John Dickson (railway contractor)

John Dickson (c1819-1892), was a railway contractor responsible for the promotion, construction and operation of several railway lines in England and Wales, especially in and around Swansea. His finances were never securely based and he was forced into bankruptcy on three occasions.

Dickson was born in Berwick-on-Tweed in about 1819. He first appears in the historical record in Ireland in 1840 when he married Elizabeth McMurray of Drogheda. His first daughter Catherine was born the following year at Killyman in County Tyrone. He remained in Ireland until 1847, and judging by the places of birth of subsequent children he was on the move all the time – Helen was born in County Sligo (1842), James in Dublin (1844) and Anna in Drogheda (1845). He appears to have been involved in some capacity under William Dargan on the construction of the Dublin and Drogheda Railway (1841-4) and the Great Southern and Western Railway (1845-7). There is also a possibility that he worked under Dargan on the Ulster Canal.

In 1847 Dickson left Ireland and returned to England, settling at Wellington, Shropshire, for reasons that are still not entirely clear, but where he quite quickly established himself as a person of some influence, especially in the still relatively new field of railway engineering. In 1852 he went into partnership with one McKensie (or McKenzie) and founded the Shropshire Works on a site adjacent to the Shrewsbury and Birmingham Railway, between Wellington and Oakengates. According to a contemporary newspaper report, the Shropshire Works occupied a site of eight acres and possessed "appliances for making and constructing almost every article connected with a railway, from the simple block of wood that secure the rail to the sleepers, to the carriages which roll over them." Dickson and McKensie were said to have sunk £30,000 in the venture and some time before the publication of the report had completed 170 wagons for the Newport & Abergavenny Railway Company, "in a short space of two months," and were engaged on the production of "a large number of passenger carriages" for the Great Western Railway company.

...
Wikipedia