GEORGE DAWSON Born in London, 1821. Came to Birmingham, 1844. Died, 1876. By A. W. W. Dale I It is a true instinct—if I may venture to say so —that has led those who arranged for this course of lectures to set us to speak about men rather than movements or events; for it is men who make the City or the State, not laws, not institutions. Men make the convictions that the laws express, and without men to work them, the best of institutions is but an engine without the power that moves it. You have asked me to speak to you about one of those who helped to make this city what itis, and I will try to tell you what I can of George Dawson; what kind of man he was, what kind of work he did, and what of aim, ideal, example and inspiration, he has left to those who come after him. How clearly, how vividly, he stands out in memory! The mass of iron-grey hair heavily streaked with white, nearly covering his ears, quite covering his broad, low forehead; bushy eyebrows nearly straight, and beneath them dark brown eyes that twinkled and flashed and blazed and melted; the nose straight or nearly so; the mouth partly hidden by a straggling beard, firm, but not so firm that it could not curve with scorn or quiver with emotion. The face was lined and seamed—the face of a man who had known many sorrows, who had carried his own burden of care, and the burden of others also. His voice, when he spoke to you, was full and deep and rather husky—the
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