7. References

For help and advice I thank: Valerie Adams of the Presbyterian Historical Society (PHS); Evelyn Barrett and her Belfast Central Library colleagues; Joe Baker; Robert and Wesley Bonar and the staff at Sentry Hill; Prof. Richard Clarke; Prof. Ian Hazlett; Ryan Kidd; Derek Lundy; Prof. Ian McBride; Desmond McCabe and colleagues at PRONI, Belfast; Susan Richardson Williams and her family and colleagues in Greeneville; and the staff of the Linen Hall Library, the McClay Library, and Union Theological College, Belfast.

I am grateful to Rev. William McMillan and Rev. John Nelson, and Dr Graham Johnson of the John Rylands Library, even though their searches have been largely unrewarded. Alexander Gordon's sources are worth listing, and his last is my cousin: "For Dickson's life the main authority is his own Narrative, amended on some minor points in his Retractations, but bearing evident marks of genuineness and truth. A short biography is given in Witherow's Hist. and Lit. Mem. of Presb. in Ireland, 2nd ser. 1880, p. 226 sq.; Classon Porter, in Irish Presb. Biog. Sketches, 1883, p. 10 sq., is fuller, but often inaccurate. Northern Star, 14 July 1792, 16 and 20 Feb. 1793; Report from the Committee of Secrecy, 1798, App. pp. cxxv, cxxix; Musgrave's Mem. of the different Rebellions in Ireland, 2nd ed. 1801, pp. 123 sq., 183; Northern Whig, 30 July 1819; Teeling's Personal Narrative of the Irish Rebellion, 1828, p. 226 sq.; Montgomery's Outlines of the Hist. of Presb. in Ireland, in Irish Unit. Mag. 1847, p. 333 sq.; Madden's United Irishmen, 2nd ser. ii. 431; Reid's Hist. Presb. Church in Ireland (Killen), 1867, iii. 396 sq.; Killen's Hist. Congr. Presb. Church in Ireland, 1886, pp. 148, 163, 215 sq.; Minutes of Gen. Synod; information from Rev. C. J. M'Alester, Holywood, and Mr. A. Hill, Ballyearl, Carnmoney".

[1] W Desmond Bailie, William Steel Dickson, D.D., Bulletin of the Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland, vol. 6, 1976; revised for Protestant, Catholic & Dissenter, ed. Liam Swords, Columba Press 1997, and Radicals and Revivals, Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland, 2006.

[2] C Hill, Carntall and Greenville, in North Irish Roots, 2016, NIFHS. Letters relating to William Steel Dickson, filed with NIFHS and PHS. William Galaway Dickson, in preparation.

[3] W S Dickson, Narrative, John Stockdale, Dublin, 1812.

[4] W S Dickson, Retractations, Joseph Smyth, Belfast, 1813. The full titles are much longer but the keywords Narrative and Retractations are generally used.

[5] Robert Bonar, notes in NIFHS Research Centre, Newtownabbey.

[6] Dictionary of National Biography, Smith, Elder & Co., 1888; article on Dickson by Alexander Gordon. See also Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge University Press, 2009; the Dickson article was revised by Ian McBride.

[7] Correspondence of Rev. William T Latimer and William Fee McKinney. Latimer (1842-1919) was a Presbyterian minister and historian. McKinney (1832-1917) was an Ulster-Scots Carnmoney farmer with a tendency to hoard; his life, family, photographs and multiple interests have been preserved and latterly made public, with help from many including Prof. Brian Walker, Joe Dundee, Isobel Crozier, and the custodians of Newtownabbey Borough Council and Carnmoney Presbyterian Church.

Latimer and McKinney, with other notables such as F J Bigger, took fresh interest in the controversies and personalities of "1798" as its centenary approached. Latimer died in 1919 and his estate was handled by his son William J Latimer and son-in-law Aston Robinson, both Presbyterian ministers. Some materials went to the PHS and the Allen manuscript collection; probably some were dispersed at auction at Eglish in August 1919.

[8] Allen collection, Queen’s University.

[9] Latimer collected his newspaper articles (“perhaps I may republish some of these sketches”) in Ulster Biographies, Relating Chiefly to the Rebellion of 1798, Belfast 1897.

[10] Henry Montgomery, Outlines of the history of Presbyterianism in Ireland, Irish Unitarian Magazine, 1847.

[11] W T Latimer and I Dickson, The Rev. Dr. Wm. S. Dickson at Keady, Ulster Journal of Archaeology, Second Series, vol. 17, no. 1/4, Feb. - Nov. 1911.

[12] Richard Clarke, A Directory of Ulster Doctors (who qualified before 1901), Ulster Historical Foundation, Belfast 2013.

[13] W Innes Addison, The Matriculation Albums of the University of Glasgow From 1728 to 1858, Glasgow, James Maclehose & Sons, 1913.

[14] The late Robert Bonar (Nigh on Three and a Half Centuries, Antrim, 2004) summarises the problematic recruitment and salary of precentors (men responsible for singing and music) at Carnmoney Presbyterian Church. No link with William Steel Dickson’s family is mentioned in his book or the Church minutes; Benjamin may be the English-born music teacher Benjamin Rickaby Dixon (c. 1828-1911).

[15] National Library of Ireland Mss 13636(6), in the O’Connell papers.

[16] Kenneth Robinson, Publishing the Rev. Dr. Steel Dickson's Narrative, Journal of the Upper Ards Historical Society, No. 32, 2008.

[17] Derek Lundy, Men That God Made Mad: A Journey Through Truth, Myth and Terror in Northern Ireland, Jonathan Cape, 2006.

[18] Ian Hazlett, ‘Banishing the Demon’: the religious basis of the public life of William Steel Dickson (1744-1824), Bulletin of the Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland, vol. 30, 2010; recently updated.