Henry Granville Dickson

Founded in 1841 to educate the sons of gentlemen, Cheltenham College became one of the great public schools of the Victorian era. Its Rifle Corps was enrolled in 1862 but it was not until the following year that Cheltenham made their first appearance at the annual national rifle meeting held in Wimbledon ‘for the promotion of marksmanship in the interests of Defence of the Realm.’

This portrait of Henry Granville Dickson (1844-1909) comes from an album of carte-de-visite portraits all showing members of the school’s Rifle XI during the mid-1860s. The album was compiled by John Reid (1844-1889), afterwards John James Reid, son of Sir James John Reid, Chief Justice of Corfu. Reid was Captain of the Rifle Corps from November 1863 to June 1864. After finishing his education at Cambridge’s Trinity College and at Edinburgh University, he was called to the Scottish bar; he died in Edinburgh on 10 November 1889, age 45.

Henry Granville Dickson was born on 15 November 1844, a son of Joseph Briggs Dickson, a solicitor of Preston in Lancashire. He finished his education at Trinity College, Cambridge (BA, 1867; MA 1870 and was ordained in 1869. He was Curate at Cheam in Surrey 1868-73 then Curate of St Margaret’s in Lothbury 1873-82. In 1873 he married Ellen Elizabeth Jackson. From 1882 to 1890 he was Chaplain of the Royal Navy school. In 1896 he was appointed Rectory of Coulsdon in Surrey, a position he held until his death. He died on 23 March 1929, aged 84, and was buried in the churchyard of St John the Evangelist, Coulsdon. According to his obituary in The Times (20 March 1929) he ‘will be long remembered for his faithful service and loyal devotion to duty’ and for his ‘open-hearted love of truth and a kindly temper that saw no evil.’

Photographer unidentified.