Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dakins, William
DAKINS, WILLIAM (d. 1607), divine, is conjectured to have been the son of William Dakins, M.A., vicar of Ashwell, Hertfordshire. He was educated at Westminster School, whence he was elected in 1586 to a scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he proceeded B.A. in 1590-1 (Welch, Alumni Westmon. ed. Phillimore, p. 59). He became a minor fellow of Trinity on 3 Oct. 1593, and a major fellow on 16 March 1593-4. In 1594 he commenced M.A., and in 1601 proceeded B.D. (Cooper, Athenae Cantab. ii. 444). He became Greek lecturer of his college—an annual office—on 2 Oct. 1602, and vicar of Trumpington, Cambridgeshire, in 1603. Upon the resignation of Dr. Hugo Gray he was chosen to succeed him as professor of divinity in Gresham College, London, on 14 July 1604. He was recommended on that occasion, not only by the vice-chancellor and several heads of colleges in Cambridge, but also by some of the nobility and even by King James himself, who in his letter calls him an ancient divine, although he was probably not thirty-five years old. He was one of the learned men employed in the 'authorised' translation of the Bible, being a member of the class which met at Westminster, and to which the epistles of St. Paul and the canonical epistles were assigned (Lewis, Hist. of the English Translations of the Bible, 2nd edit. p. 312). In 1605 he resigned the vicarage of Trumpington, and on 2 Oct. 1606 became junior dean of Trinity College. He died in February 1606-7.
[Authorities cited above; also Ward's Gresham Professors, p. 45; Cal. of State Papers, Dom., 1603-10, p. 129; Addit. MS. 5867, f. 57.]