Glas College 1749, and graduated M.D. at the latter 8 June 1753. He soon after began practice in London, occasionally going round the wards of Guy's Hospital. One day he found a Miss Corbet, a patient of his, sitting in her room gazing at the seventh verse of the twelfth chapter of the second book of Samuel, and taking the words on which her eyes were fixed, ‘Thou art the man,’ to express a wish which she had perhaps suggested less directly before, made her an offer of marriage and became her husband 29 May 1758 (Nichols, Literary Anecdotes, ix. 694). He was elected physician to the Middlesex Hospital 1 Feb. 1759, but only held office for two years. On 22 Dec. 1762 he was admitted a licentiate of the College of Physicians of London. Two years later (3 Oct.) he was elected physician to the London Hospital, and continued there till 5 Sept. 1770 (Calendar of the London Hospital, 1886). He used to see patients at Batson's coffee-house in Cornhill, and in 1774 published ‘Cases in the Acute Rheumatism and the Gout, with cursory Remarks and the Method of Treatment.’ The cases are not sufficiently numerous to prove the efficiency of the treatment, which consists in giving half-ounce doses of tincture of guaiacum during the painful stage of both rheumatic fever and gout. Brocklesby had previously made some experiments in the same direction, and it was no doubt suggested by the then fashionable use of guaiacum in chronic rheumatism. Dawson's method has not stood the test of time, and is now forgotten in practice. His only other work is ‘An Account of a Safe and Efficient Remedy for Sore Eyes and Eyelids,’ London, 1782. He died 29 April 1782.
[Munk's Coll. of Phys. 1878, ii. 240; Works; Calendar of the London Hospital Session, 1886–1887.]
DAWSON, WILLIAM (1773–1841), Wesleyan, was born at Garforth, near Leeds, on 30 March 1773, being the eldest child of Luke Dawson and his wife Ann Pease. His father was colliery steward to Sir Thomas Gascoigne, bart., of Gawthorpe, for twenty-one years. On his father's death in 1791 William, who was then eighteen, succeeded to this post, which included the management of a farm of a hundred and fifty acres. William, whose parents removed to Barnbow, near Barwick, in his infancy, was educated at the school of Mr. Sanderson at Aberford. He acquired an early taste for reading, and was noticed by Thomas Dikes and John Graham, successively rectors of Barwick. At the request of the latter he conducted a cottage service at Barwick. Graham and other friends wished to send him to Cambridge with a view to his taking orders in the established church. Family and financial reasons put a stop to this plan. Meanwhile he heard several eminent Wesleyan ministers, and after long reflection joined the Wesleyan body and became an accredited lay preacher among them. His popularity steadily increased until he became famous as the eloquent ‘Yorkshire farmer.’ An itinerant preachership was offered him, but his mother and seven young children were dependent upon his income as steward and farmer, and he declined the offer. He possessed a robust frame and irrepressible energy. While labouring hard as a colliery superintendent and a practical farmer he developed remarkable dramatic power, and on the platform and in the pulpit his natural oratory exercised a singular charm, often moving his audiences to laughter or to tears. He took a personal interest in all great public questions, which he turned to account in his addresses, and advocated especially the shortening of the hours of labour in factories.
In September 1837 he was enabled to give himself entirely to public work, and henceforth his whole time was occupied in the opening of chapels, the preaching of anniversary sermons, the advocacy of christian missions among the heathen, and other charitable objects. From Burmantofts, Leeds, where he now lived, he made preaching tours through the three kingdoms. While at Colne, Lancashire, where he had gone to open a new chapel, he died suddenly on Sunday morning, 4 July 1841.
[Private sources; Memoirs by Everett, 1842; Correspondence, ed. Everett, 1842.]
DAY, ALEXANDER (1773–1841), painter and art dealer, was born in 1773, and spent the early part of his life in Italy, studying painting and sculpture. He was living at Rome in 1794, and was for some time detained by the French during their war with Naples. In painting, Day chiefly confined himself to medallions showing only the head. Nagler and Redgrave especially notice the graceful treatment of his female heads. Day was a good judge of art. He recognised the high merit of the Elgin marbles when examined before the parliamentary committee in 1816, and imported into England many valuable pictures, several of which have now found their way into the National Gallery, e.g. Titian's ‘Rape of Ganymede,’ and ‘Venus and Adonis;’ Raphael's ‘St. Catherine,’ and the ‘Garvagh’ Raphael; Caracci's ‘Flight of St. Peter;’ G. Poussin's ‘Abraham and Isaac.’ He died at Chelsea on 12 Jan. 1841, in his sixty-ninth year.
