Baron Oscar Dickson, or Oskar Dickson (2 December 1823 – 6 June 1897) was a Swedish magnate, bulk merchant, industrialist and philanthropist from a family of Scottish origin. In his time he was considered the most affluent of all Swedes.

Court cases

Dickson was a partner in a company that owned ships and

sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logging, logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes ...

s. The

Baggböle Baggböle is a small village on the Ume River in northern Sweden, approximately upstream of the city of Umeå. The village was a base for sawing local timber in the nineteenth century, with a sawmill powered by the water of the river rapids close ...

sawmill's business methods first came to a head when James Dickson Jr was taken to court in 1850. The accusation was that the sawmill had cut wood that belonged to the king.The Term "Baggböleri"
, SkogsMuseet, retrieved 27 May 2014 Dickson was fortunate to avoid prosecution. The saw mill business processed thousands of trees in the nineteenth century.Welcome to the Arboretum North!
, arboretun-norr.se, retrieved 17 May 2014 Baggbolingarnas tingsfard

The exploitation of Crown timber could not continue and in 1866-7 the company was again taken to court and this time they were obliged to agree to help prevent the use of Crown timber. Oscar Dickson and the company were featured in satirical cartoons. This was the time when the new Swedish word "Baggböleri" was first seen in print which was a synonym for the exploitation of forests. Dickson, along with King Oscar II of Sweden and

Aleksandr Mikhaylovich Sibiryakov Alexander Mikhaylovich Sibiryakov () ( in Irkutsk – 2 November 1933) was a Russian gold mine and factories owner and explorer of Siberia. Biography Sibiryakov graduated from the Zurich polytechnic institute in Switzerland. Later in life, he ...

, was the patron of a number of Arctic expeditions in the 19th century. He sponsored

Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld Nils Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld (; 18 November 183212 August 1901) was a Finland-Swedish aristocrat, geologist, mineralogist and Arctic explorer. He was a member of the noble Nordenskiöld family of scientists and held the title of a friherre (ba ...

's explorations to the Canadian and the Russian Arctic and

Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...

, as well as

Fridtjof Nansen Fridtjof Wedel-Jarlsberg Nansen (; 10 October 1861 – 13 May 1930) was a Norwegian polymath and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. He gained prominence at various points in his life as an explorer, scientist, diplomat, humanitarian and co-founded the ...

's Polar journey on the '' Fram''. Ever an Arctic enthusiast, Oscar Dickson contributed to sponsor several important Polar ventures between the years 1860 and 1900. Dickson was ennobled by King Oscar in 1880 and was raised to the status of Baron in 1885, the last person to be so in Sweden. Dickson was a member of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences () is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special responsibility for promoting nat ...

from 1878.

Honours

Dikson and

Dikson Island Dikson Island (), initially Dickson, is an island in Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District (), Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, situated in the Kara Sea near the mouth of the Yenisei River. A nearby urban-type settlement of Dikson, which functions as a ...

in the

Kara Sea The Kara Sea is a marginal sea, separated from the Barents Sea to the west by the Kara Strait and Novaya Zemlya, and from the Laptev Sea to the east by the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago. Ultimately the Kara, Barents and Laptev Seas are all ...

were named after Oscar Dickson, as were Dicksonfjorden and

Dickson Land Dickson Land is a land area between Isfjorden and Wijdefjorden at Spitsbergen, Svalbard Svalbard ( , ), previously known as Spitsbergen or Spitzbergen, is a Norway, Norwegian archipelago that lies at the convergence of the Arctic Ocean w ...

Svalbard Svalbard ( , ), previously known as Spitsbergen or Spitzbergen, is a Norway, Norwegian archipelago that lies at the convergence of the Arctic Ocean with the Atlantic Ocean. North of continental Europe, mainland Europe, it lies about midway be ...

References

* https://www.jstor.org/stable/1774402 *https://www.nytimes.com/1896/02/20/archives/baron-oscar-dickson-is-skeptical.html
DOI.org
* Swedish explorers Swedish people of Scottish descent 19th-century Swedish nobility Explorers of Siberia Explorers of the Arctic Kara Sea Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 1823 births 1897 deaths Businesspeople from Gothenburg Knights of the Order of Charles XIII {{sweden-business-bio-stub

Court cases

Honours

See also

References