James Dallaway (1763–1834) was an English topographer and miscellaneous writer.
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He was the only son of James Dallaway, banker of Stroud, Gloucestershire, by Martha, younger daughter of Richard Hopton of Worcester, and was born at Bristol on 20 February 1763. He received his early education at the grammar school of Cirencester, and became a scholar of Trinity College, Oxford (B.A. 1782, M.A. 1784). He failed to obtain a fellowship there, supposedly after having written some satirical verses on an influential member of the college. Taking holy orders, he served a curacy in the neighbourhood of Stroud, where he lived in a house called ‘The Fort.’ Subsequently he lived at Gloucester, and from about 1785 to 1796 he was employed as the editor of Ralph Bigland's Collections for Gloucestershire.
In 1789 he was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and in 1792 he published Inquiries into the Origin and Progress of the Science of Heraldry in England, with Explanatory Observations on Armorial Ensigns, and its dedication to Charles Howard, 11th Duke of Norfolk, the Earl Marshal, brought him in due course an appointment as chaplain and physician to the British embassy in Istanbul; he had taken the degree of M.B. at Oxford 10 December 1794.
On 1 January 1797 he was appointed secretary to the Earl Marshal. This post he retained till his death, and it brought him into close connection with the College of Arms. In 1799 the Duke presented him to the rectory of South Stoke, Sussex, which he resigned in 1803 on the duke procuring for him the vicarage and sinecure rectory of Slinfold, in the patronage of the see of Chichester. In 1801, in exchange for the rectory of Llanmaes, Glamorganshire, which had been given to him by John Stuart, 1st Marquess of Bute, he obtained the vicarage of Leatherhead, Surrey. The two benefices of Leatherhead and Slinfold he held till his death. From 1811 to 1826 he also held a prebend in Chichester Cathedral.
Dallaway died at Leatherhead on 6 June 1834.
After his return from the East he published Constantinople, Ancient and Modern, with Excursions to the Shores and Islands of the Archipelago and to the Troad, London 179. This work was translated into German (Chemnitz, 1800; Berlin and Hamburg, 1801).
Dallaway was engaged in 1811 by the Duke of Norfolk to edit the History of the three Western Rapes of Sussex, for which manuscript collections had been made by Sir William Burrell, and deposited in the British Museum. The first volume, containing the Rape and City of Chichester, was published in 1815; the first part of the second volume, containing the Rape of Arundel, appeared in 1819. The Rape of Bramber was at Dallaway's request undertaken by the Rev. Edmund Cartwright, who published it in 1830.
He published also:
He also edited ‘Letters of the late Dr. Rundle, Bishop of Derry, to Mrs. Sandys, with introductory Memoirs,’ 2 vols. 1789; ‘The Letters and other Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, from her original MSS., with Memoirs of her Life,’ 5 vols. 1803; and ‘Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting,’ including George Vertue's ‘Catalogue of Engravers,’ 5 vols. 1826–8. Both his ‘History of Sussex’ and his edition of Walpole's ‘Anecdotes’ are inaccurate.
He married in 1800 Harriet Anne, daughter of John Jefferies, alderman of Gloucester, and left an only child, Harriet Jane. Harriet Dallaway was the author of a Manual of Heraldry for Amateurs, 1828.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Dallaway, James". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.