 He was born 24 May 1728 in Clarendon, Jamaica.He was the second surviving son of Henry Dawkins (1698–1744), a sugar planter, and his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Edward Pennant of Clarendon, chief justice of Jamaica; James Dawkins II, who died in 1757, was his eldest brother.He studied at John Roysse's Free School in Abingdon, (now Abingdon School) c. 1739-1744 and St Mary Hall, Oxford from 1745.