Dawes was born at Lyons, near Braintree in Essex and from the age of nine attended Merchant Taylors' School in London. Already excelling in Hebrew by the age of 15, he was barely 18 when he wrote his work in verse: The Anatomy of Atheisme, and his eminent The Duties of the Closet in prose.
William Dawes became the permanent pastor of William III (1688–1702) and was later court pastor of Queen Anne (1702–14). From 1698, at a young age, he was Canon of Worcester Cathedral.
In 1698 he was appointed rector in the village of Bocking (where the rector is called Dean of Bocking) near to his estates in Essex. Here he introduced the innovative custom of taking Holy Communion not only on the three great feasts, but once every month.
On 8 February 1708[1] he was consecrated Bishop of Chester: this was at the personal wish of Queen Anne, who overruled the advice of her ministers in appointing him. He was Archbishop of York from 1714 until his death in 1724[6] and a Privy Counsellor.[7] He owed his advancement to the goodwill of the Queen and of his predecessor, John Sharp, who had great regard for him, and had great influence with the Queen: it was Sharp's dying request that Dawes succeed him at York, which the Queen happily granted. He restored the Archbishop's palace in York, the Bishopthorpe.
He died on 30 April 1724 from inflammation of the bowels. He was buried in the chapel of St Catharine's together with his wife. He was the most outstanding preacher of his period, a representative of the ideal of an aristocratic prelate, of a high and authoritative personality.[8]
Family
William Dawes was the son of John Dawes, 1st Baronet of Putney and Jane (Christian) Hawkins the Daughter of Richard Hawkins of Bocking near Braintree Essex. According to Samuel Pepys, his parents' marriage gave rise to a good deal of gossip. His orphaned mother was an heiress, aged only sixteen, and it was claimed that her husband married her without her guardian's consent.[9] After his father's death his mother remarried the noted shipbuilder Sir Anthony Deane, by whom she had eight more children.
