EARLY STRUGGLES
Harry’s Parents—His Sisters and Brothers—Schooldays—Four Schools in Six Years—The Attraction of a Cadet Corps—Motor Work at Twelve Years of Age—The Expert of Fifteen—Managing a Fleet of Cars—First Desire to Fly—The Kindness of Mr. and Mrs. McPhee—Harry Meets Busteed—And Comes to England with Him—Kauper—Seeing London—Quest for Employment—A Job at Sevenpence per Hour—Another at Ninepence-Halfpenny—Thoughts of Returning to Australia—Forty Pounds in the Bank—Kauper Strikes Oil—And Helps Harry—Sigrist—How Harry was Happy on Two Pounds per Week—His First Flight—Reminiscences of Brooklands Days.
CHAPTER I
There was born at Harcourt, in Victoria, Australia, on January 10th, 1862, one George Hawker, whose father was a Cornishman. Grown to manhood, this George Hawker followed the blacksmith’s calling, and on May 24th, 1883, he married Mary Ann Gilliard Anderson, a spinster, of Scottish stock, who was born on October 9th, 1859, at Stawell, also in Victoria. There were four children of the marriage: Maude (the eldest), Herbert, Harry, and Ruby (the youngest). The elder boy, Herbert, born in 1885, was unlike his brother in many respects. For instance, as a child he was very delicate, a circumstance which hampered him in his studies. Nevertheless, he was very fond of school, and he invariably worked well and progressed in spite of his ailments. He excelled in music. Although he had only recently married, Herbert Hawker joined the Australian Forces at the outset of the Great War, and he suffered great privation and illness at Gallipoli. He was later badly gassed on the Western Front, and his life was despaired of in consequence. Having partially recovered, he returned to Australia, bearing the honorary rank of captain. He has two children, a girl and a boy.
Maude and Ruby Hawker are both married, the elder having two boys, Alan (“Bobbie”), born in 1910, and Howard (“Bill”), born in 1912. Both boys display the aptitude for engineering which undoubtedly runs in the family, the elder having driven and attended to his father’s car at the age of nine years.
Harry Hawker, or—to give the subject of my biography his full names—Harry George Hawker, was born on January 22nd, 1889, at the little village of South Brighton (now known as Moorabbin) in Victoria, where his father had a small blacksmith’s and wheelwright’s shop which brought in enough to keep the family in comfort. George Hawker has at least two claims to fame, which, arranged chronologically in order of occurrence, are, first, that he was the father of a great aviator, and, secondly, that he himself was a fine shot, for in 1897 he came to England with the Bisley Rifle Team and won the Queen’s Prize.
At the age of six, Harry was sent to the school of Mr. W. J. Blackwell, B.A., at Moorabbin. He took no interest whatever in his studies, either then or ever during his school career. For this inadvertence he was sorry in later years. He was almost continually running away from school and always in trouble. In the space of little over six years he went to four different schools. After leaving Mr. Blackwell, Harry was sent to a school at East Malvern, presided over by Mr. M. T. Lewis. He was not long there, for in 1896 he was attending a school at St. Kilda, whither his parents had moved. Harry was even more unsettled at St. Kilda, for, without as much as telling anyone at home, he left his school and presented himself at another school, at Prahran, where they had a cadet corps which attracted him. He became a cadet, but, still restless and unmanageable, he ran away from school for good at the age of twelve and started work with a motor firm, Messrs. Hall and Warden, for five shillings per week. When fifteen years of age he had an extraordinary knowledge of motors for such a youngster, and he was considered one of the best car drivers in Victoria at that time. As a child, Harry’s sole ambition was to become an engineer, and while at school he designed and built engines in his spare time.
After leaving Hall and Warden’s, he joined the Tarrant Motor Company, with which firm he made considerable headway and soon became one of their leading motor experts, and that notwithstanding his extreme youth, which he always tried to hide by adding a year or two to his age. However, that restlessness, which was probably only due to his having reached the limit of progress in his present job, again claimed him, and, tempted by the offer of a workshop of his own, he took up the work of looking after a fleet of private cars belonging to a Mr. de Little, for which he received a salary of £200 per annum. About this time, too, Harry’s father was running a small steam plant which enabled Harry to test several of his ideas. It was while Harry was with Mr. de Little that his old ambition to follow an engineering career resolved itself into a desire to fly. It may have been the fact that very little was then known of aeronautical science, particularly in Australia, or perhaps Harry was attracted by the most intricate branch of engineering—but whatever the origin of the idea, Harry had made a firm resolution, and he looked around for his opportunity to carry it out; but for several months the prospects were not bright.