Nancy Dawson was induced by an increase of salary to move to Drury Lane, where she appeared for the first time on 23 Sept. 1760 in the ‘Beggar's Opera.’ Here for the next three years she continued to appear at intervals, dancing in all the frequent revivals of the piece which had gained her celebrity, and in a variety of Christmas entertainments, such as ‘Harlequin's Invasion,’ ‘Fortunatus,’ and the ‘Enchanter,’ in which last there also appeared the elder Grimaldi and the Miss Baker who succeeded Nancy Dawson in popular favour as a dancer. On Christmas eve 1763 a pantomime called the ‘Rites of Hecate’ was produced at Drury Lane, and on that day and the 26th of the month Nancy Dawson appeared; but her name is absent from the bills of the subsequent representations, and from that time until her death, which took place at Haverstock Hill on 26 May 1767, she would seem to have retired into private life. She was buried in the graveyard belonging to the parish of St. George the Martyr, Bloomsbury, behind the Foundling Hospital, where her tombstone may still be seen, though some scandalous lines originally inscribed thereon have been obliterated. Beyond her beauty and graceful dancing, Nancy Dawson possessed no claim to recognition. She was of shrewish temper, heartless and mercenary, and of notoriously immoral life. Her portrait in oils still hangs in the Garrick Club, and there are several different prints of her in theatrical costume and otherwise. She has sometimes been confounded with the Nancy Dawson introduced by Captain Marryat in his novel ‘Snarleyow,’ of whom he remarks: ‘She was the most celebrated person of that class in Portsmouth both for her talent and extreme beauty.’ This lady was also celebrated in some ribald verses entitled ‘Nancy Dawson,’ but she died while William III was on the throne.
[Authentic Memoirs of the celebrated Miss Nancy D*ws*n, London (undated); The Dramatic History of Master Edward, Miss Ann, and others, the Extraordinaries of these times, by G. A. Stevens, 1763 and 1786; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. x. 195, 3rd ser. ix. 140; Gent. Mag. 1828, i. 496; theatrical advertisements of the period.]
DAWSON, ROBERT (1776–1860), topographical artist, became an assistant draughtsman on the ordnance survey of Great Britain in 1794 at a salary of 54l. a year, and eight years later, on the formation of the late royal military surveyors and draughtsmen—a corps of warrant officers under the ordnance, with headquarters in the Tower of London—was appointed a first-class draughtsman therein. His talents and energy much contributed to bring the sketching and shading of ordnance plans to the degree of perfection afterwards attained (Frome, Trig. Surveying, edited by Captain (now Sir Charles) Warren, 1873, p. 137). Some of Dawson's topographical drawings of Welsh mountains, in which the physical characters are brought out and defined by the artistic employment of oblique light, are perhaps the finest specimens of orography of their kind ever produced. Dawson was employed in giving instructions in the then neglected art of topographical drawing to the young officers of royal engineers who were attached to the ordnance survey for the purpose, and to the officers of the permanent staff of the quartermaster-general's department on its first formation, and those of the senior department, Royal Military College. He was selected by General Mudge for like duties at the East India Company's Military Seminary at Addiscombe on its formation in 1810. He was afterwards pensioned by the board of ordnance, and died at Woodleigh rectory, Devonshire, on 22 June 1860.
[War Office Recs.; Gent. Mag. 3rd ser. ix. 213.]
DAWSON, ROBERT KEARSLEY (1798–1861), lieutenant-colonel royal engineers, son of Robert Dawson (1776–1860) [q. v.], was educated at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and obtained his first commission in the royal engineers in 1818. He was employed under Captain (afterwards General) Colby [q. v.] on the Scotch and Irish surveys. He superintended the preparation of the plans of cities and boroughs issued by government about the time of the introduction of the first Reform Bill, and which are entered under the name of ‘R. K. Dawson’ in ‘British Museum Catalogue of Printed Books.’ He was attached to the Tithe Commutation Commission from its first formation, and was afterwards appointed an assistant-commissioner and head of the survey department of the Commons Enclosure and Copyhold Commission. For his services in this capacity he was made C.B., civil division (Feb. 1836). He died at Blackheath 28 March 1861.
[War Office Records; Times, 1 April 1861.]
DAWSON, THOMAS, M.D. (1725?–1782), physician, born about 1725, was the son of Eli Dawson, a dissenter, whose father was one of the ejected ministers of 1662. He himself began life as the minister of a congregation at the Gravel Pit Meeting-house in Hackney, but preferring the practice of physic, he gave up the pulpit, went to Glas-
