Henry Richard Dawson (23 December 1792 – 24 October 1840) was the Church of Ireland Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin from 1828 to 1840, and Rector of Castlecomer, County Kilkenny.
Upon his arrival, he undertook a census of the people living in the deanery liberties, and found them to be in far greater number and in far worse conditions than had been previously thought.
[3] He established schools in an effort to educate the population, from young children to adults, and was generally esteemed for his charitable works in the area.
He sat on the Royal Irish Academy’s Committee of Antiquities and was appointed Vice-President by Sir William Rowan Hamilton in 1840, a position he held until his death later that year.
[7] However, Dawson’s wishes were almost unfulfilled when, in 1840, he caught typhus during the course of his work and died shortly thereafter, on 24 October, aged 48.
[7] Dawson is buried beneath the floor at the west end of the nave in St Patrick’s Cathedral and was the last person to be interred within the building.