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{{Short description|Civil engineer and inventor (1772–1855)}}
{{EngvarB|date=September 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2014}}
[[File:Britannica Pianoforte Hawkins Portable Grand Piano.png|thumb|Hawkins portable grand piano of 1800]]
[[File:Britannica Pianoforte Hawkins Portable Grand Piano.png|thumb|Hawkins portable grand piano of 1800]]
'''John Isaac Hawkins''' (1772–1855) was an [[inventor]] who practiced [[civil engineering]].
'''John Isaac Hawkins''' (1772–1855) was an inventor who practised civil engineering.
He was known as the co-inventor of the ever-pointed pencil, an early [[mechanical pencil]], and of the upright piano.
He was known as the co-inventor of the ever-pointed pencil, an early [[mechanical pencil]], and of the upright piano.


==Early life==
==Early life==
Hawkins was born 14 March 1772 at [[Taunton]], [[Somerset]], England,<ref name=Tafel1217>R. L. Tafel, ''Documents Concerning Swedenborg'', p. 1217</ref> the son of Joan Wilmington and her husband Rev. Isaac Hawkins,<ref>Thompson, ''Reminiscences'', pp. 11, 14</ref> a watchmaker. Isaac Hawkins became first a [[Methodism|Wesleyan]] minister, but was expelled by [[John Wesley]]; and after moving the family to [[Moorfields]] in London was a minister in the [[The New Church|Swedenborgian]] movement, which John Isaac would also follow.<ref>Tafel, ''Documents Concerning Swedenborg'', pp. 1216, 1218</ref><ref> Peter J. Lineham, ''The Origins of the New Jerusalem Church in the 1780s'', Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 1988;70(3):109-122; [https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/api/datastream?publicationPid=uk-ac-man-scw:1m2202&datastreamId=POST-PEER-REVIEW-PUBLISHERS-DOCUMENT.PDF online as PDF], at pp. 115–6.</ref> John Isaac emigrated to the United States about 1790,<ref>Thompson, ''Reminiscences'', 14</ref> attending the [[Princeton University|College of New Jersey]],<ref>Robert Palmieri, Margaret W. Palmieri and Igor Kipnis, ''Encyclopedia of Keyboard Instruments'', 2nd Edition, Taylor & Francis, 2003, vol. 2, p. 167</ref> where he studied medicine and later, chemical filtration.<ref name="Tafel1217"/>
Hawkins was born 14 March 1772 at [[Taunton]], Somerset, England,<ref name=Tafel1217>R. L. Tafel, ''Documents Concerning Swedenborg'', p. 1217</ref> the son of Joan Wilmington and her husband Isaac Hawkins,<ref>Thompson, ''Reminiscences'', pp. 11, 14</ref> a watchmaker. The father, Isaac Hawkins, would become a [[Methodism|Wesleyan]] minister, but was expelled by [[John Wesley]]; and after moving the family to [[Moorfields]] in London he was a minister in the [[The New Church|Swedenborgian]] movement, which John Isaac would also follow.<ref>Tafel, ''Documents Concerning Swedenborg'', pp. 1216, 1218</ref><ref>Peter J. Lineham, ''The Origins of the New Jerusalem Church in the 1780s'', Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 1988;70(3):109–122; [https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/api/datastream?publicationPid=uk-ac-man-scw:1m2202&datastreamId=POST-PEER-REVIEW-PUBLISHERS-DOCUMENT.PDF online as PDF], at pp. 115–6.</ref> John Isaac emigrated to the United States about 1790,<ref>Thompson, ''Reminiscences'', 14</ref> attending the [[Princeton University|College of New Jersey]],<ref>Robert Palmieri, Margaret W. Palmieri and Igor Kipnis, ''Encyclopedia of Keyboard Instruments'', 2nd Edition, Taylor & Francis, 2003, vol. 2, p. 167</ref> where he studied medicine and later, chemical filtration.<ref name="Tafel1217"/>


Hawkins married in New Jersey, and was living at [[Bordentown, New Jersey|Bordentown]] and [[Philadelphia]]. In his own account, he was influenced by work of [[Georg Moritz Lowitz]] to try [[charcoal]] for filtration purposes, and ran an exhibition on the topic, with [[Raphaelle Peale|Raphaelle]] and [[Rembrandt Peale]], in the Philadelphia Exchange Coffee House.<ref>[[John Claudius Loudon]] (editor), ''The Architectural Magazine'', vol. 5 (1838), p. 659; [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=74lAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA659 Google Books.]</ref> He operated a non-vocational craft school in Bristol, Pennsylvania from about 1800.<ref>Steven M. Gelber, ''Hobbies: Leisure and the Culture of Work in America'', p. 200-1</ref>
Hawkins married in New Jersey, and was living at [[Bordentown, New Jersey|Bordentown]] and [[Philadelphia]]. In his own account, he was influenced by work of [[Georg Moritz Lowitz]] to try [[charcoal]] for filtration purposes, and ran an exhibition on the topic, with [[Raphaelle Peale|Raphaelle]] and [[Rembrandt Peale]], in the Philadelphia Exchange Coffee House.<ref>[[John Claudius Loudon]] (editor), ''The Architectural Magazine'', vol. 5 (1838), p. 659; [https://books.google.com/books?id=74lAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA659 Google Books.]</ref> He operated a non-vocational craft school in [[Bristol, Pennsylvania]] from about 1800;<ref>Steven M. Gelber, ''Hobbies: Leisure and the Culture of Work in America'', p. 200-1</ref> and he collaborated on inventions with Rev. [[Burgess Allison]].<ref name=Dict>A. W. Skempton (editor), ''A Biographical Dictionary of Civil Engineers in Great Britain and Ireland: 1500–1830'' (2002), pp. 305–6; [https://books.google.com/books?id=jeOMfpYMOtYC&pg=PA305 Google Books.]</ref>


==In London==
==In London==
Hawkins returned to England in 1803,<ref>Gerald T. Koeppel, ''Bond of Union: Building the Erie Canal and the American Empire''</ref> and opened a London sugar refinery. He set up a museum of "useful mechanical inventions", featuring a number of his own, as reported in the ''[[Monthly Magazine]]'' in 1808.<ref>''Monthly Magazine and British Register'', vol. 25 (1808), p. 445; [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=GSkAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA445 Google Books].</ref> He also continued inventing and performed "experiments of a delightfully awful character".<ref>Thompson, ''Reminiscences'', 14-15</ref> As a Swedenborgian, he associated with [[Manoah Sibly]], becoming secretary of the "London Conference" in 1814 when Sibly was president.<ref>Carl Theophilus Odhner, ''Annals of the New Church'' (1904), p. 241;[http://www.archive.org/stream/annalsnewchurch00odhngoog#page/n264/mode/2up archive.org].</ref> He took an interest in [[phrenology]] from 1815, for the rest of his life.<ref>Roger Cooter, ''The Cultural Meaning of Popular Science: phrenology and the organization of consent in nineteenth-century Britain'' (1984), p. 285; [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=YxKmmMel0W0C&pg=PA285 Google Books.]</ref> Hawkins and his wife adopted from the workhouse a child, James Chalmers, orphaned after his parents had entered the Poyais project of [[Gregor MacGregor]]; he died young.<ref>''The Phrenological Journal and Miscellany'', vol. 7 (1832),p. 14; [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LhkLgWse2jQC&pg=PA14 Google Books].</ref>
Hawkins returned to England in 1803,<ref>Gerald T. Koeppel, ''Bond of Union: Building the Erie Canal and the American Empire''</ref> and opened a London sugar refinery. He also worked as a [[patent agent]] and consultant at this period.<ref name=Dict/> He set up a museum of "useful mechanical inventions", featuring a number of his own, as reported in the ''[[Monthly Magazine]]'' in 1808.<ref>''Monthly Magazine and British Register'', vol. 25 (1808), p. 445; [https://books.google.com/books?id=GSkAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA445 Google Books].</ref> He also continued inventing and performed "experiments of a delightfully awful character".<ref>Thompson, ''Reminiscences'', 14–15</ref> As a Swedenborgian, he associated with [[Manoah Sibly]], becoming secretary of the "London Conference" in 1814 when Sibly was president.<ref>Carl Theophilus Odhner, ''Annals of the New Church'' (1904), p. 241;[https://archive.org/stream/annalsnewchurch00odhngoog#page/n264/mode/2up archive.org].</ref> He took an interest in [[phrenology]] from 1815, for the rest of his life.<ref>Roger Cooter, ''The Cultural Meaning of Popular Science: phrenology and the organization of consent in nineteenth-century Britain'' (1984), p. 285; [https://archive.org/details/culturalmeaningo00coot/page/285 Internet Archive.]</ref> Hawkins and his wife adopted from the workhouse a child, James Chalmers, orphaned after his parents had entered the Poyais scam of [[Gregor MacGregor]]; he died young.<ref>''The Phrenological Journal and Miscellany'', vol. 7 (1832),p. 14; [https://books.google.com/books?id=LhkLgWse2jQC&pg=PA14 Google Books].</ref>


In 1825, Hawkins went to Vienna to superintend the construction of a beet sugar works there, and subsequently did the same in Paris.<ref>Thompson, ''Reminiscences'', 16</ref> Back in London, where his wife Anna died in 1838,<ref>''The Intellectual Repository for the New Church'' (July/Sept. 1817), continued as ''The Intellectual Repository and New Jerusalem Magazine'' (1839) p. 277; [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vEkEAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA277 Google Books].</ref> he superintended the construction of the [[Thames Tunnel]] under [[Isambard Kingdom Brunel]].<ref name=Thompson17>Thompson, ''Reminiscences'', 17</ref> Hawkins also served as president of the Anthropological Society of London, a phrenological group associated with the ''Christian Physician and Anthropological Magazine''.<ref>[http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/society/history/1843raigbi.html Waterloo page on the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland].</ref><ref>''The Phrenological Journal and Miscellany'', no. 49, vol. 10 (1837)), p. 244; [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DIfJH21z7DsC&pg=PA244 Google Books].</ref><ref>''The Christian Physician and Anthropological Magazine'' (1835); [http://www.archive.org/details/christianphysici01lond archive.org].</ref>
Hawkins joined the [[Institution of Civil Engineers]] in 1824.<ref name=Dict/> In 1825, he went to Vienna to superintend the construction of a beet sugar works there, and subsequently did the same in Paris.<ref>Thompson, ''Reminiscences'', 16</ref> Back in London, where his wife Anna died in 1838,<ref>''The Intellectual Repository for the New Church'' (July/Sept. 1817), continued as ''The Intellectual Repository and New Jerusalem Magazine'' (1839) p. 277; [https://books.google.com/books?id=vEkEAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA277 Google Books].</ref> he superintended the construction of the [[Thames Tunnel]] under [[Isambard Kingdom Brunel]].<ref name=Thompson17>Thompson, ''Reminiscences'', 17</ref> Hawkins also served as president of the [[Anthropological Society of London (phrenology)|Anthropological Society of London]], a phrenological group.<ref>[http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/society/history/1843raigbi.html Waterloo page on the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland].</ref><ref>''The Phrenological Journal and Miscellany'', no. 49, vol. 10 (1837)), p. 244; [https://books.google.com/books?id=DIfJH21z7DsC&pg=PA244 Google Books].</ref><ref>''The Christian Physician and Anthropological Magazine'' (1835); [https://archive.org/details/christianphysici01lond archive.org].</ref>


==Later life==
==Later life==
Later in life Hawkins fell into debt<ref name="Thompson17"/> and concluding that America presented a better opportunity to profit from his patents, he decided to re-emigrate, departing in autumn 1848.<ref name=Tafel1218>Tafel, ''Documents Concerning Swedenborg'', p. 1218</ref> Returning to New Jersey, "as a grey old man" he lived with his third wife "who was barely out of her teens". Lectures there for local ladies could not survive their disapproval of his display of human skulls or the preserved organs of his deceased adopted son, his only child, whom he had dissected following the boy's death at age seven.<ref>Thompson, ''Reminiscences'', 16-18</ref> He published the ''Journal of Human Nature and Human Progress'', but this was short-lived, and he died in poverty<ref>Tafel, ''Documents Concerning Swedenborg'', p. 1219</ref> and relative obscurity at [[Rahway, New Jersey|Rahway]]<ref name="Thompson17"/> or [[Elizabethtown, New Jersey]], 28 June 1855.<ref name="Tafel1218"/>
Later in life Hawkins fell into debt<ref name="Thompson17"/> and concluding that America presented a better opportunity to profit from his patents, he decided to re-emigrate, departing in autumn 1848.<ref name=Tafel1218>Tafel, ''Documents Concerning Swedenborg'', p. 1218</ref> Returning to New Jersey, "as a grey old man" he lived with his third wife "who was barely out of her teens". Lectures there for local ladies could not survive their disapproval of his display of human skulls or the preserved organs of his deceased adopted son, his only child, whom he had dissected following the boy's death at age seven.<ref>Thompson, ''Reminiscences'', 16–18</ref> He published the ''Journal of Human Nature and Human Progress'', but this was short-lived, and he died in poverty<ref>Tafel, ''Documents Concerning Swedenborg'', p. 1219</ref> and relative obscurity at [[Rahway, New Jersey|Rahway]]<ref name="Thompson17"/> or [[Elizabethtown, New Jersey]], 28 June 1855.<ref name="Tafel1218"/>


==Pianino==
==Pianino==
Hawkins was the first to see the importance of using iron in [[pianoforte]] framing. He was living in Philadelphia when he invented and first produced the
Hawkins was the first to see the importance of using iron in [[pianoforte]] framing. He was living in Philadelphia when he invented and first produced the
pianino or cottage pianoforte &mdash; the “portable grand” as he then called it &mdash; which he patented in 1800.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}
pianino or cottage pianoforte – the "portable grand" as he then called it – which he patented in 1800.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} [[Thomas Jefferson]] bought one, of 5½ octaves, for $264.<ref>Charles H. Kaufman, ''Music in New Jersey, 1655–1860: a study of musical activity and musicians in New Jersey from its first settlement to the Civil War'' (1981), p. 161; [https://books.google.com/books?id=OHJB9FQIEsgC&pg=PA161 Google Books].</ref>


There had been upright [[grand piano]]s as well as upright [[harpsichords]], the horizontal instrument being turned up on its wider end and a keyboard and action adapted to it. William Southwell, an Irish piano-maker, had in 1798 tried a similar experiment with a [[square piano]], to be repeated in later years by [[William Frederick Collard]] of London; but Hawkins was the first to make a piano, or pianino, with the strings descending to the floor, the keyboard being raised. His instrument was in a complete iron frame, independent of the case; and in this frame, strengthened by a system of iron resistance rods combined with an iron upper bridge, his sound-board was entirely suspended. An apparatus for tuning by mechanical screws regulated the tension of the strings, which were of equal length throughout. The action, in metal supports, anticipated [[Robert Wornum]]'s in the checking, and later ideas in a contrivance for repetition. This bundle of inventions was brought to London and exhibited by Hawkins himself; but the instrument was poor in tone.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}
There had been upright [[grand piano]]s as well as upright [[harpsichords]], the horizontal instrument being turned up on its wider end and a keyboard and action adapted to it. William Southwell, an Irish piano-maker, had in 1798 tried a similar experiment with a [[square piano]], to be repeated in later years by [[William Frederick Collard]] of London; but Hawkins was the first to make a piano, or pianino, with the strings descending to the floor, the keyboard being raised. His instrument was in a complete iron frame, independent of the case; and in this frame, strengthened by a system of iron resistance rods combined with an iron upper bridge, his sound-board was entirely suspended. An apparatus for tuning by mechanical screws regulated the tension of the strings, which were of equal length throughout. The action, in metal supports, anticipated [[Robert Wornum]]'s in the checking, and later ideas in a contrivance for repetition. This bundle of inventions was brought to London and exhibited by Hawkins himself; but the instrument was poor in tone.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}


==Other inventions, proposals and works==
==Other inventions, proposals and works==
*Patented (1802) an improved [[physiognotrace]], a device by which one could quickly produce a [[silhouette]] portrait (i.e. a paper cut-out profile).<ref>[http://lewis-clark.org/content/content-article.asp?ArticleID=2555 "Explanation of Mr. Jn\o I. Hawkins Physiognotrace"] Letter to T. Jefferson by Charles Wilson Peal (On website of Lewis and Clark Fort Mandan Foundation)</ref><ref>[http://www.amphilsoc.org/sites/default/files/490102ed.pdf ''“Moses Williams, Cutter of Profiles”: Silhouettes and African American Identity in the Early Republic'' by Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw] Describes the methods of using the Physiognotrace</ref><ref>[http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/papers/bellion.html ''The Mechanization of Likeness in Jeffersonian America'' by Wendy Bellion] (MIT Communications Forum)</ref>
*Patented (1802) an improved [[physiognotrace]], a device by which one could quickly produce a [[silhouette]] portrait (i.e. a paper cut-out profile).<ref>[http://lewis-clark.org/content/content-article.asp?ArticleID=2555 "Explanation of Mr. Jn\o I. Hawkins Physiognotrace"] Letter to T. Jefferson by Charles Wilson Peal (On website of Lewis and Clark Fort Mandan Foundation)</ref><ref>[http://www.amphilsoc.org/sites/default/files/490102ed.pdf ''“Moses Williams, Cutter of Profiles”: Silhouettes and African American Identity in the Early Republic'' by Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110611195639/http://www.amphilsoc.org/sites/default/files/490102ed.pdf |date=11 June 2011 }} Describes the methods of using the Physiognotrace</ref><ref>[http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/papers/bellion.html ''The Mechanization of Likeness in Jeffersonian America'' by Wendy Bellion] (MIT Communications Forum)</ref>
*Invented and obtained a patent in 1803 for the [[Polygraph (duplicating device)|polygraph]], a mechanism for producing a duplicate copy while a handwritten original was created. This is credited with being the first [[autopen]].<ref>[http://www.npr.org/2011/05/27/136717719/obama-wields-his-autopen Andrea Seabrook, "Obama Wields His ... Autopen?"]</ref> [[Charles Wilson Peale]] made the first, and sold it to [[Benjamin Henry Latrobe]]. Latrobe then showed it to [[Thomas Jefferson]], who took an interest in the invention.<ref>Murphy D. Smith, ''Due Reverence: antiques in the possession of the American Philosophical Society'' (1992), p. 37; [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=g0lWNN6WQjAC&pg=PA37 Google Books].</ref>
*Invented and obtained a patent in 1803 for the [[Polygraph (duplicating device)|polygraph]], a mechanism for producing a duplicate copy while a handwritten original was created. This is credited with being the first [[autopen]].<ref>[https://www.npr.org/2011/05/27/136717719/obama-wields-his-autopen Andrea Seabrook, "Obama Wields His ... Autopen?"]</ref> [[Charles Willson Peale]] made the first, and sold it to [[Benjamin Henry Latrobe]]. Latrobe then showed it to Thomas Jefferson, who took an interest in the invention.<ref>Murphy D. Smith, ''Due Reverence: antiques in the possession of the American Philosophical Society'' (1992), p. 37; [https://books.google.com/books?id=g0lWNN6WQjAC&pg=PA37 Google Books].</ref>
*Experimented with machines for reproducing sculptures (1804).<ref>David Getsy, ''Sculpture and the Pursuit of a Modern Ideal in Britain, c. 1880-1930'' (2004), p. 142; [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=XQtPv48lRdUC&pg=PA142 Google Books.]</ref> Later Benjamin Cheverton took up the idea, making a reducing machine for sculptures (1828), and exhibiting it at the [[Great Exhibition of 1851]].<ref>[http://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/person.php?id=msib4_1233326872 ''Mapping the Profession of Sculpture'', Benjamin Cheverton].</ref> It was a type of [[engine lathe]], explained by Hawkins in the [[British Association]] meeting, Section G, in 1837.<ref>[[Henry Christmas]], [[George Augustus Frederick Fitzclarence]], ''[[The Literary Gazette]]'', vol. 21 (1837), p. 593; [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=P8HZ7Mn9fzMC&pg=PA593 Google Books].</ref>
*Experimented with machines for reproducing sculptures (1804).<ref>David Getsy, ''Sculpture and the Pursuit of a Modern Ideal in Britain, c. 1880–1930'' (2004), p. 142; [https://books.google.com/books?id=XQtPv48lRdUC&pg=PA142 Google Books.]</ref> Later Benjamin Cheverton took up the idea, making a reducing machine for sculptures (1828), and exhibiting it at the [[Great Exhibition of 1851]].<ref>[http://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/person.php?id=msib4_1233326872 ''Mapping the Profession of Sculpture'', Benjamin Cheverton].</ref> It was a type of [[engine lathe]], explained by Hawkins in the [[British Association]] meeting, Section G, in 1837.<ref>[[Henry Christmas]], [[George Augustus Frederick Fitzclarence]], ''[[The Literary Gazette]]'', vol. 21 (1837), p. 593; [https://books.google.com/books?id=P8HZ7Mn9fzMC&pg=PA593 Google Books].</ref>
*For [[water filtration]] (1808)<ref>''The Repertory of Arts, Manufactures, and Agriculture'', vol. 13, issues 73-78 (1808), p. 43; [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Mc4-AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA43 Google Books.]</ref>[[File:Lathe chuck JI Hawkins.png|thumb|Improved [[lathe chuck]], drawing from an 1808 article by Hawkins.]]
*For [[water filtration]] (1808)<ref>''The Repertory of Arts, Manufactures, and Agriculture'', vol. 13, issues 73–78 (1808), p. 43; [https://books.google.com/books?id=Mc4-AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA43 Google Books.]</ref>[[File:Lathe chuck JI Hawkins.png|thumb|Improved [[lathe chuck]], drawing from an 1808 article by Hawkins.]]
*Experiments in 1810–11 for a brick pedestrian tunnel under the Thames, with Charles Wyatt, proposal to the [[Thames Archway Company]]<ref>''The Repertory of Patent Inventions'' (1826), pp. 31–6; [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VQULAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA31 Google Books.]</ref><ref>[http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?PAGE=3475 University of Rochester page on context for the Brunel tunnel].</ref>
*Experiments in 1810–11 for a brick pedestrian tunnel under the Thames, with Charles Wyatt, proposal to the [[Thames Archway Company]]<ref>''The Repertory of Patent Inventions'' (1826), pp. 31–6; [https://books.google.com/books?id=VQULAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA31 Google Books.]</ref><ref>[http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?PAGE=3475 University of Rochester page on context for the Brunel tunnel].</ref>
*The mechanical pencil (1822); the rights were sold to Samuel Mordan and Gabriel Riddle.<ref>[[Sholto Percy]], ''Mechanics' Magazine and Journal of Science, Arts, and Manufactures'', vol. 27 (1837), p. 32; [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5NxQAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA32 Google Books].</ref>
*The mechanical pencil (1822); the rights were sold to Sampson Mordan and Gabriel Riddle.<ref>[[Sholto Percy]], ''Mechanics' Magazine and Journal of Science, Arts, and Manufactures'', vol. 27 (1837), p. 32; [https://books.google.com/books?id=5NxQAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA32 Google Books].</ref>
*Trifocal corrective eyeglass lenses, patented in 1827, also coining the name "bifocal" for the dual focal length lenses invented by [[Benjamin Franklin]]<ref>Elisabeth Bennion, ''Antique Medical Instruments'', Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1979, p. 244 [http://books.google.com/books?id=DftZWlVnzH8C Google Books.]</ref>
*[[Trifocal lenses|Trifocal corrective eyeglass lenses]], patented in 1827, also coining the name "bifocal" for the dual focal length lenses invented by [[Benjamin Franklin]]<ref>Elisabeth Bennion, ''Antique Medical Instruments'', Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1979, p. 244 [https://books.google.com/books?id=DftZWlVnzH8C Google Books.]</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Stein|first1=Harold A.|title=The Ophthalmic Assistant: A Text for Allied and Associated Ophthalmic Personnel|date=2012|publisher=Elsevier Mosby|location=Philadelphia|isbn=978-1-4557-3346-0|page=205|edition=9th|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9I3oH--MnVYC&q=john%20hawkins%20ben%20franklin%20lenses&pg=PA205}}</ref>
*[[Sugar refining]], by the method of [[Edward Charles Howard]] for whom he had worked.<ref>''The Repertory of Patent Inventions'' vol. 5 (1828), p. 219; [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=1f4KAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA219 Google Books.]</ref>
*[[Sugar refining]], by the method of [[Edward Charles Howard]] for whom he had worked.<ref>''The Repertory of Patent Inventions'' vol. 5 (1828), p. 219; [https://books.google.com/books?id=1f4KAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA219 Google Books.]</ref>
*The [[iridium]]-tipped gold pen (1834).<ref>"Pens", ''The New International Encyclopædia'', vol. 13, New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1903, pp. 883-4 [http://books.google.com/books?id=mTxOAAAAYAAJ]</ref> Platinum-nib pens with iridium tips sold at a [[guinea (British coin)|guinea]].<ref>[[William Mattieu Williams]], ''Science Notes: John Isaac Hawkins and Brain Growth'', in ''[[Gentleman's Magazine]]'', vol. 258, January–June 1885, p. 510; [http://www.archive.org/stream/gentlemansmagaz100unkngoog#page/n524/mode/2up archive.org].</ref>
*The [[iridium]]-tipped gold pen (1834).<ref>"Pens", ''The New International Encyclopædia'', vol. 13, New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1903, pp. 883–4 [https://books.google.com/books?id=mTxOAAAAYAAJ]</ref> Platinum-nib pens with iridium tips sold at a [[guinea (British coin)|guinea]].<ref>[[William Mattieu Williams]], ''Science Notes: John Isaac Hawkins and Brain Growth'', in ''[[Gentleman's Magazine]]'', vol. 258, January–June 1885, p. 510; [https://archive.org/stream/gentlemansmagaz100unkngoog#page/n524/mode/2up archive.org].</ref>
*Translated ''A Treatise on the Teeth of Wheels'' from the French of [[Charles Étienne Louis Camus]], and advocated [[involute]] profile for gears (by 1840)<ref>[http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5271289/description.html US Patent 5271289] - Non-involute gear, with reference to Hawkins's translation of "A Treatise on the Teeth of Wheels"</ref>
*Translated ''A Treatise on the Teeth of Wheels'' from the French of [[Charles Étienne Louis Camus]], and advocated [[involute]] profile for gears (by 1840)<ref>[http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5271289/description.html US Patent 5271289] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110612221444/http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5271289/description.html |date=12 June 2011 }} – Non-involute gear, with reference to Hawkins's translation of "A Treatise on the Teeth of Wheels"</ref>
*Perfected [[Jacob Perkins|Perkins']] steam gun, intended to eliminate warfare by making resistance impossible.<ref>Thompson, ''Reminiscences'', p. 15</ref>
*Perfected [[Jacob Perkins|Perkins']] steam gun, intended to eliminate warfare by making resistance impossible.<ref>Thompson, ''Reminiscences'', p. 15</ref>


== References ==
== References ==
{{reflist}}
{{reflist|2}}
;Attribution
;Attribution
*R. L. Tafel, ''Documents Concerning the Life and Character of Emanuel Swedenborg'', vol. 2, part 2, London: Swedenborg Society, 1877, p. 1217 [http://books.google.com/books?id=TdMYAAAAYAAJ]
*R. L. Tafel, ''Documents Concerning the Life and Character of Emanuel Swedenborg'', vol. 2, part 2, London: Swedenborg Society, 1877, p.&nbsp;1217 [https://archive.org/details/documentsconcer01tafegoog]
*Samuel Thompson, ''Reminiscences of a Canadian Pioneer for the Last Fifty Years: An Autobiography'', Toronto: Hunter, Rose & Company, 1884, pp. 11, 14 [http://books.google.com/books?id=XZcOAAAAYAAJ]
*Samuel Thompson, ''Reminiscences of a Canadian Pioneer for the Last Fifty Years: An Autobiography'', Toronto: Hunter, Rose & Company, 1884, pp.&nbsp;11, 14 [https://archive.org/details/reminiscencesac00thomgoog]
*{{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Pianoforte}}
*{{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Pianoforte}}

==External links==
==External links==
{{EB1911|wstitle=Pianoforte|volume=21|pages=559–574|ref=none}}
{{1911}}

{{Authority control}}


{{Persondata <!-- Metadata: see [[Wikipedia:Persondata]]. -->
| NAME = Hawkins, John Isaac
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES =
| SHORT DESCRIPTION =
| DATE OF BIRTH = 1772
| PLACE OF BIRTH =
| DATE OF DEATH = 1855
| PLACE OF DEATH =
}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hawkins, John Isaac}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hawkins, John Isaac}}
[[Category:1772 births]]
[[Category:1772 births]]
[[Category:1855 deaths]]
[[Category:1855 deaths]]
[[Category:English inventors]]
[[Category:English inventors]]
[[Category:English engineers]]
[[Category:19th-century English engineers]]
[[Category:Phrenologists]]
[[Category:Phrenologists]]
[[Category:Swedenborgians]]
[[Category:English Swedenborgians]]
[[Category:19th-century British inventors]]
[[Category:English civil engineers]]
[[Category:History of musical instruments]]

Latest revision as of 19:47, 7 April 2024

Hawkins portable grand piano of 1800

John Isaac Hawkins (1772–1855) was an inventor who practised civil engineering. He was known as the co-inventor of the ever-pointed pencil, an early mechanical pencil, and of the upright piano.

Early life[edit]

Hawkins was born 14 March 1772 at Taunton, Somerset, England,[1] the son of Joan Wilmington and her husband Isaac Hawkins,[2] a watchmaker. The father, Isaac Hawkins, would become a Wesleyan minister, but was expelled by John Wesley; and after moving the family to Moorfields in London he was a minister in the Swedenborgian movement, which John Isaac would also follow.[3][4] John Isaac emigrated to the United States about 1790,[5] attending the College of New Jersey,[6] where he studied medicine and later, chemical filtration.[1]

Hawkins married in New Jersey, and was living at Bordentown and Philadelphia. In his own account, he was influenced by work of Georg Moritz Lowitz to try charcoal for filtration purposes, and ran an exhibition on the topic, with Raphaelle and Rembrandt Peale, in the Philadelphia Exchange Coffee House.[7] He operated a non-vocational craft school in Bristol, Pennsylvania from about 1800;[8] and he collaborated on inventions with Rev. Burgess Allison.[9]

In London[edit]

Hawkins returned to England in 1803,[10] and opened a London sugar refinery. He also worked as a patent agent and consultant at this period.[9] He set up a museum of "useful mechanical inventions", featuring a number of his own, as reported in the Monthly Magazine in 1808.[11] He also continued inventing and performed "experiments of a delightfully awful character".[12] As a Swedenborgian, he associated with Manoah Sibly, becoming secretary of the "London Conference" in 1814 when Sibly was president.[13] He took an interest in phrenology from 1815, for the rest of his life.[14] Hawkins and his wife adopted from the workhouse a child, James Chalmers, orphaned after his parents had entered the Poyais scam of Gregor MacGregor; he died young.[15]

Hawkins joined the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1824.[9] In 1825, he went to Vienna to superintend the construction of a beet sugar works there, and subsequently did the same in Paris.[16] Back in London, where his wife Anna died in 1838,[17] he superintended the construction of the Thames Tunnel under Isambard Kingdom Brunel.[18] Hawkins also served as president of the Anthropological Society of London, a phrenological group.[19][20][21]

Later life[edit]

Later in life Hawkins fell into debt[18] and concluding that America presented a better opportunity to profit from his patents, he decided to re-emigrate, departing in autumn 1848.[22] Returning to New Jersey, "as a grey old man" he lived with his third wife "who was barely out of her teens". Lectures there for local ladies could not survive their disapproval of his display of human skulls or the preserved organs of his deceased adopted son, his only child, whom he had dissected following the boy's death at age seven.[23] He published the Journal of Human Nature and Human Progress, but this was short-lived, and he died in poverty[24] and relative obscurity at Rahway[18] or Elizabethtown, New Jersey, 28 June 1855.[22]

Pianino[edit]

Hawkins was the first to see the importance of using iron in pianoforte framing. He was living in Philadelphia when he invented and first produced the pianino or cottage pianoforte – the "portable grand" as he then called it – which he patented in 1800.[25] Thomas Jefferson bought one, of 5½ octaves, for $264.[26]

There had been upright grand pianos as well as upright harpsichords, the horizontal instrument being turned up on its wider end and a keyboard and action adapted to it. William Southwell, an Irish piano-maker, had in 1798 tried a similar experiment with a square piano, to be repeated in later years by William Frederick Collard of London; but Hawkins was the first to make a piano, or pianino, with the strings descending to the floor, the keyboard being raised. His instrument was in a complete iron frame, independent of the case; and in this frame, strengthened by a system of iron resistance rods combined with an iron upper bridge, his sound-board was entirely suspended. An apparatus for tuning by mechanical screws regulated the tension of the strings, which were of equal length throughout. The action, in metal supports, anticipated Robert Wornum's in the checking, and later ideas in a contrivance for repetition. This bundle of inventions was brought to London and exhibited by Hawkins himself; but the instrument was poor in tone.[25]

Other inventions, proposals and works[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b R. L. Tafel, Documents Concerning Swedenborg, p. 1217
  2. ^ Thompson, Reminiscences, pp. 11, 14
  3. ^ Tafel, Documents Concerning Swedenborg, pp. 1216, 1218
  4. ^ Peter J. Lineham, The Origins of the New Jerusalem Church in the 1780s, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 1988;70(3):109–122; online as PDF, at pp. 115–6.
  5. ^ Thompson, Reminiscences, 14
  6. ^ Robert Palmieri, Margaret W. Palmieri and Igor Kipnis, Encyclopedia of Keyboard Instruments, 2nd Edition, Taylor & Francis, 2003, vol. 2, p. 167
  7. ^ John Claudius Loudon (editor), The Architectural Magazine, vol. 5 (1838), p. 659; Google Books.
  8. ^ Steven M. Gelber, Hobbies: Leisure and the Culture of Work in America, p. 200-1
  9. ^ a b c A. W. Skempton (editor), A Biographical Dictionary of Civil Engineers in Great Britain and Ireland: 1500–1830 (2002), pp. 305–6; Google Books.
  10. ^ Gerald T. Koeppel, Bond of Union: Building the Erie Canal and the American Empire
  11. ^ Monthly Magazine and British Register, vol. 25 (1808), p. 445; Google Books.
  12. ^ Thompson, Reminiscences, 14–15
  13. ^ Carl Theophilus Odhner, Annals of the New Church (1904), p. 241;archive.org.
  14. ^ Roger Cooter, The Cultural Meaning of Popular Science: phrenology and the organization of consent in nineteenth-century Britain (1984), p. 285; Internet Archive.
  15. ^ The Phrenological Journal and Miscellany, vol. 7 (1832),p. 14; Google Books.
  16. ^ Thompson, Reminiscences, 16
  17. ^ The Intellectual Repository for the New Church (July/Sept. 1817), continued as The Intellectual Repository and New Jerusalem Magazine (1839) p. 277; Google Books.
  18. ^ a b c Thompson, Reminiscences, 17
  19. ^ Waterloo page on the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.
  20. ^ The Phrenological Journal and Miscellany, no. 49, vol. 10 (1837)), p. 244; Google Books.
  21. ^ The Christian Physician and Anthropological Magazine (1835); archive.org.
  22. ^ a b Tafel, Documents Concerning Swedenborg, p. 1218
  23. ^ Thompson, Reminiscences, 16–18
  24. ^ Tafel, Documents Concerning Swedenborg, p. 1219
  25. ^ a b Chisholm 1911.
  26. ^ Charles H. Kaufman, Music in New Jersey, 1655–1860: a study of musical activity and musicians in New Jersey from its first settlement to the Civil War (1981), p. 161; Google Books.
  27. ^ "Explanation of Mr. Jn\o I. Hawkins Physiognotrace" Letter to T. Jefferson by Charles Wilson Peal (On website of Lewis and Clark Fort Mandan Foundation)
  28. ^ “Moses Williams, Cutter of Profiles”: Silhouettes and African American Identity in the Early Republic by Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw Archived 11 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine Describes the methods of using the Physiognotrace
  29. ^ The Mechanization of Likeness in Jeffersonian America by Wendy Bellion (MIT Communications Forum)
  30. ^ Andrea Seabrook, "Obama Wields His ... Autopen?"
  31. ^ Murphy D. Smith, Due Reverence: antiques in the possession of the American Philosophical Society (1992), p. 37; Google Books.
  32. ^ David Getsy, Sculpture and the Pursuit of a Modern Ideal in Britain, c. 1880–1930 (2004), p. 142; Google Books.
  33. ^ Mapping the Profession of Sculpture, Benjamin Cheverton.
  34. ^ Henry Christmas, George Augustus Frederick Fitzclarence, The Literary Gazette, vol. 21 (1837), p. 593; Google Books.
  35. ^ The Repertory of Arts, Manufactures, and Agriculture, vol. 13, issues 73–78 (1808), p. 43; Google Books.
  36. ^ The Repertory of Patent Inventions (1826), pp. 31–6; Google Books.
  37. ^ University of Rochester page on context for the Brunel tunnel.
  38. ^ Sholto Percy, Mechanics' Magazine and Journal of Science, Arts, and Manufactures, vol. 27 (1837), p. 32; Google Books.
  39. ^ Elisabeth Bennion, Antique Medical Instruments, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1979, p. 244 Google Books.
  40. ^ Stein, Harold A. (2012). The Ophthalmic Assistant: A Text for Allied and Associated Ophthalmic Personnel (9th ed.). Philadelphia: Elsevier Mosby. p. 205. ISBN 978-1-4557-3346-0.
  41. ^ The Repertory of Patent Inventions vol. 5 (1828), p. 219; Google Books.
  42. ^ "Pens", The New International Encyclopædia, vol. 13, New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1903, pp. 883–4 [1]
  43. ^ William Mattieu Williams, Science Notes: John Isaac Hawkins and Brain Growth, in Gentleman's Magazine, vol. 258, January–June 1885, p. 510; archive.org.
  44. ^ US Patent 5271289 Archived 12 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine – Non-involute gear, with reference to Hawkins's translation of "A Treatise on the Teeth of Wheels"
  45. ^ Thompson, Reminiscences, p. 15
Attribution
  • R. L. Tafel, Documents Concerning the Life and Character of Emanuel Swedenborg, vol. 2, part 2, London: Swedenborg Society, 1877, p. 1217 [2]
  • Samuel Thompson, Reminiscences of a Canadian Pioneer for the Last Fifty Years: An Autobiography, Toronto: Hunter, Rose & Company, 1884, pp. 11, 14 [3]
  • Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Pianoforte" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

External links[edit]

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Pianoforte". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 21 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 559–574.

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