The best example on the Tyne of the union of shipbuilding with engineering is R. and W. Hawthorn, Leslie and Co. Robert Hawthorn began business with only four men, and with machinery worked by a hand wheel . In 1829 he was joined by his brother William.
At first the brothers built steam engines and general machinery for saw-mills, collieries and so on. In 1822 they introduced steam power into the works and from 1824 made small marine engines. In 1831 they built their first locomotive and made over a thousand in the next forty years, including Thunderer and Hurricane to the designs of T.E. Harrison (q.v.) for Brunel's Great Western Railway. Brunel's instructions made these the most extraordinary-looking locomotives ever to run on a British railway. Daniel Gooch (q.v.) was soon to see their limitations. Subsequent to the launch of the John Bowes at Palmer's, the firm began to specialise in marine engines for iron ships. After Robert Hawthorn's death in 1867, and the retirement of William in 1870, there came a number of amalgamations culminating in Hawthorn Leslie in 1885, a name famous in Tyne shipbuilding history. By 1914 the firm's locomotives, marine engines and ships were known all over the world.