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Welcome to the official
homepage of
Benjamin
Waterhouse Hawkins
On 4 July 2002 HRH Duke of
Edinburgh visited Crystal Palace Park, Sydenham in
London to celebrate the £3.6 million (lottery and grant
funded) restoration of the world’s first full scale
models of prehistoric creatures and their habitat.
‘Dinosaur Court’ (as it became known) is no stranger to
royalty. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visited the
sculptor, Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, of these
dinosaurs when he was at work on them in 1853 and seemed
as fascinated as the press and public of the day would
become after the opening of the Palace and its Parks and
Gardens.
Restored Iguanodon grouping.
Crystal Palace, London.2005
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Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins
by Frances Louisa Hawkins 1855 |
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In the year of the
200th anniversary of the birth of Hawkins, his restored sculptures received an
upgrading from the Grade II status they had been given in 1973 to Grade I, along
with the geological context which had been part of the original exhibition.
Hawkins, who by the
time of his creation of ‘Dinosaur Court’, had already acquired a reputation for
his skills as an illustrator of a wide range of natural history subjects
(notably the studies of animals from the menagerie of the 13th Earl of Derby at
Knowsley and the contribution of plates on fishes and reptiles for Darwin’s
Zoology of the Voyage of HMS Beagle) subsequently expanded his career as a
sculptor, artist and author, to become a public lecturer and scientific
populariser. When funding for ‘Dinosaur Court’ was withdrawn in 1855, with his
vision still incomplete, the ever entrepreneurial Hawkins built upon the
successful sale of his small scale models in Britain by extending the market to
America. In 1868, with introductions arranged by Thomas Henry Huxley, Hawkins
embarked on a ten year career in the United States of America. Excited by the
interest in his lectures, Hawkins was invited to create a Palaeozoic Museum in
Central Park, New York. Whilst this particular project fell foul of the corrupt
politician “Boss” Tweed, Hawkins gave numerous lectures to popular acclaim.
Already elected to fellowship of the Linnean and Geological societies in Great
Britain, he was honoured by the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia with
life time membership, having created for it the world’s first articulated
dinosaur display in 1868, and by Princeton University with an honorary Doctor of
Science degree.
On his return from America, in 1878, after a few final lectures Hawkins is
widely reported as falling into obscurity. He was of course by now into his 70s.
In fact he lived for another 16 years but the hitherto unknown circumstances of
his family life, together with a long final illness, throw new light on why such
a once popular public figure was to die without public comment. |
