Frederick Hawksworth

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Frederick Hawksworth bigraphy, stories - Engineers

Frederick Hawksworth : biography

10 February 1884 – 13 July 1976

7903 Foremarke Hall.]]

Frederick William Hawksworth (10 February 1884 – 13 July 1976), was the last Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Great Western Railway (Great Britain) (GWR). Hawksworth was born in Swindon, and he joined the GWR in 1898, aged 15, but did not become CME until he was 57, in 1941. Having been at the forefront of steam locomotive development under George Jackson Churchward, ideas at Swindon Works had somewhat stagnated under the later years of his successor C. B. Collett, whose reluctance to give up the CME’s post resulted in Hawksworth’s lateness in taking up this position.Cook, KJ, Swindon Steam 1921-1951, Ian Allan 1974 Hawksworth had been one of Churchward’s "Bright Young Men", and was involved in Churchward’s designs: he worked on, for example, the general arrangement drawings for "The Great Bear".

Innovations

Hawksworth continued in the design tradition which he had been involved in throughout his career, but made some important improvements. In particular increased superheat started to be fitted to the larger classes under his regime, and the works started to make much more use of welded construction. Another prominent new concept was a tender with slab sides, using welded construction, giving a much smoother appearance than the traditional design with stepped sides and riveted plates.

Preservation

Examples of all the Hawksworth designs except the ‘Counties’ survive. The Great Western Society is in the process of building a new ‘County’, a replica of No.1014 County of Glamorgan, using the frames of a ‘Modified Hall’, parts of the boiler of an LMS Class 8 2-8-0, and an original chimney from No.1006 County of Cornwall.

British Railways

Hawksworth remained Chief Mechanical Engineer through the formation of the Western Region of British Railways in 1948, continuing to work on locomotive design until retiring at the end of 1949. He died in Swindon 27 years later in July 1976. His ashes are buried in St. Mark’s Church, adjacent to the former site of Swindon Works.

New locomotive designs

Modified Hall Class

His first design to be built, from 1944, was the Modified Hall, a significant development of the Collett design with increased superheat and very different cylinder and frame construction.

County Class

After the war there were four more new designs, mostly improvements of earlier types. The ‘County’ Class 4-6-0 was the last and most powerful GWR 2-cylinder 4-6-0, the culmination of a line that began with the ‘Saints’ 42 years before. The chassis was similar to the modified Hall, but the boilers were to a new design, larger in diameter than the Std 1 (Hall) boiler but smaller in diameter and appreciably shorter than the Castle boiler. This boiler used tooling which was available from LMS 8F 2-8-0 boilers which Swindon had built for the Railway Executive during World War II and was pressed to 280psi, higher pressure than any previous GWR boiler. They used some of the names from the vanished Churchward County Class 4-4-0s.

9400 Class

The taper boilered 9400 Class 0-6-0 pannier tank, was built in large numbers by outside contractors. These were similar to the 5700 class under the footplate but had a much larger boiler giving them more power and adhesive weight – and thus braking capacity. Only the first ten, built by the Swindon, appeared under the GWR. The last two designs were only seen in British Railways livery.

1500 Class

Arguably his most radical design was the 1500 Class. This had the same boiler as the 9400 but an all new short wheelbase chassis with outside Walschaerts valve gear and no running plate, and made considerable use of welded construction. They were designed for easy maintenance by the trackside.

1600 Class

The last Hawksworth design was a very light conventional 0-6-0 pannier tank, the 1600 Class. This was a modernisation of the 2021 Class, which was now life expired.