Volume Ten - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - Even more aspects - Darwinian Connections . . .

John Hawkshaw (Sir) (1811-1891) ; a section of a lithograph dated 1862 held at the National Portrait Gallery. [NPG reference : NPG D35621] [577]  I am indebted to Martin Beaumont for his excellent book on the subject of 'Sir John Hawkshaw - The Life and Work of an Eminent Victorian Engineer' for much of the content that follows. [702]

1832 - Mr Beaumont describes Hawkshaw's trip to Venezuela which must contrast closely to the dangers encountered by Darwin on his voyages. John Hawkshaw was just 21 years of age when he was sent to take charge of a British owned copper mining operation at Aroa.  The mine had previously been owned by Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte-Andrade y Blanco, more commonly known as Simón Bolívar the liberator of Venezuela from the Spanish in 1821.

'Hawkshaw sailed from Falmouth in July 1832 on the 'Hope', an appropriate name for a man-of-war brig of the type referred to as 'coffin ships' in view of their poor seaworthiness. Arriving safely in Barbados, and losing no opportunity to add to his store of knowledge, he immediately arranged to visit a sugar plantation, where he inspected the wind-powered mill which extracted the cane juice from the sugarcane.