Trained as an architect, studying enamelling under Alexander Fischer Nelson Dawson set up the Artificers Guild in his Chiswick workshop, producing silver and enamelled ware until 1914. He taught his wife Edith Robinson to enamel and she produced enamels for jewellery and objects at his workshop from 1893. The Victoria and Albert museun include a vase by Dawson, inv nr M30 which bears a similar finial design.