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 at Bristol, but the scheme came to nothing. For a time he was private tutor to three sons of the Earl of Shrewsbury, but in 1814 Dr. Keate, the head-master, appointed him to an assistant-mastership at Eton.

In the summer of 1815 he visited Paris, and described in letters to his mother the traces of the revolution. Both at school and at Cambridge he had devoted much time to the study of modern languages, and the peculiarities of the Picardy dialect now attracted his attention. During the twenty years of his assistant-mastership Hawtrey, so far as his duties permitted, learnt so many languages that he was known in London as ‘The English Mezzofanti.’ Ancient and modern literature became alike familiar to him, and his translations into German and Italian were admirable. It was under his care that the ‘Eton Atlas of Comparative Geography’ was published.

As assistant-master Hawtrey infused new life into the school-work. With Praed he helped to found the school library, and gave to it many valuable duplicates from his own library. He encouraged Praed to start first the manuscript magazine, the ‘Apis Matina,’ and afterwards the larger enterprise of ‘The Etonian,’ 1820–1. Among his pupils were Arthur Henry Hallam [see under ] (from 1822 to 1827), who owed much of his wide culture to Hawtrey's encouragement; George Cornewall Lewis, who became a lifelong friend, and who dedicated to Hawtrey his ‘Enquiry into the Credibility of the Early Roman History;’ Gerald Wellesley, afterwards dean of Windsor; J. C. Ryle, first bishop of Liverpool [q. v.]; and Dr. Charles Badham (1813–1884) [q. v.] The standard of scholarship reached by Hawtrey's pupils was high. Gladstone, who went to Eton in 1821, though not a pupil of Hawtrey, was ‘sent up for good’ for the first time by Hawtrey. ‘It was,’ he writes, ‘an event in my life. He and it together then for the first time inspired me with a desire to learn and to do.’

In 1834, on Dr. Keate's resignation, Hawtrey, then senior assistant, became headmaster. Great hopes were entertained of him in his new office, although the collegiate body was opposed to any innovation. He at once rendered the school divisions much more manageable, confining himself to the sixth form, with the addition of the six next collegers and oppidans, and subdividing the fifth form. The conservative provost Goodall hampered Hawtrey's efforts at reform, and it was only on Goodall's death, and the succession of Hodgson as provost in 1840, that Hawtrey was free to act with any vigour. During the early years of Hawtrey's rule he showed perhaps less tact and moderation than were habitual to him. But his strength was soon recognised by parents and pupils. In his second year the number of names on the school list was only 444, but in 1846 he had raised it gradually to 777. In the same year (1846) the new buildings, with the spacious room set apart for the school library, were opened for the foundation boys, and a great revolution was effected in their status and mode of life. The Old Christopher Inn was closed, a reform that excited strong resistance. The sanatorium, by which Eton was shown to be far in advance of other schools, was opened. The restoration of the college chapel was carried out under Hawtrey between 1847 and 1852.

Among moral and intellectual improvements introduced by Hawtrey, the germ of the now elaborate system of school trials is to be traced to him. The principle of competition was admitted, and king's scholars were no longer nominated. The training of the collegers engaged Hawtrey's special attention. He aimed at raising them (for they were then far below it) to a level with the oppidans. Hawtrey first placed the teaching of mathematics on something like an effective footing. In 1847 he wisely suppressed ‘Montem,’ the custom of collecting money in a public thoroughfare for the support of the captain of the school at the university. This step was taken in defiance of the majority of old Etonians, and the abolition of the old custom caused a temporary falling off in the numbers. With characteristic generosity Hawtrey presented 300l. to the father of the boy who was deprived by the reform of an anticipated source of income. Cricket-fagging he put down, and bullying of all kinds met with his sternest disapproval. Mental culture he fostered in all directions, welcoming, if he did not suggest, the Prince Consort's modern language prizes. The English essay prize he himself founded. With his assistant-masters Hawtrey was sympathetic and liberal. ‘The popular supposition is’ (Mr. Gladstone, 3 Jan. 1890, writes) ‘that Eton (from 1830 onwards) was swept along by a tide of renovation due to the fame and contagious example of Dr. Arnold. But this in my opinion is an error. Eton was in a singularly small degree open to influence from other public schools. There were three persons to whom Eton was more indebted than any others for the new life poured into her arteries: Dr. Hawtrey, the contemporary Duke of Newcastle, and Bishop Selwyn.’ ‘Hawtrey may be said,’ writes Mr. Maxwell Lyte, ‘to have done by encouraging what Keate tried to do by threatening.’

Hawtrey became provost after Hodgson's