Author: Dawes, Manasseh
Biography:
DAWES, Manasseh (1743-1829: ancestry.co.uk)
In a footnote to his Elegy by a Son (1782) he identifies his mother as Anna Neale and his father as Joseph Dawes. The note shows pride in his family pedigree—his mother was related to Sir William Peachey of Petworth, Sussex, and his father to Sir William Dawes, Archbishop of York—and the poem itself celebrates his mother’s moral virtues. On 2 Sept. 1737 Anna Neale had married Joseph Dawes in the Fleet prison where he had been confined for debt; he is identified as a soldier with the Life Guards (the Grenadier guards). They had numerous children but just two survived, Manasseh who was born on 31 Aug. 1743 and baptised on 20 Sept. at St. George’s, Hanover Square, and Ann Bazell who was born in 1747. Joseph Dawes began collecting a military pension in 1749 and the family lived at Chapel Street, Hanover Square; Joseph is identified as “a gentleman” in tax records. For a fee of £30 Manasseh Dawes was apprenticed to an attorney, George Long, in 1763. He entered the Inner Temple as a law student on 30 May 1776 and was called to the bar on 15 May 1789. He made his name for his commentaries on the law, particularly in relation to politics. Dawes produced a steady stream of articles and books which drew on his wide-ranging knowledge and whiggish political beliefs. These include An Essay to Lord Chatham, on American Affairs (1777), An Essay on Crimes and Punishments (1782), and The Deformity of the Doctrine of Libels (1785). Later books include An Introduction to the Law on Real Estates (1814) and Epitome of the Law on Landed Property (1818). Dawes never married and he died in his rooms at Clifford’s Inn on 2 Apr. 1829. His will specifies that his law manuscripts including his cases, pleadings, and opinions should go to his friend Vicesimus Knox, a fellow barrister of the Inner Temple; other manuscripts were left to his youngest niece “trusting that she will consult some judicious person on the disposition thereof.” The remainder of his estate went to his only surviving sibling, Ann (who was twice married and twice widowed), and her two daughters. Following his instructions, his law books were auctioned on 25 June 1829. (ancestry.co.uk 20 June 2024; ODNB 20 June 2024; archives.innertemple.org.uk 20 June 2024; National Archives UK PROB-11-1754-94; Morning Herald 24 June 1829) SR
Other Names:
- M. Dawes