DAWKINS, James (?1696-1766), of Over Norton, Oxon.

Dawkins’s father was one of the first settlers in the island of Jamaica and a member of the house of assembly there. Buying Over Norton in 1726, he contested Oxford in 1734, spending ‘not less ... than a thousand pounds’ on the election, but desisting before the poll. He was then returned unopposed as a Tory for New Woodstock ‘by the interest of the Duchess of Marlborough’,1Hearne, Colls. (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), xi. 331. voting against the Administration in every recorded division till 1747, when he was turned out by her successor, the 3rd Duke of Marlborough, a government supporter. In 1753 he was reported by Lord Albemarle, the British ambassador in Paris, to be ‘warmly attached to the Pretender’s interest’.2Andrew Lang, Pickle the Spy, 225. He died 10 May 1766, leaving Over Norton to his nephew, Henry Dawkins, M.P.3PCC 175 Tyndall.