James Dickson (3 February 1784 – 17 November 1855) was a Scottish-Swedish merchant, industrialist, banker and philanthropist active in Gothenburg, Sweden.

James Dickson was first employed in the Dickson family office in Edinburgh in 1798, but emigrated to Sweden in 1809, seven years after his older brother Robert, and settled in Gothenburg, where he was granted Swedish citizenship on 1 March 1810.

He was an ambitious businessman, who in 1816 founded the firm James Dickson & Co, one of the wealthiest of the many Gothenburg trading companies.

In 1814 he married Margaret Eleanor Bagge (1795-1857), and the family lived at Södra Hamngatan 5.

The house was built around 1805 for the Councillor Carl Bagge (1754-1818) and was subsequently transferred to his son in law James Dickson Sr.