George Hawkins (1815-1888)
1889 Obituary [1]
GEORGE HAWKINS was born at Daventry, in Northamptonshire, in 1815, and was left an orphan at three years of age.
He commenced his railway career on the Liverpool and Manchester line under Mr. Braithwaite Poole, and in 1843, joined the London and Brighton Railway as Goods Manager, at that company's southern terminus.
He was appointed Traffic Manager of the whole system in 1849, which position he held for twenty years.
Amongst the able men who, in those days, thronged the Committee Rooms of the Houses of Parliament fighting for and against the schemes of railway extension, Mr. Hawkins was for years a well-known figure; and wherever crowds of passengers had to be accommodated at races, reviews, and similar gatherings in his company’s district in the South of England, he was always to be found superintending the arrangements in person.
He was elected an Associate of the Institution on the 7th of December, 1858, and to the last he retained a strong interest in the success and development of the Institution. He had been member of various Lodges of Freemasons for over forty years, holding office in all. At the time of his decease, he was the oldest Past-Master of the Britannia.
He died on the 1st of November, 1888, and was buried in the Brighton Cemetery on the 5th of that month. A large number of his old colleagues and employees attended the funeral, notwithstanding that nearly twenty years had elapsed since his retirement from active life.