Bertrand Edward Dawson, 1st Viscount Dawson of Penn, was born on March 9, 1864, in London, England.

He was a physician to the British Royal Family. He graduated from University College London (B.Sc., 1879) and the Royal London Hospital (M.D., 1893). He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons (1890), a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (1903) and worked as a physician for several years. In 1907, Dawson joined the Royal Household as a Physician-Extraordinary to King Edward VII, an office he held until 1910 when he was promoted to a Physician-in-Ordinary under King George V. In 1911, he was appointed Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (RVO). Following the outbreak of the First World War, he served on the Western Front in France from 1915 to 1919, rising to the rank of major-general. Dawson held the office of Physician-in-Ordinary to King George V until 1936. He was appointed Knight of Grace in the Venerable Order of St. John and Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1916, Knight Grand Cross of the RVO in the 1918 New Year Honours, and Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George in 1919. In the 1920 New Year Honours, he was elevated to the peerage as Baron Dawson of Penn, of Penn, in the County of Buckinghamshire and became an active member of the House of Lords. In 1926, he was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath and, in 1929, he became a member of the Privy Council. He served as President of the Royal Society of Medicine (1928-1930) and the Royal College of Physicians (1931-1937). In the 1936 Birthday Honours, he was advanced in the peerage as Viscount Dawson of Penn, in the County of Buckingham, and remained in the Medical Households of King Edward VIII and King George VI. Dawson practised euthanasia and believed "it belongs to the wisdom and conscience of the medical profession and not to the realm of law."

In 1900, he married Minnie Ethel Yarrow (1879–1972). He died on March 7, 1945, in London, England.