Francis Dobbs (1750–1811) was an Irish barrister, politician and writer on political, religious and historical topics.
Together with other members (John Forbes, Joseph Pollock, Charles Francis Sheridan), he visited Ulster at the end of 1779 and beginning of 1780, to gather support for patriotic and nationalist plans.
[9] On the granting of the Constitution of 1782, at the prompting of Henry Grattan, Dobbs wrote in his History "it was on the plains of America that Ireland obtained her freedom", attributing the legislative powers now given to the Irish Parliament to the outcome of the American War of Independence.
Caulfield and others leaders decided to make use of him, and in 1797 he was returned to the Irish House of Commons for the borough of Charlemont.
[17] Dobbs published political pamphlets during the Volunteer agitation:[4] Dobbs then published in 1787 four large volumes of a Universal History, commencing at the Creation and ending at the death of Christ, in letters from a father to his son, in which he tried to prove historically the exact fulfilment of the Messianic prophecies.
He published in the same year his Concise View of the Great Predictions in the Sacred Writings, and his Summary of Universal History, in nine volumes.
[21] The Monthly Review wrote of the first volume of Dobbs's Universal History that he stuck rigidly to the chronology of Isaac Newton.
[23] Richard Popkin compared Dobbs's religious views to those of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed; and contradicted the interpretation that his reading of the Book of Genesis was pre-Adamite or in line with Serpent Seed.
It placed some names in a gathering of 30 people he mentioned there in Hoxton, with the bookseller J. Dennis and other Behmenists and followers of William Law.
John Dennis published the New Jerusalem Magazine, and collected alchemical and mystical books;[26] he (or his father of the same name) had a house in Hoxton Square, and was in business with James Lackington in the period 1778 to 1780.
[3] His father-in-law, nicknamed "Graceless" for his extravagance, moved to Acton after losing the Ballintoy property where he had opened up the coastal coal trade.