Dawson, George

Title

Prof

First name(s)

George

Surname

Dawson

Position(s) held at King's College London

Lecturer of Photography (1849-1879)

Education & professional details

School, college and/or university attended

King’s College Aberdeen 1836-1841

Qualifications ^Ref: *3

MA

Position(s) held (non King's College London)

• London Illustrated News
• Editor British Journal of Photography

Professional activities ^Ref: *3

• A talk to the North London Photographic Association on the "Waxed-paper Process" (1857)
• Attended a British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting at Aberdeen University in 1859

Publications ^Ref: *3

• “The Waxed-Paper Process”, Journal of the Photographic Society, 4, (21 October 1857 & 21 November 1857)
• with Thomas Sutton BA, A Dictionary of Photography (1858)
• A Manual of Photography Founded on Hardwich's Photographic Chemistry, 8th Ed. (London, J & A Churchill: 1873)

Personal details

Date of birth

28th February 1821

Place of birth ^Ref: *1

Ordiquhill, Banff, Scotland

Date of death

1879

Place of death ^Ref: *2

Lewisham, London

Obituary ^Ref: *3

• British Journal of Photography Almanac 1898, 1898
• Roger Taylor and Larry J. Schaaf, Impressed by Light: British Photographs from Paper Negatives, 1840-1860 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2007), 307

Family details

George Dawson was unmarried.

Notes ^Ref: *4

• George Dawson's numerous publications on photography remain standard reference works on the period to this day (2007). In 1857 Dawson exhibited considerable personal expertise in the waxed-paper process in a talk given to the North London Photographic Association. He was particularly active in the quest for a method of preventing the fading of photographic prints.
• The waxed paper process, was invented in 1851 by Gustave Le Gray (1820-1882) and extended the life of paper negatives in the 1870s.
• George Dawson was the first Professor of Photography at King's College London. Thomas Sutton BA was a colleague of Dawson and a Lecturer of Photography at King's College London 1860-1861.
• George Dawson lived at 44 Nelson St. Bath in 22nd October 1861 when he wrote to King's College London to inform the Secretary that he had been a member of the Church of England for 18 years. Later in 1891 at the age of 70 he lived at Charterhouse, London.