DAWKINS, WILLIAM BOYD (1838- ), English geologist and archaeologist, was born at Buttington vicarage near Welshpool, Montgomeryshire, on the 26th of December 1838. Educated at Rossall School and Oxford, he joined the Geological Survey in 1862, and in 1869 became curator of the Manchester museum, a post which he retained till 1890. He was appointed professor of geology and palaeontology in Owens College, Manchester, in 1874. He paid special attention to the question of the existence of coal in Kent, and in 1882 was selected by the Channel tunnel committee to make a special survey of the French and English coasts. He was also employed in the scheme of a tunnel beneath the Humber. His chief distinctions, however, were won in the realms of anthropology by his researches into the lives of the cave-dwellers of prehistoric times, labours which have borne fruit in his books Cave-hunting (1874); Early Man in Britain (1880); British Pleistocene Mammalia (1866-1887). He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1867, and acted as president of the anthropological section of the British Association in 1882 and of the geological section in 1888.
DAWLISH, a watering-place in the Ashburton parliamentary division of Devonshire, England, on the English Channel, near the outflow of the Exe, 12 m. S. of Exeter by the Great Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 4003. It lies on a cove sheltered by two projecting headlands. A small stream which flows through the town is lined on both sides by pleasure-grounds. Dawlish owes its prosperity to the visitors attracted, in spring and early summer, by the warm climate and excellent bathing. An annual pleasure fair is held on Easter Monday, and a regatta in August or September. Until its sale in the 19th century, the site of Dawlish belonged to Exeter cathedral, having been given to the chapter by Leofric, bishop of Exeter, in 1050.
DAWN (the 16th-century form of the earlier “dawing” or “dawning,” from an old verb “daw,” O. Eng. dagian, to become day; cf. Dutch dagen, and Ger. tagen), the time when light appears (daws) in the sky in the morning. The dawn colours appear in the reverse order of the sunset colours and are due to the same cause. When the sun is lowest in both cases the colour is deep red; this gradually changes through orange to gold and brilliant yellow as the sun approaches the horizon. These colours follow each other in order of refrangibility, reproducing all the colours of the spectrum in order except the blue rays which are scattered in the sky. The colours of the dawn are purer and colder than the sunset colours since there is less dust and moisture in the atmosphere and less consequent sifting of light rays.
DAWSON, GEORGE (1821-1876), English nonconformist divine, was born in London on the 24th of February 1821, and was educated at Marischal College, Aberdeen, and at the university of Glasgow. In 1843 he accepted the pastorate of the Baptist church at Rickmansworth, and in 1844 a similar charge at Mount Zion, Birmingham, where he attracted large congregations by his eloquence and his unconventional views. Desiring freedom from any definite creed, he left the Baptist church and became minister of the “Church of the Saviour,” a building erected for him by his supporters. Here he exercised a stimulating and varied ministry for nearly thirty years, gathering round him a congregation of all types and especially of such as found the dogmas of the age distasteful. He had much sympathy with the Unitarian position, but was not himself a Unitarian. Indeed he had no fixed standpoint, and discussed truths and principles from various aspects. His sermons, though not particularly speculative, were unconventional and quickening. He was the friend of Carlyle and Emerson, and did much to popularize their teachings, his influence being conspicuous, especially in his demand for a high ethical standard in everyday life and his insistence on the Christianization of citizenship. He was warmly supported by Dr R. W. Dale, and by J. T. Bunce, editor of The Birmingham Daily Post. Both Dawson and Dale were disqualified as ministers from seats on the town council, but both served on the Birmingham school board. Dawson also lectured on English literature at the Midland Institute and helped to found the Shakespeare Memorial library in Birmingham. He died suddenly at King’s Norton on the 30th of November 1876. Four volumes of Sermons, two of Prayers and two of Biographical Lectures were published after his death.
See Life by H. W. Crosskey (1876) and an article by R. W. Dale in The Nineteenth Century (August 1877).