James Dawkins (MP, died 1766)

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James Dawkins (c.1696–1766) was an English landowner and politician. He was the second son of Colonel Richard Dawkins of Clarendon, Jamaica, a plantation and slave owner, and his second wife Elizabeth Masters (d. 1702). He attended Magdalen College, Oxford, matriculating on 28 March 1713 at age 16. Dawkins owned estates at Over Norton in Oxfordshire (the Busby estate) and at Rusley Park, Bishopstone, Wiltshire.

In the 1734 general election he sought a seat in Parliament, initially aiming for Oxford but withdrawing the bid. He was then elected unopposed as Member of Parliament for Woodstock with the backing of the Duchess of Marlborough, serving from 1734 to 1747. In 1747 he lost his seat to John Bateman.

In the 1750s Dawkins was regarded by some as a Jacobite. He died unmarried on 10 May 1766. His Over Norton Park estate went to his nephew Henry Dawkins.