HAWKSHAW, SIR JOHN (181 1-1891), English engineer, was educated at Leeds grammar school. He became chief engi neer of the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway, for which he con structed a large number of branch lines. In 185o he removed to London and began to practise as a consulting engineer, at first alone, but subsequently in partnership with Harrison Hayter. In London he was responsible for the Charing Cross and Cannon Street railways, together with the two bridges which carried them over the Thames ; he was engineer of the East London railway, which passes under the Thames through Sir M. I. Brunel's well known tunnel; and jointly with Sir J. Wolfe Barry he constructed the section of the Underground railway which completed the "inner circle" between the Aldgate and Mansion House stations. Hawkshaw was concerned with many railway works in all parts of the world—Germany, Russia, India, Mauritius, etc. He ad vocated, in opposition to Robert Stephenson, steeper gradients than had previously been thought desirable or possible, and he protested against the maintenance of the broad gauge on the Great Western, as he foresaw that it complicated railway exten sion.
In 1862 he became engineer of the Amsterdam ship-canal, and in the next year he may fairly be said to have been the saviour of the Suez canal by presenting a favourable report on the ques tion to the Khedive. As a member of the International Congress to consider the construction of an interoceanic canal across Central America, he preferred the Nicaraguan route. He regarded the Panama scheme as impracticable at a reasonable cost, although publicly he expressed no opinion on the matter and left the Congress without voting. He was engineer of the Severn tunnel, one of the most notable engineering undertakings of the i9th century. He died in London on June 2, 1891.