Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 15.djvu/134

 further researches, published a first volume of ‘Fasti Eboracenses; Lives of the Archbishops of York’ (1863, 8vo), which includes the first forty-four primates of the northern province, ending with John de Thoresby, 1373. This learned and valuable work is almost wholly written by Canon Raine, the materials left by Dixon being inadequate. The remainder of the work, for which Dixon's manuscript collections are more full, has not yet appeared.

[Raine's preface to Fasti Ebor.; Fowler's Memorials of Ripon (Surtees Soc.), 1886, ii. 340; Le Neve's Fasti, ed. Hardy, iii. 225, 332; Graduati Cantab.; a short memoir of Dixon was privately printed by his nephew, the Rev. C. B. Norcliffe, 8vo, York, 1860; information from Canon Raine.] 

DIXON, WILLIAM HEPWORTH (1821–1879), historian and traveller, was born on 30 June 1821, at Great Ancoats in Manchester. He came of an old puritan family, the Dixons of Heaton Royds in Lancashire. His father was Abner Dixon of Holmfirth and Kirkburton in the West Riding of Yorkshire, his mother being Mary Cryer. His boyhood was passed in the hill country of Over Darwen, under the tuition of his grand-uncle, Michael Beswick. As a lad he became clerk to a merchant named Thompson at Manchester. Before he was of age he wrote a five-act tragedy called ‘The Azamoglan,’ which was even privately printed. In 1842–3 he wrote articles signed W. H. D. in the ‘North of England Magazine.’ In December 1843 he first wrote under his own name in Douglas Jerrold's ‘Illuminated Magazine.’ Early in 1846 he decided to attempt a literary career. He was for two months editor of the ‘Cheltenham Journal.’ While at Cheltenham he won two principal essay prizes in Madden's ‘Prize Essay Magazine.’ In the summer of 1846, on the strong recommendation of Douglas Jerrold, he moved to London. He soon entered at the Inner Temple, but was not called to the bar until 1 May 1854. He never practised. He became contributor to the ‘Athenæum’ and the ‘Daily News.’ In the latter he published a series of startling papers on ‘The Literature of the Lower Orders,’ which probably suggested Henry Mayhew's ‘London Labour and the London Poor.’ Another series of articles, descriptive of the ‘London Prisons,’ led to his first work, ‘John Howard and the Prison World of Europe,’ which appeared in 1849, and though declined by many publishers passed through three editions. In 1850 Dixon brought out a volume descriptive of ‘The London Prisons.’ At about the same time he was appointed a deputy-commissioner of the first great international exhibition, and helped to start more than one hundred out of three hundred committees then formed. His ‘Life of William Penn’ was published in 1851; in a supplementary chapter ‘Macaulay's charges against Penn,’ eight in number, were elaborately answered [see ]. Macaulay never took any notice of these criticisms, though a copy of Dixon's book was found close by him at his death.

During a panic in 1851 Dixon brought out an anonymous pamphlet, ‘The French in England, or Both Sides of the Question on Both Sides of the Channel,’ arguing against the possibility of a French invasion. In 1852 Dixon published a life of ‘Robert Blake, Admiral and General at Sea, based on Family and State Papers’ [see ]. It was more successful with the public than with serious historians. After a long tour in Europe he became, in January 1853, editor of the ‘Athenæum,’ to which he had been a contributor for some years. In 1854 Dixon began his researches in regard to Francis Bacon, lord Verulam. He procured, through the intervention of Lord Stanley and Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, leave to inspect the ‘State Papers,’ which had been hitherto jealously guarded from the general view by successive secretaries of state. He published four articles criticising Campbell's ‘Life of Bacon’ in the ‘Athenæum’ for January 1860. These were enlarged and republished as ‘The Personal History of Lord Bacon from Unpublished Papers’ in 1861. He published separately as a pamphlet in 1861 ‘A Statement of the Facts in regard to Lord Bacon's Confession,’ and a more elaborate volume called ‘The Story of Lord Bacon's Life,’ 1862. Dixon's books upon Bacon obtained wide popularity both at home and abroad, but have not been highly valued by subsequent investigators (see remarks in Bacon, i. 386). Some of his papers in the ‘Athenæum’ led to the publication of the ‘Auckland Memoirs’ and of ‘Court and Society,’ edited by the Duke of Manchester. To the last he contributed a memoir of Queen Catherine. In 1861 Dixon travelled in Portugal, Spain, and Morocco, and edited the ‘Memoirs of Lady Morgan,’ who had appointed him her literary executor. In 1863 Dixon travelled in the East, and on his return helped to found the Palestine Exploration Fund. Dixon was an active member of the executive committee, and eventually became chairman. In 1865 he published ‘The Holy Land,’ a picturesque handbook to Palestine. In 1866 Dixon travelled through the United States, going as far westward as