William "Billy" Dickson
William "Billy" Dickson is a quandary. On Wikipedia he is given as born in 1866 in Crail in Fife. The inestimable Andy Mitchell has him also born that year but in Perth-shire and as is normally the case it looks like he is right. Billy was in fact born a McFarlane, the second illegitimate son of Isabella, a Flax Winder, and in Rattray on the Perthshire-Angus border. He only became a Dickson when in 1871 his mother married in Coupar Angus a railway-worker, John Dickson, had two children with him and between them moved to Dundee. Thus it was that Billy learned the game there and began, originally a boiler-maker to trade, his football career at twenty, a forward, with Strathmore and a single cap before in 1888 Sunderland came calling.
At that point he married his local girl, Jessie McLaren, and headed South, seemingly, to start to with, alone . They were to have two children born in Scotland, whereas the rest of the family, four more, would be English-born.
But it was only to be year on Wearside until joining Aston Villa for three seasons and fifty-eight starts at two goals every three days. And from there it was on to Stoke, where he was to stay for the rest of what would be a shortish life. Officially retiring from playing in 1896, so at thirty, he would turn to pub-owning, the Prince of Wales inn in the city, and become a director of the football club.
But retirement would only last fourteen years. He would die of Bright's Disease in his pub aged just forty-three to be buried in Stoke's Harthill Cemetery. Jessie would survive him by fifteen years, dying also in Stoke in 1925 at the age of sixty-two.
Birth Locator:
Residence Locations:
1881 - 16, Union Place, Dundee
1888 - 38, Seafield Road, Dundee
1891 - N/A
1901 - Prince of Wales Inn, Liverpool Road, Stoke-on-Trent
1910 - Prince of Wales Inn, Liverpool Road, Stoke-on-Trent
Death Locator:
1910 - Prince of Wales Inn, Liverpool Road, Stoke-on-Trent
Grave Locator:
Stoke aka Hartshill Cemetery, Stoke-on-Trent
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