DON Hawken, who has died aged 94, farmed more than 1,000 acres of land in South Oxfordshire and was chairman of the county branch of the National Farmers Union (NFU).

He began farming in 1940 when he returned from the Second World War to run the family farm near Wallingford after his father Gerald was taken ill.

Mr Hawken bought farms at Brightwell-cum-Sotwell and at Cholsey and in 1962 became county chairman of the Oxfordshire branch of the NFU, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather.

He turned out to have an innovative approach to farming, designing and building a machine for picking up the corn stooks mechanically from the fields and was the first county farmer to have cabs on his tractors.

During the 1960s he was also responsible for helping to set up one of the first farmers’ buying co-operatives, Sinodun Farmers.

Don Hawken was born at Akeman Street Farm, Combe on June 16, 1919.

He spent his childhood at Queenford Farm in Dorchester, where his father farmed, before attending New College School and then Magdalen College School.

But for the intervention of the Second World War he would have gone on to the University of Reading, but served in France with the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry.

When he returned from the war Mr Hawken began working on the family farm and later took on his first farm, in Wotton Underwood.

In 1960 he bought Slade End Farm at Brightwell-cum-Sotwell, and ran this in conjunction with Mount Farm as one unit.

He added Blackalls Farm at Cholsey to this in 1970, meaning he was farming more than 1,000 acres.

Mr Hawken retired from farming in his seventies and shortly afterwards moved to Wells, North Somserset with his wife Joan, to be closer to her family.

Since he retired part of his land was sold off for the Wallingford bypass, but the rest is still owned by the Hawken family.

Don Hawken died of cancer on August 25 and his funeral was held at Wells Cathedral on September 9. He is survived by his wife, his children Liz, Fiona, John and Helen, 10 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.