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John Dunkin (16 May 1782 – 22 December 1846) was an English topographer.
After serving an apprenticeship to a printer, and living for a while in London, he established himself before 1815 as a bookseller, stationer, and printer at Bromley, Kent. Here he published his first topographical work, a compilation in part from Philipott, Edward Hasted, and Lysons, entitled Outlines of the History and Antiquities of Bromley in Kent. … To which is added an investigation of the Antiquities of Holwood Hill ... by ... A. J. Kempe, octavo, Bromley, 1815. It was followed the next year by The History and Antiquities of Bicester. .. To which is added an Inquiry into the History of Alchester, a city of the Dobuni. … With an Appendix and … Kennetts Glossary, 2 parts, octavo, London, 1816.
In 1819, he commenced arranging for the press his account of the hundreds of Bullington and Ploughley, Oxfordshire, for which he had previously collected large materials. His son writes: the particulars of which will be found detailed in the Appendix. In 1823, the work appeared under the title of Oxfordshire: the History and Antiquities of the Hundreds of Bullington and Ploughley, &c., 2 vols. quarto, London. The impression was limited to a hundred copies, of which seventy only were for sale.
In 1837, Dunkin moved to Dartford, where three years previously he had commenced to build himself a large printing establishment. Shortly afterwards he opened a branch business at Gravesend. In 1844, he published his History and Antiquities of Dartford with Topographical Notices of the Neighbourhood, octavo, London, Dartford printed. Thenceforward, he occupied himself in arranging the materials he had accumulated for the histories of Oxfordshire and Kent. He was an original member of the British Archæological Association.
He died on 22 December 1846, and by his desire was buried on the eastern side of the lichgate of St. Edmund's cemetery, Dartford, as near as possible to the burying-ground of Noviomagus, which he had described in his last work.A brass was erected to his memory in that part of Dartford parish church which by the 1870s was occupied by the organ ( cites the Dartford Chronicle, 8 February 1879).
Dunkin's collections were given to the Guildhall Library by his daughter Ellen in 1886 and since 1954 those relating to Oxfordshire have been housed in the Bodleian Library.
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