The Indian Mutiny medal awarded to Assistant Surgeon L. F. Dickson, 2nd Sikh Police Corps, who was also attached ‘in medical charge in the field’ to Shannon’s Naval Brigade, February-September 1858; he afterwards emigrated to Australia but finally settled on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, where a nature reserve today bears his name

Indian Mutiny 1857-59, 1 clasp, Lucknow (Asst. Surgn. L. F. Dickson 2nd Sikh Police Corps) good very fine and rare £1,200-£1,600

Lindsay Frederick Dickson was born on 26 October 1834, at Cheltenham, son of the distinguished physician Samuel Dickson later of 28 Bolton Street, Mayfair and his wife, ‘the beauty of Edinburgh’, Eliza, daughter of David Johnston of Overton and niece of Lord Campbell, Lord High Chancellor of Ireland. Samuel, after serving with the 30th Regiment of Foot in Madras for five years, published a book on the tropical diseases of India. His surgery of over 7,000 patients in Cheltenham made him a wealthy man but Samuel Dickson was a controversial physician who, by 1860, at his own expense, produced a monthly hand-written journal, The People’s Medical Enquirer, in which he advanced the cause of Dicksonian truth whilst exposing the errors of others. Samuel waged a long campaign against bloodletting which, he felt, weakened patients and instead he advocated the use of stimulants such as Quinine and alcohol. His lectures on the ‘Fallacies of the Faculty’ and the ‘Chrono-thermal System of Medicine’ were treated by the medical establishment with scepticism and he was ostracised by his peers. While he was not without supporters in England, his chief following was in the United States where the Penn Medical College of Philadelphia was founded to teach his doctrines.

Lindsay was educated Aberdeen University, King's College, London, M.R.C.S. 1856 and L.S.A 1856, and St. Andrews, Scotland, M.D. 1857.
He was appointed Assistant-Surgeon, 4 August 1857; Surgeon, 4 August 1869; Surgeon-Major, 1 July 1879; Brigade-Surgeon, 27 November 1882, and retired the following year.

His Employment and Services in the Field plus additions are as follows:

He arrived at Calcutta, 5 December 1857, and was appointed to accompany a detachment of recruits of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Fusiliers from Barrackpore to Cawnpore where, on 8 February 1858, he was appointed to the Shannon’s Naval Brigade, being present with it until its departure back to Calcutta in September 1858. He was in medical charge in the field in the absence of Surgeon Flanagan, who had been taken with fever. ‘The Devil's Wind’ by Verney states that the hospital at Lucknow was in such an exposed position that it was relocated to a village 150 yards away. The enemy received information of the move and redirected their fire, whereby two camels were killed by round shot and another went through the building where Dr. Dickson and some staff were operating.

On 10 October 1858, he took medical charge of a detachment of recruits, 70 women and 70 children to Allahabad per the flat Mala Ganga arriving at Calcutta on 10 November.

On 18 November 1858, he took medical charge of the 2nd Sikh Police Battalion at Bulleah which was engaged in protecting the Gorackpore Frontier towards Nepal.

In January 1859 he transferred to 20th Regiment Punjab Infantry, during several expeditions against flying parties of rebels in the Shahabad District.

In September 1859 he was placed in medical charge of the 3rd Sikh Cavalry at Tirhoot and accompanied the regiment to Segowlee until forced by illness to go to Dinapore, where he was ordered to England for 15 months on Medical Certificate, returning to India on 9 August 1861.

He served 5 years with the Mewar Infantry, with a brief period with the Malwa Bheel Corps; served 2 years, Bengal Artillery; 8 months, Bengal Sappers and Miners; 6 months each with 25th and 28th Bengal Native Infantry; and one year with 13th (Shekhawatti) Native Infantry.

He served further various lengths of service in Civil Charge of the districts of Azimgarh, Mymensingh, Nagode and Roorkee.

On 15 June 1869, Lindsay Frederick married Charlotte, the daughter of John Kirkpatrick, former Chief Justice of the Legislative Council of the Ionian Islands, and his wife Jean, at Edinburgh. Through her uncle William Kirkpatrick of Malaga, Charlotte was a direct cousin of the future Empress Eugenie. Charlotte bore Lindsay 8 children, although 3 died tragically young.

On retirement, after serving for 22 years and 6 days, he sailed with his family to Australia. The Register of the Medical Practitioners for 1885 in the Victorian Police Gazette shows that Dr. Dickson had already registered in Melbourne as early as 7 May 1880. Walch’s Tasmanian Almanac for 1881 shows that he also registered in the town of Bothwell, a remote outpost on the island. Dickson and family remained in Australia for 5 years.

In the late 1880s Dickson joined an established community of soldiers’ families who had come from India to settle on Vancouver Island. They were attracted in part by the excellent trout and salmon fishing on Cowichan River and Lake, but also by low property prices. Dickson bought a property on Denman Island and a house in Vancouver, wintering in Santa Cruz, California where he established a medical practice. In 1889 he further purchased the Cowichan Lake Hotel, remotely located on the mouth of the Campbell River.

An Angler’s Paradise – Sport fishing and Settler Society on Vancouver Island 1860s-1920s, by Diana Pedersen, gives an atmospheric account of their lives and experiences with Dickson being one of the leading citizens of the community. At Santa Cruz Dickson was exposed to the new pastime of big-game fishing that was sweeping the sporting world. He brought his knowledge of angling for large salmon from Monterey Bay to the Campbell River, where he was considered an authority on tackle and lures, and even patented a reel of his own design at El Paso. In 1903 he created two salmon-angling world records at the Campbell River; the first, confirmed by the The Field magazine, to which Dickson contributed many articles, was for the greatest weight of salmon caught by a rod in one day; 12 Tyee (Chinook) salmon were landed weighing 458 pounds. The second was for the greatest weight of salmon caught by a rod in 16 days of fishing, an impressive 92 Tyee weighing 3,665 pounds.

As a respected medical authority, his expertise was sought by provincial and legal health authorities. At the time of a local outbreak of smallpox he was appointed Municipal Health Officer and Public Vaccinator for the Cowichan District. Between 1890 and 1893 he served as medical examiner and testified at inquests in several cases of accidental or unexplained deaths. In October 1891 he rowed 40 miles to Saturna Island to conduct a post mortem examination on a man who had fallen and died during an attack of delirium tremens.

His wife Charlotte, who had diabetes and had been ill for some time, died at St. Joseph’s Hospital, Victoria in February 1907, aged 64. Dickson died of throat cancer on 25 April 1908, but not before he had married Elizabeth in October 1907. Both Lindsay and Charlotte were buried in the family plot at Ross Bay Cemetery, Victoria.

After a 10 year campaign by the Denman Conservancy Association, 134 acres of forested land and foreshore, part of the Lindsay Dickson estate, was purchased by the Province of British Columbia in 2001 and transferred to the Islands Trust Fund. It is now known as the Lindsay Dickson Nature Reserve, making it one of the most pristine unlogged forests in British Columbia.

Lot is sold with a comprehensive file of research together with Wills and the service records of two sons.