Thomas Dixon, M.D. was an English nonconformist minister and tutor.

Life

Dixon was probably the son of Thomas Dixon, ‘Anglus e Northumbria,’ who graduated M.A. at Edinburgh on 19 July 1660, and was ejected from the vicarage of Kelloe

Kelloe

Kelloe is a village and civil parish in County Durham, England. It is situated to the south-east of Durham.The village of Kelloe with a name that derives from Caluh Law had eight small coal mines in its vicinity during the last century but its history goes back well before the days of mining...

, County Durham

County Durham

County Durham is a ceremonial county and unitary district in north east England. The county town is Durham. The largest settlement in the ceremonial county is the town of Darlington...

, as a nonconformist. Dixon studied at Manchester under John Chorlton

John Chorlton

John Chorlton was an English presbyterian minister and tutor.-Life:John Chorlton was born at Salford in 1666. On 4 April 1682 he was admitted to be educated for the ministry at Rathmell Academy under Richard Frankland. On completing his studies he was chosen as assistant to Henry Newcome, the...

 and James Coningham

James Coningham

James Coningham was an English presbyterian divine and tutor.-Life:Coningham was born in 1670 in England and educated at Edinburgh, where he graduated M.A. on 27 February 1694. The same year he became minister of the presbyterian congregation at Penrith...

 probably from 1700 to 1705. He is said to have gone to London after leaving the Manchester academy. In or about 1708 he succeeded Roger Anderton as minister of a congregation at Whitehaven

Whitehaven

Whitehaven is a small town and port on the coast of Cumbria, England, which lies equidistant between the county's two largest settlements, Carlisle and Barrow-in-Furness, and is served by the Cumbrian Coast Line and the A595 road...

, founded by presbyterians from the north of Ireland, and meeting in a ‘chapel that shall be used so long as the law will allow by protestant dissenters from the church of England, whether presbyterian or congregational, according to their way and persuasion.’ In a trust-deed of March 1711 he is described as ‘Thomas Dixon, clerk.’

Dixon established at Whitehaven an academy for the education of students for the ministry. He probably acted under the advice of Edmund Calamy

Edmund Calamy (historian)

Edmund Calamy was an English Nonconformist churchman, divine and historian.-Life:A grandson of Edmund Calamy the Elder, he was born in the City of London, in the parish of St Mary Aldermanbury. He was sent to various schools, including Merchant Taylors', and in 1688 proceeded to the university of...

, whom he accompanied on his journey to Scotland in 1709. During his visit to Edinburgh, Dixon received (21 April 1709) the honorary degree of M.A. The academy was in operation in 1710, and on the move of Coningham from Manchester in 1712, it became the leading nonconformist academy in the north of England. Mathematics were taught (till 1714) by John Barclay. Among Dixon's pupils were John Taylor of the Hebrew concordance, George Benson

George Benson (theologian)

George Benson was an English Presbyterian minister and theologian. According to Alexander Balloch Grosart, writing in the Dictionary of National Biography, his views were "Socinian" though at this period the term is often confused with Arian....

 the biblical critic, Caleb Rotheram

Caleb Rotheram

-Life:He was born on 7 March 1694 at Great Salkeld, Cumberland. He was educated at the grammar school of Great Blencow, Cumberland, under Anthony Ireland, and prepared for the Presbyterian ministry in the academy of Thomas Dixon at Whitehaven...

 of the Kendal academy, and Henry Winder

Henry Winder

-Life:The son of Henry Winder , farmer, by a daughter of Adam Bird of Penruddock, he was born at Hutton John, parish of Greystoke, Cumberland, on 15 May 1693. His grandfather, Henry Winder, farmer, who lived to be over a hundred , was falsely charged with murdering his first-born son...

, author of the ‘History of Knowledge.’

In 1723 Dixon moved to Bolton

Bolton

Bolton is a town in Greater Manchester, in the North West of England. Close to the West Pennine Moors, it is north west of the city of Manchester. Bolton is surrounded by several smaller towns and villages which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, of which Bolton is the...

, Lancashire

Lancashire

Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...

, as successor to Samuel Bourn

Samuel Bourn the Elder

Samuel Bourn the Elder was an English dissenting minister.-Life:Bourn was born at Derby, where his father and grandfather, who were clothiers, had shown some public spirit in providing the town with a water supply...

. He still continued his academy, and educated several ministers; but took up also the medical profession, obtaining the degree of M.D. from Edinburgh. He is said to have attained considerable practice. He died on 14 August 1729, in his fiftieth year, and was buried in his meeting-house. A mural tablet erected to his memory in Bank Street Chapel, Bolton, by his son, R. Dixon, characterises him as ‘facile medicorum et theologorum princeps.’

Family

Thomas Dixon (1721–1754), son of the above, was born 16 July 1721, and educated for the ministry in Dr. Rotheram's academy at Kendal, which he entered in 1738. His first settlement was at Thame, Oxfordshire, from 1743, on a salary of 25l. a year. On 13 May 1750 he became assistant to Dr. John Taylor at Norwich. Here, at Taylor's suggestion, he began a Greek concordance, on the plan of Taylor's Hebrew one, but the manuscript fragments of the work show that not much was done. He found it difficult to satisfy the demands of a fastidious congregation, and gladly accepted, in August 1752, a call to his father's old flock at Bolton. He was not ordained till 26 April 1753. With John Seddon of Manchester, then the only Socinian preacher in the district, he maintained a warm friendship, and is believed to have shared his views, though his publications are silent in regard to the person of our Lord. He died on 23 Feb. 1754, and was buried beside his father. Joshua Dobson of Cockey Moor preached his funeral sermon. His friend Seddon edited from his papers a posthumous tract, ‘The Sovereignty of the Divine Administration … a Rational Account of our Blessed Saviour's Temptation,’ &c., 2nd edition, 1766, 8vo. In 1810, William Turner of Newcastle had two quarto volumes, in shorthand, containing Dixon's notes on the New Testament. Dr. Charles Lloyd, in his anonymous ‘Particulars of the Life of a Dissenting Minister’ (1813), publishes (pp. 178–184) a long and curious letter, dated ‘Norwich, 28 Sept. 1751,’ addressed by Dixon to Leeson, travelling tutor to John Wilkes, and previously dissenting minister at Thame; from this Browne has extracted an account of the introduction of methodism into Norwich.