Harold Hawes was a farmer near Cairns who played soccer for Cairns United after the war. His untimely death in 1929 saw his funeral covered by the Northern Herald on 22 May, which stated “the Soccer Football Clubs were largely represented” among the mourners. This included members of Cairns United. The newspaper also reported the pallbearers included members of the Returned Soldiers and Sailors’ League, while “the casket was draped with the Union Jack, being a returned soldier.”
Hawes was born in Wolverhampton, and married Getrude Smith in 1909 in Warwickshire. The couple and their daughter emigrated to Australia in 1913 and moved to Edmonton, now increasingly part of the southern Cairns sprawl.
Enlisting in December 1915 at the age of 29, he arrived in Egypt in May 1916 where he was attached to the 52nd Battalion. Hawes suffered from appendicitis or pneumonia (depending on the record) in June and would not recover until August. Training in England followed before he finally arrived in France in April 1917. Illness and training again dominated the rest of the year before a fractured ankle saw him evacuated to England in February 1918. Here Hawes saw out the rest of the war before leaving for Australia in March 1919.
After the war, Hawes moved to Cairns proper around 1921 and worked for Hill and Taylor architects, before moving to a similar position with the Cairns Harbour Board. In 1927 he donated his time to design a new School of Arts building for Edmonton.
He played for Cairns United up until at least 1927, with line-ups listing him as H. Hawes. Confusingly, someone named H. Hawes also played periodically for Gordonvale, a town south of Cairns, whose team often played against Cairns opposition. It is unknown whether this is the same player.
On 12 May 1929, Hawes was riding a bicycle when he was struck by a car and died of his injuries the next day. He was survived by Gertrude and three children. Their second son, Arthur, had died at the age of 3 in 1927.