George William Dickie was born on July 17, 1844 in Arbroath, Scotland, the son of William and Margaret (Watson) Dickie. In earlier years at Perth, Scotland, and subsequently on a strip of land bordering the Tay at Arbroath which is still known as Dickies Beach, at least five generations of Dickies had built wooden ships after the practise of the day.
Dickie’s education, aside from what he received at home, comprised three years in the parochial school, under an Oxford graduate who not only took care of the stated curriculum but who acted as town clerk and city engineer as well, and held evening classes in navigation. From him the boy acquired a love for study. which continued throughout life, and through him he met Dr. Thomas Dick, the author of several works on science and philosophy which had great vogue in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. The latter gave Dickie an opportunity to meet Michael Faraday and Sir David Brewster, a meeting which awakened the youth’s ambition and was an inspiration to him in later years. Dick also planted in him his life-long interest in astronomy.
The trend toward the use of iron and steel for shipbuilding, which developed in the late sixties, forced upon many wooden-ship builders a competition difficult to meet, and the Dickie family came to the United States and to San Francisco late in 1869. There Dickie first found employment with the Pacific Gas Company in the design, construction, and erection of a gas plant; then, in the employ of the Risdon Iron Works, he was engaged in other important engineering undertakings of an ever widening scope. He was interested in pioneer enterprises and in new and bold projects.
He was a general manager of the Union Iron Works from 1883 to 1905. During the time in the Union Iron Works, he was responsible for the construction of some eleven vessels of the then new steel navy— most notable among them being the battleship Oregon which made a name for itself by its record voyage around Cape Horn at the beginning of the Spanish-American War, and the cruiser Olympia which served as Dewey’s flagship at Manila Bay.
He was also responsible for the design and construction of many ships for the merchant marine and for a wide variety of other engineering work carried on by his company, including the dome of the Lick Observatory, designed and built under his direction.
With the entrance of the United States into the World War in 1917, he offered his services to the government and was appointed chief inspector at the Moore & Scott Yards in Oakland, California, in which position he was active up to the time of his death.
He was a prolific writer on engineering subjects, especially in the field of marine construction. He took an active part in the organization of the American Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers and was a frequent contributor to its Transactions and a regular attendant at its annual meetings.
His achievements in the field of marine design brought him into contact with Irving M. Scott of the Union Iron Works; he became a member of that organization. He was also a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and served a term as vice-president of that organization.
His special contribution to his day and age is to be found in the example which he set of high standards of life both professionally and personally and more directly in the pioneer work which he did in many fields of engineering design and construction. Through work of this character carried out to practical and useful application and often discussed and presented in the form of papers before the societies of which he was a member, he made a deep and lasting impression on engineering art and practise, especially on the Pacific Coast.
He died as he would have wished, in harness, active to the last, and left an enduring record both as an engineer and as a good citizen and a kind friend.
Dickie was a man of deep and lasting friendships, kindly and sympathetic in his relations to those with whom he came in contact, but not sparing in helpful and searching criticism where he judged such to be called for.
Dickie was a man of wide vision and of many interests outside that of his profession. Most notable perhaps were his interest in astronomy already referred to, and his interest as a bibliophile in the collection of books and of rare and beautiful bindings. One of the tragedies of his life was the loss of his library of rare and precious bindings and of rare first editions in the San Francisco fire of 1906.
On August 5, 1873 Dickie married Anna Jack, born in Denny, Scotland, on her mother’s side coming from a long line of Presbyterian preachers. After her death, he was married a second time, in 1901, Louise Barney.
