Raymond Stanley Dawson was born in London, 15 February, 1923, and was educated at Emanuel School, evacuated from London to Petersfield, Hampshire, and then went up to Oxford. At the outbreak of war Dawson joined the Royal Air Force, and trained in South Africa as a navigator, & flew missions until late in WW2. After the war he returned to Oxford, graduated in Greats in 1947. He was invited to stay on at the university to read Chinese. The Scarbrough scheme that funded this post-war cohort of students was designed to create a group of potential teachers of Asian languages in post-war Britain. He was appointed Lecturer in Chinese Religion and Philosophy, Durham University in 1952, which marked the foundation of Chinese Studies in that University. He also began a lifelong career as crossword setter for the New Statesman. He began this sideline in 1952 under the name of Setsquare, and produced a monthly cryptic crossword for the next 50 years. In 1958 Dawson launched an Honours course in Chinese. Dawson was Spalding Lecturer in Chinese Language and Civilisation, 1957-61; University lecturer in Chinese, Oxford University, 1961-90; Fellow, Wadham College, Oxford, 1963-90 [Emeritus]. Dawson published a string of works for Oxford University Press, including *The Chinese Chameleon: an analysis of European conceptions of Chinese civilisation* [1967], and *Confucius* [1981] for the OUP Past Masters series. He served on the university's General Board and building up a strong tradition of Asian language studies in Wadham. Beyond the university he reached a wide audience with a steady flow of accessible books on aspects of Chinese history and society, translations of classic texts, and a much-reprinted Introduction to Classical Chinese (1968). He married in 1944, Eve Harding, by whom he had two sons and one daughter. (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!top...)