Introduction

Biography

William was the son of Will­iam James Daw­son and Su­san Wall­er, hus­band of Jane Pow­ell of Lowe­stoft (mar­ried 1879), and fa­ther of no­vel­ist and po­et Con­ings­by Daw­son.

He stu­died at Kings­wood School in Bath, So­mer­set, and Dids­bury Col­lege, Man­ches­ter, and was or­dained a Wes­ley­an min­is­ter in 1875.

In 1891, he was one of the Eng­lish de­le­gates to the Me­tho­dist Ecu­me­ni­cal Coun­cil in Wash­ing­ton, DC.

He served in va­ri­ous lo­ca­tions un­til as­sum­ing the pas­tor­ate of High­bury Qua­drant Con­gre­ga­tion­al Church, Lon­don, in 1892.

Dawson moved to Ame­ri­ca in 1905, and lived in Taun­ton, Mas­sa­chu­setts, 1906–10. He event­ual­ly joined the Pres­by­te­ri­an de­no­mi­na­tion and served at the First Pres­by­te­ri­an Church in New­ark, New Jer­sey.

Works

• A Vi­sion of Souls, 1884
• Question and Vi­sion, 1886
• A Thresh­old of Man­hood, 1889
• Makers of Eng­lish, 1889
• Makers of Eng­lish Prose, 1899
• The Man Christ Je­sus, 1901
• The Re­proach of Christ, 1903
• The Quest of the Sim­ple Life, 1903
• Makers of En­glish Fic­tion, 1905
• The Em­pire of Love, 1907
• America, and Oth­er Po­ems, 1912
• Robert Shen­stone, a no­vel, 1917
• The Fa­ther of a Sol­dier, 1917
• The Am­er­ican Hym­nal (New York: Cen­tu­ry Com­pa­ny, 1919)
• The Au­to­bio­gra­phy of a Mind, 1925