Dawkins, Sir William Boyd

views updated

Sir William Boyd Dawkins, 1837–1929, English geologist and archaeologist. He was a member (1861–69) of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, curator (1870–90) of the Manchester Museum, and professor of geology (from 1872) at Owens College (now Victoria Univ.), Manchester. Noted for his research on fossil mammals and on the antiquity of man, he wrote Cave Hunting (1874) and Early Man in Britain (1880) and was coauthor of The British Pleistocene Mammalia (6 vol., 1866–1912). In 1919 he was knighted.