 from Sydney in 1918 after submitting a thesis on column design, a frontier topic of the period, and appears to have had slightly the better of a lively argument with the eminent English engineer, E. H. Salmon, who had written an authoritative text on the subject.Hawken was appointed as professor at the University of Queensland in 1919.Professor Hawken was involved in the founding of IEAust in 1919 and was its president in 1923 and a councillor till his death.