William John Dakin (23 July 1883 – 2 April 1950) was a zoologist who is remembered for the large number of his students who achieved prominence in the area of zoology and for the number of books and papers he wrote on many scientific fields.
Studying at the University of Liverpool he attained his BSc with first class honours in Zoology in 1905, his MSc in 1907 and his DSc in 1911 on osmotic pressure and the blood of fishes.
[2] In 1912 Dakin applied and was appointed as the chair of Biology at the recently established University of Western Australia.
While at UWA Dakin published The Elements of Animal Biology in 1918,[3] chaired the extension committee, twice visited the Houtman Abrolhos and was the president of the Royal Society of Western Australia.
[5] A frequent contributor to early issues of Walkabout, among the books he wrote was Whalemen Adventurers (1934), a history of whaling in Australia.