Dobson was born at Chirton, North Shields, where there is a plaque on his birthplace, now the Pineapple Inn, Wallsend Road. From an early age he showed a keen sense of design and at the age of fifteen was placed as a pupil in the office of David Stephenson, the leading builder and architect in Newcastle. After a period in London, where Dobson took drawing lessons from John Varley, he returned to Newcastle and became the most noted architect in the North of England. Churches and houses by him dot the North East - Nunnykirk, Meldon Park and Beaufront Castle among them.
John Dobson argued for the role of the architect in building railway stations and his noble Newcastle Central is regarded by many as the finest in England. According to Gordon Biddle and O.S. Nock in The Railway Heritage of Britain: 'Undoubtedly it would have been one of the finest 19th century classical buildings in Europe had it been completed... Even so, Newcastle central today is magnificent inside for its spectacular combination of curves and outside for its sheer size and length.' The train-shed at Newcastle, the authors state, was the first of the great arched roofs and represented a bold step forward which was copied by others.' It was the first use of malleable rolled iron ribs - indeed the first large glass and iron vault in England.
There is a plaque on Dobson's house in New Bridge Street almost opposite his delightful lying-in hospital of 1826