(1760 - 1843) of Standlynch, Wilts, e. s. of Henry Dawkins; Ch.Ch. Oxf. 1779; MP 1784 - 1826, 1831 - 2; m. 1 1785 Hannah Phipps, wid. of Charles Long, 2 Maria Forbes; Dilettanti 1787; suc. fa. 1814; took name of Colyear 1835.
1783 - 4 Rome (by 13 - 24 Apr. 1783), Naples (by 1 - 5 May), Rome (by 11 Jul.), Florence (by Oct. 1783 - 19 Mar. 1784), Milan (by 20 Jun.) [Geneva, 28 Jun.]
James Dawkins travelled with his Swiss governor Bynion. At Rome in April and Naples in May 1783 they frequently saw John and Allan Ramsay. By 11 July Dawkins was in Rome visiting S.Martino ai Monte with John Ramsay and Charles Long (whom he had met in Naples).1 He also met William Davenport Bromley (the unhappy charge of Charles Parker), who accompanied Dawkins and Bynion to Florence. They spent several months there, frequently with the Ramsays and meeting Dr Parkinson2 and Captain Robert Merry in December. Bynion and Ramsay collaborated with Merry in his publication of The Arno Miscellany, a series of odes and poems, see Merry.3 Dawkins left Florence on 19 March 1784, apparently with Mrs Hannah Long (whose husband Charles had died in Rome the previous August), and they were both with Bromley in Milan on 20 June.2 Bromley, suffering from melancholia, returned home directly from Milan,4 while Dawkins travelled more slowly through Europe. He met the Berry family in Geneva on 28 June5 and Bromley's former travelling companion, Charles Parker, in Vienna early in July.4 In 1785 he married Mrs Long.
While he was in Italy Dawkins sat to H.D. Hamilton for an (undated) oval pastel portrait (Christie's, 28 Feb. 1913), drawn either in Rome or Florence.
1. See Ramsay jnl.MSS (Apr., May, Jul. 1783; Oct. 1783 - Mar. 1784). 2. Parkinson jnl.MSS. 3. Wal.Corr., 25:507, 517, 522 - 3. 4. Parker letters MSS, B 2113 (Vienna, 10 Jul. 1784). 5. Berry Jnls., 1:129.