author

W. E. (William Edward) Dickson

1823–1910

A 19th-century clergyman and writer, he moved easily between practical books on church music and architecture and a boys’ tale published much earlier in his career. His surviving works suggest a thoughtful churchman with a strong interest in Ely Cathedral and the life of worship around it.

1 Audiobook

Practical Organ Building

Practical Organ Building

by W. E. (William Edward) Dickson

About the author

Born in 1823 and dying in 1910, William Edward Dickson is listed by the Library of Congress under the form "W. E. (William Edward) Dickson." The same authority record also identifies him as "the Rev. Canon Dickson, M.A.," which places him clearly in the Anglican clergy as well as in the world of religious writing.

His books show a wide but connected range of interests. Early on, he published Storm and Sunshine; or, The Boyhood of Herbert Falconer in 1857, a juvenile tale. Later works point more directly to his church life and scholarship, including A Catalogue of Ancient Choral Services and Anthems... in the Cathedral Church of Ely (1861), Fifty Years of Church Music (1894), and Ely Cathedral (published in the 1890s and reissued in the early 1900s).

Taken together, those titles make him feel less like a purely literary novelist and more like a practical, informed church author: someone interested in worship, music, cathedral history, and explaining them in an accessible way. I wasn’t able to confirm a reliable portrait from the sources I found, so no image is included here.