The Tree of Me

I have written three previous posts about Samuel Cuming Dawson of Cloghran, Swords, Co Dublin, Ireland. The first discussed a letter he posted to Autralia in 1878 when he was a cadet aboard the Conway. The second  showed the honour board when he won the Queen's Medal. The third post discussed information from the Maritime Museum in Liverpool. Today I write what may be the final post for Samuel Dawson. Last year, I visited Swords and found Samuel's headstone at St Columba's Church of Ireland at Swords, Co Dublin. Unfortunately, I couldn't read the date of his death. Headstone of Samuel Cuming Dawson - St Columba's Swords. Today I have been using my NLA card and have been trawling the Irish Newspaper Archives with great success. (However, it's a shame the site is so slow to move to the next result page.) A search for Dawson and Cloghran has come up with 598 results and one of the first ones was an obituary for Mr Sam C Dawson. Of course, his ob...

I have written a couple of posts about Samuel Dawson in the past few weeks. After publishing a letter written by him in 1878 I decided to see what else I could find out about him. I have followed up with an email to the Maritime Museum in Liverpool seeking information about Samuel. Last week I received these images from John Winrow, the assistant curator. I now have more information to include in Samuel's story. He attended the Swords Endowed School which I will have to research further. Under terms of admission it states the fees were £42. It looks as though his father Richard Dawson had to pay for Samuel to become a Conway cadet. Both his naval and school reports while on the Conway were outstanding. In one of my earlier posts I surmised that he won a telescope for either the Chairman of the Conway Committee Prize or the Royal Geographical Prize. I now know his prize was in Geography. Samuel's report comments read: 1877 Gained? class prizes in Geography and Histor...