 Lt. William Dawes was born in 1762. Little is known of his
childhood. His father, Benjamin Dawes, was clerk of works in the Ordnance Office at Portsmouth,
Devon. William was the oldest of five children, Elizabeth, John, Mary, and Ann. The first we
hear of William is that he joined the Royal Marines at the age of 17. He was twice married, and
had three children, all from the first marriage; two sons, William Rutter and Macaulay. William Rutter Dawes became
a well known astronomer, was twice married but had no children. Macaulay died in infancy. A
daughter, Judith, married in Antigua and took the name of Jones.
Lt. Dawes was a second lieutenant when wounded in action against the French at
Chesapeake Bay in 1781. He volunteered for duty at Botany Bay, and because he had some knowledge
of astronomy, was selected to sail with the First Fleet in 1787 as a member of the staff of
Major Robert Ross, OC of the detachment of Marines. He went as Officer of Engineers and
Artillery and was instructed to set up an observatory to watch in particular for a comet that
was expected in 1788. Transferred from the Sirius in March 1788 and employed on shore as an
engineer and surveyor, he built his observatory at Point Maskelyne, later known as Dawes Point.
Dawes made observations but the comet never appeared. He constructed batteries on various points
of the harbour and laid out the government farm and the first streets and allotments in Sydney
and Parramatta.
A keen explorer and mapmaker, he led and accompanied expeditions west of the Nepean and to the
Cowpastures in NSW (New South Wales.) Perhaps because of his scientific interest in the colony,
Dawes was one of the few officers who wished to remain after his term had expired. He had been a
pioneering student of the language of the indigenous Eora people of New South Wales. However, he
jeopardised his career when he refused to join a punitive expedition ordered by Phillip to
punish the Aborigines who had killed a gamehunter in December 1790. Dawes later complied, only
to declare publicly that 'he was sorry he had been persuaded to comply with the order'.
Governor Phillip then offered him the rank of ensign in the newly formed NSW
Corps, on condition that he apologise for his public statements and also for his misconduct in
buying flour - believed to be food ration - from a convict. Dawes refused and sailed with the
marines in December 1791.
In 1792 he went to Sierra Leone as a councillor to the Governor there and
succeeded him some months later, holding the post three times up to 1803. He was promoted first
lieutenant in April 1973. In 1808 he was one of the commissioners of enquiry when Sierra Leone
became a Crown Colony. He later went to Antigua where he set up schools for the children of
slaves. He also worked with William Wilberforce from the time he returned to England from
Australia in 1791, and was very active in the cause of the abolition of slavery. In that
capacity, he was three times Governor of Sierra Leone. It was after this that Dawes went to
Antigua. In 1826 he petitioned for extra compensation for his services in NSW, but the belated
claim was refused. He died in Antigua in 1836, survived by one of his sons and his daughter, and
by his second wife.
Another piece of information - Sir William Dawes (1671-1724) was the
Archbishop of York in the early 18th century, and Lt. William Dawes is descended from him.
Joan Dawes libinfo@ozemail.com.au
An extract from "Australia's first lady: the story of
Elizabeth Macarthur / Lennard Bickel." Sydney : Allen & Unwin, 1991.
..Lieutenant William Dawes appeared as a savant to her, learned
in many things, sedate and deeply pious, at ease with the nature of the world and the heavens
above their heads. William Dawes was also a veteran of the American War, had fought at Bunker
Hill along with his present commander Major Robert Ross...The young veteran held a special
place in the colony and in its history, yet to be written. Not for him were the spells of
standing guard over chained wretches on the First Fleet voyage. His responsibility and daily
task on the long journey had been to take charge of the flagship's chronometers, so vital to
navigation. This task had recognised his attributes - he was engineer, mathematician,
astronomer surveyor, draughtsman and botanist, with the added ability of artillery expert.
And though he held no privileges of birth or family rank - his
father occupied a mundane post in dockyard administration - his many other claims to
distinction had led to his being selected, before the First Fleet left England for interview
with the Astronomer Royal, Dr. Maskeleyne, who found sufficient depth to trust Dawes with a
task that echoed Captain Cook's first expedition to the Pacific: to view the transit of the
planet Venus across the sun. But while Dawes was conversant with the movements of planets, his
scope was the wider field of searching the southern night sky for a comet previously sighted in
1661, which the Astronomer Royal expected might re-appear in 1789. So it was that he was
equipped to set up the first observatory ever in the southern hemisphere ...
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