Christopher Dawson

Christopher Dawson
Born	12 October 1889 Hay Castle, Hay-on-Wye, Powys, Wales
Died	25 May 1970 Budleigh Salterton, Devon, England
Occupation	Scholar

Christopher Henry Dawson FBA (12 October 1889, Hay Castle – 25 May 1970, Budleigh Salterton) was a British independent scholar, who wrote many books on cultural history and Christendom. Dawson has been called "the greatest English-speaking Catholic historian of the twentieth century". The 1988–1989 academic year at the College of Europe was named in his honour.

The only son of Lt. Colonel H.P. Dawson and Mary Louisa, eldest daughter of Archdeacon Bevan, Hay Castle, Dawson was brought up at Hartlington Hall, Yorkshire. He was educated at Winchester College and Trinity College, Oxford. He obtained 2nd class honours in Modern History at Oxford in 1911. After his degree he studied economics. He also read the work of the German theologian Ernst Troeltsch. His background was Anglo-Catholic but he became a Roman Catholic convert in 1914. In 1916 Dawson married Valery Mills, youngest daughter of the architect Walter Edward Mills. They had two daughters and one son.

He began publishing articles in The Sociological Review, in 1920. His starting point was close to that of Oswald Spengler and Arnold J. Toynbee, others who were also interested in grand narratives conducted at the level of a civilisation. His first book, The Age of the Gods (1928), was apparently intended as the first of a set of five to trace European civilisation to the twentieth century, but the schematic plan was not followed to a conclusion.

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