He was the second son of Colonel Richard Dawkins of Clarendon, a plantation and slave owner in Jamaica, member of the Assembly (died c. 1698/1701/1705, of a Leicestershire family), and his second wife Mrs. Elizabeth Masters (d. 1702). He matriculated at Magdalen College, Oxford on 28 March 1713, at age 16.'Dabbe-Dirkin', in Alumni Oxonienses 1500–1714, ed. Joseph Foster (Oxford, 1891), pp. 366-405. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/alumni-oxon/1500-1714/pp366-405 [accessed 11 June 2016].
