Note 64 — Chapter VI · GEARING AND MILLWORK

John Isaac Hawkins was a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers. He was the son of a watch and clock maker and was born at Taunton, Somersetshire, in 1772. At an early age he went to the United States and “entered college at Jersey, Pennsylvania, as a student of medicine,” but did not follow it up. He was a fine musician and had a marked aptitude for mechanics. He returned to England, traveled a great deal on the Continent, and acquired a wide experience. He was consulted frequently on all kinds of engineering activities, one of them being the attempt, in 1808, to drive a tunnel under the Thames. For many years he practiced in London as a patent agent and consulting engineer. He went to the United States again in the prosecution of some of his inventions, and died in Elizabeth, N. J., in 1865. From a Memoir in the “Transactions of the Institution of Civil Engineers,” Vol. XXV, p. 512. 1865.