Dawson's shipyard was located close to the Low Lights on the riverbank at South Shields. Little is known about the Dawson's, but they had operated in the first few decades of the 1800s building rigged wooden vessels for local merchants.

Their work had gained a sufficient reputation to leave a legacy - The site continued to be known as Dawson's Quay into the 1850s when shipbuilding had mostly ceased in the area.