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).
[citation needed] 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.
[1] 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.
[citation needed] Early in his time at Wellington, Dickson made the acquaintance of Alfred Darby (I), a member of the celebrated Shropshire iron-founding dynasty and the then manager of the family's Coalbrookdale Works.
[4] The latter contract undoubtedly owed much to Dickson's association with Darby and the Coalbrookdale Company, who were expected to subscribe to the line, and indeed the alignment made use of, and superseded, his earlier private railway to the Ketley Ironworks for a short distance.
Dickson had in fact surveyed the entire line from Ketley to Lightmoor, and given evidence before the House of Lords committee that examined the Bill, but was only awarded the contract for the northern portion of the undertaking, work on which was begun with much pomp and ceremony in August 1855.
Ironically, work on the Ketley-Horsehay line was in a sufficiently advanced state for a trial run to be made by shareholders in February 1857,[6] and for it to be opened for goods and mineral traffic on 1 May of the same year.
[10] The financial position of the railway company prevented an immediate start being made until 1856 when he was additionally offered a contract to construct the entire line.
He started work in April 1856[11] but made little progress and in September 1856 Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the engineer of the SWMR, was instructed to pay off Dickson and re-let the contract.
[13] The period between Dickson's first and second bankruptcies was the most active and successful of his career with the construction of two railways (albeit of modest length) and the promotion of many other schemes which failed to materialise because his vision outstripped his resources.
The methods which were adopted by Dickson and his backers in the financing of both these railways were typical of those employed on other 'contractors' lines', a phenomenon that was particularly prevalent at this period.
He saw the railway as potentially forming part of a link from the Midlands and north of England to south Wales and he probably had hopes of selling it on completion to one of the major English companies.
Both of these projects were authorised by Parliament in 1864, but a grandiose plan to extend the N&BR into Swansea and build a central station in the town was rejected in the same session.
In pursuit of this goal he acquired the foreshore rights all round Swansea Bay from the Duke of Beaufort in June 1864 and in October reached an agreement with George Byng Morris, the mortgagee in possession, to purchase the Oystermouth Railway.
The Neath and Brecon Railway was completed in 1866 and the formal opening took place on 13 September 1866[26] although regular passenger traffic did not commence until 3 June 1867.
His finances had become overstretched and he was a belated victim of the collapse of the bank of Overend and Gurney in May 1866 which had resulted in the failure of a number of other railway contractors.
[36] In November 1873 the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board accepted a tender from Dickson for the enlargement and alteration of the Canada basin and other related works but it is doubtful if any significant progress was made.