Charles Dawson

Charles Dawson (11 July 1864 – 10 August 1916) was a British amateur archaeologist who was credited with and now blamed for discoveries that turned out to be imaginative frauds, climaxing with that of the Piltdown Man (Eoanthropus dawsoni), which he presented in 1912. Dawson was often present at finds in the archaeological digs, or was the finder himself.

Born the eldest of three sons, Dawson moved with his family to Hastings, Sussex, when he was still very young. Charles initially studied as a lawyer following his father and pursued a hobby of collecting and studying fossils. He made a number of seemingly important fossil finds. Amongst these were teeth from a previously unknown species of mammal, later named Plagiaulax dawsoni in his honour; three new species of dinosaur, one later named Iguanodon dawsoni; and a new form of fossil plant, Salaginella dawsoni. The British Museum conferred upon him the title of Honorary Collector. For these important finds he was elected a fellow of the Geological Society and a few years later after another find, to the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1895. Dawson died prematurely from septicaemia 1916.