The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Dickson, Hon. James Robert
Dickson, Hon. James Robert, M.L. A., was born at Plymouth in 1832, and educated at Glasgow, and emigrated to Australia, where he engaged in mercantile pursuits in Victoria, and subsequently in Queensland, of which colony he is now a resident. He entered the Legislative Assembly of Queensland in 1873, and for a number of years represented Ennogera. He was Secretary for Public Works and Mines in the Macalister Ministry from May to June 1876, when the Government resigned. He was a member of the Douglas Cabinet as Colonial Treasurer from June 1876 to Jan. 1879, and filled the same post in the first Griffith Administration from Dec. 1883 to August 1887, when he resigned, owing to a difference of opinion with his colleagues on the subject of the land tax, of the incidence of which he disapproved. He also resigned his seat for Ennogera, in order to test the opinion of the electors, and was again returned, after a severe contest with Mr. Drake, who now holds the seat. At the general election in 1888 Mr. Dickson contested Toombul as an independent candidate, but was defeated by Mr. Gannon. Mr. Dickson, who in 1887 received the Queens permission to bear the title of Honourable within the colony, revisited England in 1890. He is a director of several of the leading banking and financial institutions of Queensland. In April 1892 he was returned to the Assembly for Bulimba at a bye-election.