A historian born in 1897 and educated at Millhill, Perthshire and St Andrews and London University. During the First World War he served in France and in Flanders. Later William Croft Dickson became Librarian of the British Library of Political and Economic Science at the London School of Economics (1933-44). He published several books:
The Sheriff Court Book of Fife – 1928
The Court Book of the Barony of Carnwath – 1937
and collaborated on a facsimile edition of The Chronicles of Melrose – 1936
In 1944 he became Professor of Scottish History and Palaeography at Edinburgh University a post he held until his death in 1963. During this time he helped revive Scottish Historical Studies and edited the Scottish Historical Review (1947-63) as well as producing a two volume edition of John Knox’s History of the Reformation in Scotland (1949), a three volume Source Book of Scottish History, Early Records of the Burgh of Aberdeen (1957), Robert Bruce (1960), A History of Scotland From the Earliest Times to 1603 (1961) and numerous ghost stories.