In 1817 Robert Hawthorn at the age of 21 began business as a general engineer and repairer of colliery machinery. With the assistance of his brother William and four workmen, his enterprise prospered and in 1820 under the trading name of R and W Hawthorn their first marine engine was built.
Hawthorn Leslie and Company was formed by the merger of the shipbuilder A. Leslie and Company in Hebburn with the locomotive works of R. and W. Hawthorn at St. Peter’s in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1886.