Educated at St George's Hospital. He joined the Royal Navy and was on the active list as a Fleet Surgeon for over twenty years, being Staff Surgeon at the time of his death. For a time he was in charge of the Jamaica Hill Hospital on the West India Station, and he then saw service on the South American station, and as one of the surgeons of the Legion under Sir de Lacy Evans in the Carlist War. Later he was appointed Surgeon of the Convict Hulks at Woolwich, and did good work on the outbreak of cholera there, probably in 1848. In the Hulks Dabbs was assaulted by a prisoner who intended to murder him. He received injuries resulting in deafness, which increased as the years went on. Appointed Medical Officer of Parkhurst Prison, he performed all his duties unaided, despite his affliction, for fourteen years. He then lived at Newport, Isle of Wight, practising a little, and removed latterly to Buckland, near Portsmouth, where he died on January 30th, 1882. He married a Basque lady, by whom he had a son who also practised at Newport - George Henry Roqué Dabbs, MD, the friend of Tennyson, the poet.