He was educated at Westminster School, London, then read mathematics and engineering at Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating in 1934 with a double first.
Building on his work on the mixing of fuel and air in flames at MIT, he derived the mixture for fast combustion; the chambers produced by his team were used in the first British jet aircraft.
In 1941, he returned to Farnborough as head of the newly formed Gas Turbine Division and in 1944 he was sent for a time to Washington to work with the British Air Commission.
(The name Dracone is allegedly a reference to Frank Herbert's Dragon in the Sea science fiction novel which featured this kind of tanker.
President of the Pentacle Club from 1970 to 1990, Hawthorne was well known for performing magic, and is remembered to this day by the kitchen staff at Churchill College as 'the man who made cheese rolls come out from behind his ears'.