Margaret Rebecca Dickinson

Margaret Rebecca Dickinson (1821–1918) was a botanical artist who lived in north-east England and the Scottish Borders. Her watercolour paintings of plants collected around her homes, and other parts of the British Isles are in the archives of the Royal Horticultural Society and the Great North Museum: Hancock. As well as their artistic quality they provide information on how land use in the region has changed since her time.

Life Dickinson was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 22 July 1821 to William Ogle and Elizabeth (née Davidson) Dickinson, the oldest of their children. Her father was a tobacco and snuff manufacturer in Newcastle. She lived with her parents, three sisters and a brother. Her brother inherited the tobacco business. She did not marry and was of independent means because of the family's wealth. She died there on 9 December 1918.

In 1873 Dickinson became an honorary member of the Berwickshire Naturalists Club, and contributed her paintings to exhibitions and attended meetings until 1908. She went on the society's field visit to Lindisfarne in 1874, painting several plants that she found there. The Royal Horticultural Society holds her Album of Narcissus that has 30 paintings of daffodil cultivars and species that she made between May 1886 and April 1893. This was bought at an auction in 1996.

Poet Linda France was inspired in 2018 to write the poem Portrait of the Artist as an Island Flower by the paintings Dickinson made after visiting Lindisfarne.

Elizabeth Towner wrote a biography of Dickinson in 2021 where she stated that there was no known photo of Dickinson. Claire Jones and the Natural History Society of Northumbria, curated an exhibition of Dr. Kathleen Blackburn, Mary Jane Hancock, ornithologist Catharine Hodgkin, Dr. Marie V. Lebour, bryologist Evelyn M. Lobley, Grace Hickling and Dickinson, in 2018. The Women Naturalists of North East England exhibition included a cover photo which was misidentified as Dickinson. The photo (on page three) was of Mary Jane Hancock.

From October 2022 until February 2023, there was an exhibition of her work in the Granary Gallery at the Maltings, Berwick-upon-Tweed.