Sir William Boyd Dawkins was born on December 26, 1837, in Buttington, Montgomeryshire, Wales.

He was a geologist, paleontologist, and archaeologist. About 1842 his family moved to England where he attended Rossall School and Jesus College, Oxford. In 1862, he graduated from Oxford with a second in Classics and a first in Natural Sciences and he joined the Geological Survey of Great Britain where he spent seven years working on the areas of Kent and the Thames Valley. He is noted for his research on fossils and the antiquity of man. In 1869, he was elected a member of the Geological Society and appointed Curator of the Manchester Museum, a position he held until 1890. In 1870, he took a further appointment as a lecturer at Owens College, Manchester. In 1874, he became its first Professor of Geology. He was President of the Manchester Geological and Mining Society (1874-1877, 1886-1887) and President of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society (1885-1887, 1900-1902). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1867 and acted as President of the Anthropological Section of the British Association in 1882 and the Geological Section in 1888. He was also President of the Cambrian Archaeological Association (1911–1919). Dawkins was knighted for "services to geology" in the 1919 Birthday Honours.

In 1866, he married Frances Evans (1839–1921) and in 1922, he married Mary Lilian B. Poole (1863–1954). He died on January 15, 1929, in Bucklow, Cheshire, England.