John Askew Dickinson
John Askew Dickinson (c1892-1959) of ICI Metals Division
1959 Obituary [1]
John Askew Dickinson, whose death occurred on 28th May 1959 in his sixty-seventh year, had served as Honorary Secretary of the Midland Branch from 20th January 1955 until the date of his death.
He took up practice as a Consulting Engineer after his retirement from Imperial Chemical Industries (Metals Division).
Born on 6th November 1892, he was educated at Swanley Grammar School. He served an apprenticeship with Bryan Donkin Co., Ltd., Chesterfield, and received his technical education at Chesterfield and Birmingham Technical Schools. He was then employed in the Drawing Office of Kynoch, Ltd., Birmingham, prior to his war service from 1914 to 1919 in the Royal Engineers.
He returned to Kynoch's as Assistant Chief Draughtsman and then in 1920 accepted a similar position with I.C.I. Metals with whom he made his career until his retirement in 1954. In 1924 he was appointed Manager of the Wire Rivet Department, King's Norton Works; 1929, Assistant Works Manager, Selly Oak Works; 1930, Engineer in charge of the installation of plant in a new non-ferrous strip rolling mill at Wilton (Witton?) Works; 1931, Assistant to a Senior Engineer dealing with cartridge and miscellaneous plant; 1932, Safety Engineer for all works of the Metals Group.
He remained on accident prevention work until the outbreak of the 1939-45 war when he was seconded with several other engineers to develop and operate A.R.P. organization. In 1941 he became A.R.P. and Security Officer, M.O.S. Agency Factory, Kidderminster, and Tool Plant Engineer of a group of four factories: in 1946 he was appointed to liquidate and purchase M.O.S. plant in the Metals Division. From 1950 until his retirement he held the appointment of Engineer in charge of maintenance, construction and installation of all ammunition plant of the Division.
His election as Associate Member took place in 1922 and he transferred to Member in 1956.