Dawson-Watson is the son of painter and illustrator John Dawson-Watson of London, England. The family lived in St. John’s Wood, London, a fashionable residential district made up of artists, authors and actors and here Dawson Dawson-Watson spent his early life. At the age of 8, he entered the Diocesan Grammar School in South Sea, England, where he made rapid progress in his art work and at the age of fourteen, he was far ahead of his class painting live models.