James Dawkins (Antiquarian)

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James Dawkins (* 1722 in Jamaica , † September 6, 1757 in Suttons's Plantation, Jamaica) was a British antiquarian, sympathizer of the Jacobites and member of the House of Commons,

James Dawkins and Robert Wood Discovering the Ruins of Palmyra , by Gavin Hamilton (1758)

Life

James Dawkins was born in Jamaica to Henry Dawkins (1698–1744) , a wealthy plantation owner . After attending the Abingdon School in Berkshire , Dawkins studied at St John's College , Oxford from 1739 to 1749 and received the Doctor of Civil Law in 1749. He undertook extensive travels in Europe and frequented Jacobite circles in Paris and Rome .

In Rome in 1749 he and his college friend John Bouverie (1723–1750) planned a trip to the ancient sites of the eastern Mediterranean. The experienced traveler Robert Wood (1717–1771) and the draftsman and architect Giovanni Battista Borra (1712–1786) joined them. The voyage began in Naples on May 5, 1750 with a specially equipped ship, the Matilda . They first traveled to the Aegean Sea and the coasts of Asia Minor , where Bouverie died in September 1750. The journey continued to Egypt and Palestine . In the spring of 1751 they toured Syria , especially Palmyra and Baalbek , and returned to Naples via Tripoli , Cyprus and Greece on June 7, 1751. This trip is one of the first purely scientific research expeditions to the Eastern Mediterranean.

In 1755 he became a member of the Society of Dilettanti . Robert Wood published The Ruins of Palmyra (1753) and The Ruins of Baalbec (1759) with the support of Dawkins . Dawkins also assisted James Stuart and Nicholas Revett in their undertaking to research and publish the antiquities of Athens ( The Antiquities of Athens , 1762).

In May 1753 Dawkins traveled to Berlin to win Friedrich II for the support of a Jacobite conspiracy. The trip was unsuccessful, but the British government issued an arrest warrant for Dawkins, which was unsuccessful when he returned to England in 1754 and settled in Laverstoke , Hampshire . From 1754 until his death he was a member of the House of Commons for Hindon , Wiltshire .

literature

  • CA Hutton: The travels of “Palmyra” Wood in 1750–51 . In: Journal of Hellenic Studies 47, 1927, pp. 102–128.
  • Claire Pace: Gavin Hamilton's Wood and Dawkins discovering Palmyra: the dilettante as hero . In: Art History 4, 1981, pp. 271-290.
  • Eileen Harris: British Architectural Books and Writers 1556–1785 . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1990, ISBN 0-521-38551-2 .
  • M. St John Parker: Dawkins, James. In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Volume 15: Daly-Dewar. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861365-2 , p. 536, ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Dawkins, James
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British archaeologist, Jacobite sympathizer and member of the House of Commons
DATE OF BIRTH 1722
PLACE OF BIRTH Jamaica
DATE OF DEATH September 6, 1757
Place of death Suttons's Plantation, Jamaica