1921-22.] Obituary Notices. 387 
Association, serving successively as Secretary, Recorder, and, in 1913, 
President of Section E, Geography. At the meeting of the Association at 
Birmingham in that year he delivered a notable Presidential Address to 
the Section on “The World’s Resources and the Distribution of Mankind,” 
which was the subject of much public interest. 
For fourteen years from 1906 he was Professor of Geography in 
University College, Reading, where he was an inspiring teacher and a 
strong promoter of the practical application of the various branches of 
physical geography to agriculture, engineering, and other objects of vital 
interest in public life. 
When the war broke out his services were utilised in organising a 
department of geographical information in association with the Intelligence 
Division of the Admiralty. This soon grew to considerable dimensions 
and involved the production of a series of geographical handbooks on 
various parts of the world, some of which have since been published. 
Dickson received the third class of the Order of the British Empire 
(C.B.E.) in recognition of the value of his labours. 
He had already received the degree of M.A. by decree, from the Uni- 
versity of Oxford, on joining the School of Geography, and he took the 
degree of D.Sc. from the same University. 
On resigning his professorship, Dickson devoted himself to literary 
work in London, where for some time he threw his whole energy into the 
preparation of the supplementary volumes to complete the Twelfth Edition 
of the Encyclopoedia Britannica, of which he was principal assistant 
editor under Mr Hugh Chisholm. 
In the autumn of 1921 his health began to give way, and in the follow- 
ing January he underwent a serious operation. He died at his brother’s 
house in Edinburgh on April 2, 1922. He married in 1891 Margaret, 
daughter of Richard Stephenson of Chapel, Duns, Berwickshire. He is 
survived by his wife and by a son. Lieutenant T. H. Dickson, R.IST., and 
a daughter. 
Dickson was a hard worker, devoting himself with single-minded 
intensity to whatever he had in hand. In the early days I often had the 
opportunity of working with him, and always found him acute, conscientious/ 
and painstaking, with a degree of accuracy in computation that is not 
often attained. He was the best of good company at all times, and was 
famous in Oxford and London for his quaint dry humour and curiously 
apposite anecdotes. 
Apart from his work in general geography, which was largely educa- 
tional or literary, Dickson made solid additions to knowledge in the 
