The Hawks' Club is a members-only social club for sportsmen at the University of Cambridge. It was founded in 1872.

Application for membership is open to any man who is either a member of any college at the University of Cambridge or who has been admitted ad eundem to the University. He must have spent at least one term in residence, and must have earned a Full Blue, Half Blue or Second Team Colours (in a full blue sport) by representing the University against Oxford in a Varsity match.

Prospective members are elected in the style of a traditional English gentlemen's club. Two "no" votes will reject an applicant, and he may not be proposed again at a later date.

Members are admitted for life. The number of Hawks-in-residence at the University is limited to 230, not including MAs; there are several thousand members worldwide.

Occasionally, individuals are admitted as an Honorary Hawk without fulfilling the above criteria (for example HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, who did not study at Cambridge).

Howard Winchester Hawks (May 30, 1896–December 26, 1977) was an American film director, producer and screenwriter of the classic Hollywood era. He is popular for his films from a wide range of genres such as Scarface (1932), Bringing Up Baby (1938), Only Angels Have Wings (1939), His Girl Friday (1940), Sergeant York (1941), To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), Red River (1948), The Thing from Another World (1951), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), and Rio Bravo (1959).

In 1975, Hawks was awarded the Honorary Academy Award as "a master American filmmaker whose creative efforts hold a distinguished place in world cinema," and in 1942 he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director for Sergeant York.

Howard Hawks was born in Goshen, Indiana on May 30, 1896. Hawks was the first-born child of Frank W. Hawks (1865–1950), a wealthy paper manufacturer, and the former Helen Howard (1872–1952), the daughter of a wealthy industrialist. Hawks's family on his father's side were American pioneers and his ancestor John Hawks had emigrated from England to Massachusetts in 1630. The family eventually settled in Goshen and by the 1890s was one of the wealthiest families in the Mid-West, due mostly to the highly profitable Goshen Milling Company. Hawk's maternal grandfather C. W. Howard (1845–1916) had homesteaded in Neenah, Wisconsin in 1862 at age 17 and within 15 years had earned a fortune in the town's Paper mill and other industrial endeavors. Frank Hawks and Helen Howard met in the early 1890s and married in 1895. Hawks was the oldest of five children and his birth was followed by Kenneth Neil Hawks (August 12, 1899- January 2, 1930), William Bellinger Hawks (1902- January 10, 1969), Grace Louise Hawks (October 17, 1903- December 23, 1927) and Helen Bernice Hawks (1906- May 4, 1911). In 1898 the family moved to Neenah, Wisconsin where Franks Hawks began working for his father-in-law's Howard Paper Company.