George Wright Hawkes SM (16 September 1821 – 5 January 1908) was a prominent and energetic Anglican churchman and philanthropist in South Australia. He was instrumental in the erection of St Andrew's Church, Walkerville, and St Paul's, Pulteney Street. He was one of the original trustees of St Bartholomew's, Norwood, and St Luke's, Whitmore Square.
Hawkes was born at Charlesfort Barracks, Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland. He was the fourth son of Abiathar Hawkes (c. 1785–1861) and his wife Mary Hawkes, of Kingswinford, Staffordshire, England.[1] He was educated for the navy and passed his cadet examination, but was persuaded to instead try his luck in the Australian colonies, and promptly left Portsmouth for Sydney, where he arrived on 22 February 1840. He soon gained employment in the Bank of Australia, and within three years had been promoted to accountant.[2] In 1846 he took a position with the Union Bank of Australia under John Cunningham McLaren (died 1852), then later that same year resigned to take up a position as bookkeeper to Montefiore & Co. in Adelaide, and arrived there on New Year's Day, 1847.
In May 1852 Hawkes accepted Sir Henry Young's offer of chief clerk in the Treasury, succeeding Alfred Reynell, who had been appointed Gold Commissioner in Victoria. With the advent of responsible government in 1856 he was promoted to Assistant Treasurer. It was part of his duty to give receipts for the cash in the banks and Treasury and bullion in the vaults in charge of George Hamilton, the Commissioner of Police. He received and distributed, under R. R. Torrens, the gold from Alexander Tolmer's first escort from Victoria.
In 1860 Hawkes was appointed to the Police Magistracy at Port Adelaide. After ten years in that position he took charge of nine Courts in country districts. He presided over these for eleven years, and on his retirement was chief guest at a banquet in Gawler, where he was presented with a photo album containing portraits of seventy justices who had sat with him in various courts.
Immediately on arrival Hawkes associated himself with the Church of England, and was one of the five-man committee who founded the Church of England Lay Association, which was later deputised by Bishop Broughton to restart construction of St Andrew's Cathedral, which had stalled ten years earlier. Edmund T. Blacket was the architect chosen to put a new church on the old foundations.
Hawkes was also Sunday school teacher at Christ Church, Brickfield Hill under Rev. W. H. Walsh.
He served as honorary secretary to the Church of England School, located behind Trinity Church, North Terrace, from February 1847 to 1849, during which time he steered the development of the "Proprietary School", which in April 1849 became the Collegiate School of St. Peter (St. Peter's College) and Hawkes was elected its secretary.[3] In 1852 he was elected a governor of the College, and was the only surviving member of the original council when he resigned that position nearly 50 years later.
In 1849 he assisted the Rev. E. K. Miller (died 1911), in founding a Sunday school on Pulteney Street for St John's Church, and was that church's delegate to the South Australian Church Society in 1852.[4] A branch school was started at Unley and superintended by Hawkes, assisted by A. Chance and a Miss Smith.
In 1857 he inaugurated a Sunday school at St Bartholomew's, Norwood. He also served as:
representative of the General Synod as lay secretary under Bishops Short, Kennion, and Harmer
Hawkes was
committee member of the Industrial School for the Blind from its foundation
Hawkes was also
Hawkes House, one of the ten houses of St. Peter's College Senior School, was named for him.[7]
George married Edith Jane Stewart Bayley (died in England of a painful internal cancer 8 June 1876) on 18 December 1854.[8] Edith was a half-sister of Rev. George Farr and was a fellow-emigrant with George and Julia Farr aboard Daylesford, arriving in South Australia in July 1854. He married again on 2 May 1883 in Paris, to Jane Leach[9] (died in England November 1923); there were no children by either union. They had a home, "Strelda" on Stanley street, North Adelaide. His remains were buried in the North Road Cemetery.