Charles George Hawes
Charles George Hawes (1890-1963)
1963 Obituary [1]
CHARLES GEORGE HAWES, C.I.E., M.C., who was, born on 7 March,1890, died on 30 December, 1963. Educated at Bedford Modern School, he studied engineering for five years at the City & Guilds College, London, and in 1911 received the degree of B.Sc. After a year’s training in the Special Reserve of Officers, he went to India to work as Assistant Engineer in the Bombay Public Works Department, where he was engaged on the construction of two large masonry dams in the Bombay Deccan-Bhandardara Dam and Bhatgar Dam, both designed as storage reservoirs for irrigation.
Active service in World War 1 interrupted his career, and he served with the Royal Engineers (Signals) in Gallipoli, Egypt and Palestine from 1915 to 1919. For nearly two years he commanded the 54th Divisional Signal Company.
In 1919 he returned to Bombay to resume work on the Bhandardara Dam, now as Resident Assistant Engineer of the Division, after which he acted as Under-Secretary to the Bombay Government, Public Works Department.
In 1922 he was transferred to Sind, and for the next three years his responsibilities were heavy. As Executive Engineer in charge of irrigation administration in the Fuleli Canals Division, he was responsible for the distribution of great quantities of water, and as engineer in charge of Rohri Canal Circle (No. V Division), working under the Chief Engineer, Mr C. S. C. Harrison, he lined and surveyed many miles of canals, prepared plans for main canals and con-structed many buildings.
From 1926 to 1930 he was Executive Engineer in charge of the Central Designs Division and was personally responsible for the preparation of designs, plans and estimates for 150 bridges, 531 regulators and 49 falls, and for experimental hydraulic works. After a year’s study-leave spent on soil research at Rothamsted Experimental Station and a visit to Hungary, Mr Hawes returned to India to work as Executive Engineer at the Sind Development and Research Division : between1932 and 1934 he undertook subsoil and surface surveys for the Lloyd Barrage and Canals over an area of 12 000 square miles. He was in charge of all river surveys and discharge operations into the Indus in Sind, and carried out hydraulic model experiments into Kenney’s and Lacey’s theories of flow.
From 1935 until 1940, as Superintending Engineer in the Northern Sind Circle, he was in administrative charge of five Divisions, including the barrage and head works of the Lloyd scheme at Sukkur. In 1941, as Chief Engineer and Secretary to the Government of Sind, he prepared a case for Sind in their dispute with the Punjab over the waters of the Indus. During World War 2 he served from 1943 to 1945 as Brigadier, Royal Engineers, at India Command‘s GHQ, (Engineer-in-Chief’s branch).In his later years, Mr Hawes held a variety of posts, returning at intervals to his home in Devon.
In 1947 he was appointed Hydrological Adviser to the Uganda Government, leaving in 1952 because the Egyptians made no move to appoint a consulting engineer for the Lake Victoria Compensation Survey. For the next three years he was in private practice, his assignments varying from a report on the River Kafue in Northern Rhodesia to missions to Gambia and Swaziland for the Colonial Development Corporation. In December 1960 he went to New York, where for a year he worked in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations. He went on missions to Panama, the Netherland Antilles and Trinidad and in 1962headed a mission to Bechuanaland.
Mr Hawes was a Fellow of the City & Guilds London Institute and wrote several papers for the Bombay Engineering Congress. He was elected an Associate Member in 1919 and became a Member in 1930. From November 1937 to November 1940 he was a Member of the Council. He is survived by his widow and two daughters.