Dickinson was born in London, the son of portrait painter Lowes Cato Dickinson (1819-1908) and Margaret Ellen Williams, daughter of William Smith Williams, literary advisor to Smith, Elder & Company and discoverer of Charlotte Bronte. When the boy was around a year old, his family relocated to the Spring Cottage in Hanwell, a rural village. The family also comprised his three-year-old brother, Arthur, an older sister, May, and two younger sisters, Hester and Janet. At the age of 10 or eleven, he attended a day school on Somerset Street in Portman Square. Alec John Dawson, also known as A. J. Dawson (pseudonyms: Captain Dawson, Major Dawson, Howard Kerr, Nicholas Freydon), was an English author, traveller, and novelist. During World War I, he rose to the rank of Major and received the MBE and Croix de Guerre in appreciation of his work as a military propagandist. Dawson published almost thirty books, the most well-known of which is arguably the animal adventure story Finn the Wolfhound (1908). He wrote his debut novel, Leeway (1896), under the pen name Howard Kerr. A. J. Dawson went on to publish two collections of short tales (Mere Sentiment and In the Bight of Benin) and two novels (God's Foundling and Middle Greyness) in 1897.
