Background
Hawdon was born at Wackerfield, Durham, England, the son of John Hawdon.
Hawdon was born at Wackerfield, Durham, England, the son of John Hawdon.
In 1836 Hawdon together with John Gardiner and John Hepburn made an overland journey to Melbourne with cattle, the first to come from New South Wales. Hawdon returned briefly to Sydney, but then in 1837 he moved to Melbourne and in August took up land near the present site of Dandenong. About the end of that year the newly established South Australian settlement was threatened with famine.
Sensing a commercial opportunity, Hawdon returned to New South Wales where, along with Charles Bonney and Charles Campbell, he put together an expedition to drove 300 head of cattle from the Goulburn district to Adelaide, where they arrived on 3 April 1838.
Following the course of the Murray River, along the route they discovered two fine lakes - Lake Victoria and Lake Bonney. Hawdon named the first after Queen Victoria and the second after Bonney.
Charles Sturt in an official report made in August 1838 said of this journey: "Messrs Hawdon and Bonney could not have taken a more direct line or shortened the journey more wisely". Having beaten other aspiring overlanders, including John Hill and Edward John Eyre.
Hawdon and Lieutenant Munday left Melbourne on an expedition to Adelaide on 11 July 1839, travelled NNW to Expedition Pass, near present-day Castlemaine, and stopped at various squatter stations.
They reached the Henty"s station near Casterton on 25 July, camped at Lake Mundy (named after Munday) on 27 July, followed the tracks of the Holloway party which they caught on 2 August and proceeded close to the coast through the Coorong, crossed the Murray on 8 August and arrived in Adelaide on 11 August. Hawdon became the official mail contractor between Melbourne and Yass at the beginning of 1838. He had a property at Heidelberg and in August 1851 discovered a few grains of gold near the Yarra River.
He remained in Australia until 1858 and then returned to England.
In 1863 Hawdon took up land between Christchurch and Westland,, and afterwards spent some years in England. He returned to and was nominated to the Legislative Council in 1866, where he served for the rest of his life.
He died at Christchurch on 12 April 1871. Hawdon River and Lake Hawdon are named after him.
He made his headquarters at or near Melbourne for many years, and was one of the directors of the Pastoral and Agricultural Society when it was formed in 1840, and a member of the committee of the Victorian Horticultural Society which was inaugurated in November 1848.
