Hawks family

The Hawks family (c.1750 – 1889) was one of the most notable industrial dynasties during the English Industrial Revolution. It owned several companies in the North and the City of London - including Hawks and Co., Hawks, Crawshay, and Stanley, and Hawks, Crawshay, and Sons - all of which featured the Hawks name in the company name and focused their enterprises on iron manufacture and engineering.

The Hawks company reached its apogee in the early Victorian period, when it employed over 2000 and its reputation for engineering and bridge building was worldwide. Its Gateshead factories were termed New Deptford and New Woolwich after the location of two of its two warehouses on the River Thames, Deptford and Woolwich. The company owned its own ships, which it used to transport its manufacture. It built the striking High Level Bridge across the River Tyne that was opened by Queen Victoria in 1849, bridges as far afield as Constantinople and India, and lighthouses in France. It produced ironclad warships and other materials for the Royal Navy to exponential profits during the Napoleonic Wars and completed several large contracts for the East India Company. It also produced the first iron boat, the Vulcan, in 1821.

The family developed also developed areas of London, including Pembroke Square, Kensington. Several members of the family were prominent in politics.

The Hawks firm was established by William Hawks (1708–1755) who worked at the iron manufactory established by Ambrose Crowley (1658–1713) at Swalwell. In the late 1740s Hawks established a set of workshops on waste ground along the river foreshore at Gateshead. When Hawks died at Gateshead on 23 February 1755, the works passed to the eldest son, William Hawks (bap. 1730, d. 1810); he and his first wife, Elizabeth Dixon established the Hawks' industrial empire.William (d.1810) formed a partnership with Thomas Longridge (bap. 1751, d. 1803) in 1770 and shortly afterwards acquired a plating forge was acquired at Beamish, co. Durham, the first of four separate metalworking sites operated by Hawks and Longridge along Beamish Burn. A forge at Lumley, co. Durham, was occupied by the firm in the mid-1780s and in the late 1780s slitting and rolling mills on the River Blyth in the modern county of Northumberland were taken on.

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