Reverend William James Dawson (1854-1928) was an English clergyman, lecturer, and author. He was the father of Coningsby Dawson. Born at Towcester, Northamptonshire November 21, 1854, he was educated at Kingswood School in Bath, Somerset, and Didsbury College, Manchester. He entered the Wesleyan ministry in 1875. In 1879 he married Jane Powell and had three daughters and three sons. He moved to the church of John Wesley, City Road, London in 1887. He found it extremely depressing ministering to impoverished the parish in the south side of London. Dawson wrote in Autobiography of a Mind, All around these dismal habitations of the dead, were narrow alleys and foul rookeries, feculent with thronged and neglected human lives.