Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins

Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins (8 February 1807 – 27 January 1894) was an English sculptor and natural history artist renowned for his work on the life-size models of dinosaurs in the Crystal Palace Park in south London. The models, accurately made using the latest scientific knowledge, created a sensation at the time. Hawkins was also a noted lecturer on zoological topics.

Education and early career Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins was born on Devonshire Street in London on 8 February 1807, the son of artist Thomas Hawkins and his wife Louisa Anna Waterhouse. His maternal grandfather, William Waterhouse, was a plantation owner in Jamaica.

Hawkins, who styled himself Waterhouse Hawkins or B. Waterhouse Hawkins, studied at St. Aloysius College, and learned sculpture from William Behnes.

A dinner was held inside the mould used to make the Iguanodon. The dinner party, hosted by Owen on 31 December 1853, garnered attention in the press. Most of the sculptures are still on display in Crystal Palace Park.

United States Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins' mounted Hadrosaurus in Philadelphia in 1868, making it the first mounted dinosaur skeleton in the world.

In 1868, he traveled to the United States to deliver a series of lectures. Working with the scientist Joseph Leidy, Hawkins designed and cast an almost complete skeleton of Hadrosaurus foulkii which was then displayed at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. Supported on an iron framework in a lifelike pose, this was the world's first mounted dinosaur skeleton.

Hawkins was later commissioned to produce models for New York City's Central Park museum similar to these he had created in Sydenham. He established a studio on the original site of the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, and planned to create a Paleozoic Museum. During his ten years in America (1868–1878), Hawkins designed exhibit halls for the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and began to create an enormous paleontological museum for New York City. The museum was to have been in Central Park. His work was all destroyed in 1871 by Henry Hilton, the corrupt and bizarre-acting Treasurer and VP of Central Park, but was for many decades thought to have been the work of Hilton's employer, William "Boss" Tweed, a corrupt politician who wasn't adequately compensated for his patronage. However, Tweed himself was fighting scandals regarding his corrupt dealings at the time, and was later proved innocent of the destruction of Hawkins' models in 2023, when the real culprit was revealed through reexamination of historical records and annual reports and minutes. Hilton's motivations towards the vandalism are largely unknown, but may have been personal, with Hilton being purported to have told Hawkins that he "should not bother with "dead animals", as there was enough to do among the living", and that Hilton had little understanding or appreciation for art or nature, with several instances being recorded of him whitewashing priceless relics, statues and artifacts in bizarre acts of vandalism. Furthermore, Hilton had been placed in charge of establishing the American Museum of Natural History, and it is possible he wanted to eliminate the planned Paleozoic Museum, which he saw as competition.

Following the tragic loss of his studio through destruction of all of his dinosaur models at the hands of Hilton's vandals, he returned to England in 1874, but almost immediately returned, doing dinosaur reconstructions at Princeton University (then called the College of New Jersey) in Princeton, New Jersey (where he also created paintings of dinosaurs). These paintings remain in the collection of the Princeton University Art Museum. Hawkins also worked at the Centennial Exhibition of 1876 in Philadelphia. He again returned to Britain in 1878.

Personal life

Hawkins married Mary Selina Green (1804–1880) on 4 July 1826 at St John-at-Hampstead. The couple had four daughters and one son. commemorating where he lived between 1856 and 1872.

Robert J. Sawyer's 1994 novel End of an Era mentions the famous New Year's Eve 1853 dinner party inside the Iguanodon, citing both Hawkins and Sir Richard Owen by name. A biography of Hawkins titled All In The Bones was published.

Works list Comparative anatomy as applied to the purposes of the artist by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins and George Wallis. Published by Winsor & Newton, Ltd. Fauna boreali-americana, or, The zoology of the northern parts of British America : containing descriptions of the objects of natural history collected on the late northern land expeditions under command of Captain Sir John Franklin, R.N. by: Sir John Richardson, Charles M Curtis, Sir John Franklin, Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, William Kirby, Thomas Landseer, James de Carle Sowerby, William Swainson, Charles Edward Wagstaff. Published by John Murray (1829-1837) Gleanings from the menagerie and aviary at Knowsley Hall by John Edward Gray, Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, Edward Lear. Published by Knowsley [Printed for private distribution] (1846–50) Group of European bison or aurochs sculpture in Bronze Exhibited at Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations (London), 1851. Modelled and chased for presentation to H.I.M. the Emperor of Russia, from the Zoological Society of London Currently there is only one known cast of the bronze in existence. The owners are also open to loan requests of the sculpture. Bronze cobra inkwell with compass Published 1850. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PXL_20240413_230021826.jpg Sculpture work for the famous Coalbrookdale company as exhibited at the 1851 Great exhibition. References to follow. Coalbrookdale

Gallery