Print Made from Bodleian CopperplateDawson was born in April 1715, probably in Cumberland County, England, and was the son of William Dawson and, most likely, Ellen Troughere Dawson. He received his primary education in England and about 1735, traveled to Virginia, where his brother William Dawson was professor of moral philosophy at the College of William and Mary. Thomas Dawson studied mathematics and natural philosophy before becoming a student of divinity under the direction of his brother. In 1737, the president and masters of William and Mary elected him usher of the attached grammar school, and on June 26, 1738, the board of visitors named him master of the Indian school, a position he occupied for seventeen years. In 1740, Dawson traveled to England, where the bishop of Carlisle ordained him a deacon of the Church of England on September 14 and a priest on September 21.