March 2011 |page=4 |via=National Library of Australia}}

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• D. H. Trollope, [http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A090233b.htm Hawken, Roger William Hercules (1878–1947)], Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 9, Melbourne University Press, 1983, pp 230–231.

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Category:1878 births

Category:1947 deaths

Category:People educated at Newington College

Category:University of Sydney alumni

Category:Australian civil engineers

Category:Academic staff of the University of Queensland