25 December 1907

sailed from Calcutta
to Rangoon, Burma, thence to Shwebo, Burma
 

9 January 1911

Back in India
 

2 April 1911

Listed on the census return for Abbots Reading. He was on long leave, rejoining the 2nd bn on 21 November 1911 in Quetta.

7 March 1903

. George was needed at Chakrata ahead of his company. Arduous journey, nearly 24 hours. Train and then ponies. Last 25 miles mostly uphill and almost certainly hazardous, but "lovely".

13 January 1899:

 Arrived at Hong Kong with 2nd battalion.  

 
13 July 1899

Arrived home on long leave. While he was in England, the 1st Battalion RWF was ordered to South Africa for what is now known as the Boer War. He volunteered to join them. He was one of at least 7 officers from the 2nd bn who managed to wangle a secondment to the 1st bn for this campaign. This opportunity would have been much more attractive than garrison duty in Hong Kong.
 
He sailed with 1st Battalion RWF from England on

23 October 1899

, and arrived in Durban on

17 November 1899.

The

shows him as having the medal with five clasps: Cape Colony, Orange Free state, Transvaal, Tugela Heights and Relief of Ladysmith. Where subsequent photos show him wearing one medal, it is this one (see right).

15 December 1899

Battle of

28 February 1900

R

of

July 1900

: Left South Africa for Hong Kong to rejoin the 2nd battalion.

 
31 March 1901

: At

for the census. His mother’s album says he was home on sick leave in February and returned to Hong Kong in the summer.
 

13 November 1902

: Embarked at Hong Kong for

, India

 
29 December 1902 - 10 January 1903

:
at

.

George was commanding an RWF detachment of “about 100 officers and men” (approximately his company). It sounds as though they were part of the garrison of “Delhi Fort”, so not primarily there for ceremonial duties. George felt inconvenienced by the “Durbar people”.

1903 to 1907

. The battn alternated between Chakrata (in summer) and Agra (in winter) with occasional ceremonial duties like the visit of The Prince of Wales (later King George V, who was Colonel of the RWF) in 1905 and the visit of the Amir of Afghanistan in 1907, who reviewed 30,000 troops. “Chakrata is a summer station only: deep snow in winter”, “7000 feet above sea”. Mountain exercises were part of the Kitchener tests, which were designed to remedy the deficiencies of the army that had been exposed by the Boer war.

18 October 1912

Gazetted

(see right). George was due to return to the UK by troopship for a posting to the 1st battn on promotion to Major. The ship (HMTS Rewa) was leaving India about the end of November so after his engagement to Grace they needed to move fast. George had about a couple of weeks to hand over his company, sort out its accounts, pack up and say his goodbyes before sailing home. He reached Southampton on about 1st January.  Grace went home to Australia and then took SS Maloja to England, arriving in London by train from Marseille about the beginning of March, which was about as fast as was possible. They married on         
 

5 March 1913

at St Andrews, Ashley Place, London. Presumably she had booked a passage as soon as she was ready, and cabled George to book the church to match her expected time of arrival.

19 April 1913

gazetted

, “on retired pay”.
The wedding was described as ‘very quiet’. Its immediate proximity to his retirement suggests that he was looking forward to raising a family and enjoying life in retirement. His hopes of a peaceful retirement were soon to be

.

2 April 1912

 in

, when she came to visit her sister Margaret (Meg), who was expecting a baby. Meg was married to Robert I B Johnson who was a fellow officer in the 2nd Battn RWF, a Captain since 1905, two years junior to George. Meg gave birth in Lucknow towards the end of October and Grace and her sister Anne set off to see her on about the 31st. On 14th November, George sent his mother a letter from Lucknow “full of good news”. This was surely George’s engagement to Grace, and probably also his decision to resign his commission. Evidently he had set off for Lucknow (around 1000 miles by train from Quetta) within days of Grace’s departure to propose marriage. Family legend has it that he was so nervous when the time came that he proposed, jumped onto his bicycle, and rode away without waiting for an answer, but all was well in the end.

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        The content of this page is the result of investigation by George F.H. Dickson's grandsons, Richard and John Humphreys.
 
The formal record of George’ career is given by the London Gazette, “Regimental Records of the RWF” and official histories of campaigns in which he served. We have populated his page on  “

” with links to all the on-line references to him that we have found. We have also found two exceptionally detailed further sources. The first is 21 scrapbooks compiled by George’s mother Harriet. These are in the RWF Museum, now at Wrexham Museum and Archives. Harriet copied a great many of George's letters home into these scrapbooks, with his photographs and her newspaper cuttings. They are a contemporary source and we have found them very reliable. The second is "Old Soldier Sahib" (OSS) by Private

(see also

), who served with the 2nd battalion RWF 1902-1909.
 
The annotated and illustrated edition of OSS, published in 2005 by Krijnen and Langley, says that Frank Richards served in C Company which was commanded by George throughout this period. Ample evidence supporting this is provided by the scrapbooks, which supplied many photographs to illustrate this edition. OSS and the scrapbooks provide accounts of the life of an officer and a private soldier as they experienced the same events from their very different points of view. The photographs on the present website come from family sources, but most of them can also be found in the scrapbooks.

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