He died on 12 July 1921 when the aircraft he was to fly in the Aerial Derby crashed in a park at Burnt Oak, Edgware, not far from Hendon Aerodrome.

[1] In 1910 he travelled to Diggers Rest, north-west of Melbourne, to see the first public demonstrations of powered flight made in Australia, and decided to go to England to become involved in aviation, arriving in May 1911.

[5] He also appears to have been the first person to perform an intentional spin and recovery, demonstrating in 1914 one method (though generally not the one used today) to return to level flight from this unusual attitude.

Among his competitive achievements were a number of altitude records set in June 1913[7][8] He also won a £1,000 consolation prize in the Daily Mail Circuit of Britain Waterplane Race on 25 August 1913.

After the war, together with navigator Kenneth Mackenzie Grieve, he attempted to win the Daily Mail £10,000 prize for the first flight across the Atlantic in "72 consecutive hours".

After fourteen and a half hours of flight, the engine overheated and they were forced to change course to intercept the shipping lanes, where they were able to locate a passing freighter, the Danish Mary.

[9] The Mary did not have a functioning radio, so that it was not until six days later, when the steamer reached Butt of Lewis, Scotland, that word was received that they were safe.

[10] The wheels from the undercarriage, jettisoned soon after takeoff were later recovered by local fishermen and later donated to the Rooms Provincial Museum in St John's.

[citation needed]Hawker was killed on 12 July 1921 when his Nieuport Goshawk crashed while he was climbing away from Hendon Aerodrome while practising for the Aerial Derby.

In addition five hundred commemorative First Day Covers were printed, many of which were purchased by the families of children attending the Moorabbin School.