Dobson is a small town on the banks of the Grey River in the South Island of New Zealand. It is 10 kilometres east from the river's mouth at Greymouth.

Dobson was the site of one of the West Coast's many coal mines, now closed, and also of one of the country's worst mining disasters. Nine men were killed in an explosion at the mine in 1926.

The town is named for the surveyor George Dobson, who was murdered at this site in 1866. He was killed in a bungled raid by a gang who had mistaken him for a bank official carrying gold from the nearby Ahaura goldfield. A monument now stands where George Dobson was murdered.

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History of West Coast coal mining