Hi Jen
Using the link provided you find that papers survive for two Thomas Dawsons who served in the RA:
= WO 97/1223/187 THOMAS DAWSON Born BIRMINGHAM, Warwickshire
Served in Royal Artillery Drivers Discharged aged 32 1802-1816
= WO 97/1223/188 THOMAS DAWSON Born HOUGHTON, Lancashire
Served in Royal Artillery Discharged aged 28 1805-1815
If you take the age on discharge from the higher of the two service dates you of course get the year of birth. Of course neither may be your man.
Another way would be to see if there are any surviving Muster and Pay Lists (in WO12 at Kew) for the RA and try and track down ones for the year and places you have (eg Ceylon in 1809). Searching for a man in an infantry or cavalry regiment is hard enough, a corps like the RA would be spread all over the place. I would suggest an approach to the RA museum to see if they can help with the location of the RA units. Researching in Kew will be a big task, and a correspondingly expensive one if you have to employ researchers.
Neither his papers nor the Pay Lists will give details of his first wife. These were things that only started to be recorded in the second half of the 19th Century, but you may be lucky and find when and where he was enlisted. And, if he was a boy soldier, when he became 18.
You also have to consider that he may have changed units in order to stay in Ceylon with his wife and child.
Ken
