The son of a Northumberland man, Dixon was born and educated in Glasgow before taking over the management of the Calder Iron Works from his late father. The family also owned the Govanhill district of Glasgow (hence Dixon Street) and the Govan Iron Works and Colliery, where over 1,000 men were employed.
Dixon built tramways across various parts of the city, put forward the original plans for a railway to Greenock, and was sole proprietor of the Polloc and Govan Railway. He was fond of proposing new Acts of Parliament and pursuing lawsuits, such that much of his money was spent this way. In 1847 he stood for parliament, unsuccessfully, as a Liberal.
Health problems towards the end of his life saw him live for part of each year in the south of England and in Cannes. He married twice, and left two children.
GLASGOW may be said to be built upon a coalfield - the whole district around it abounding in coal and iron. Blast furnaces are built within its bounds, and their lurid glare may be seen every evening in the eastern and south-eastern sky.
For centuries the existence of coal in the neighbourhood had been known, but known as a thing of little worth. In 1578 the coal "haighes" around the city were the property of the Archbishop, and were not considered worth over £5 a year. In 1655 their value was considerably increased ; at that time those of Gorbals alone fetched about £33 per annum, held on a lease of thirteen years. In 1778 the coal consumption in Glasgow, including Greenock and Port-Glasgow, was 181,800 carts. In 1823 the Govan colliery shipped from the harbour 14,150 tons (in 293 vessels).
In those days the surface of the earth was supposed to constitute its entire value ; no one thought of looking beneath his feet for wealth. The man who could see through a stone wall was esteemed the clever man of the day ; but the man who could see fifty to a hundred feet below the surface of the ground was not then discovered. But time showed that such men there were, and the Dixons of Calder and Govanhill were among the first of this order.
William Dixon of Govanhill was a native of the city. He was born there in the year 1788. His father was an Englishman. In 1771 he came from Northumberland and settled in this neighbourhood - coming from the south to the north to seek a fortune, thus reversing what most people said was the common order of things. Dixon, however, ventured on this. He was then young, hardly more than eighteen. He knew if money was to be made he must make it himself - everything depended on the man's using his brains and his eyes. He was ingenious, energetic, and, for his position in life, accomplished. In the North of England he had to do with coalfields and coal workings. When he came to Scotland, his penetrating eye soon enabled him to see that he was in a land of mineral wealth far more precious than gold. He went to work with a will, and after a number of years we find him lessee of the Govan coalfield. Then after a while he became a partner in the Calder Iron Works, and ultimately became their proprietor. He next bought the estate of Govanhill. Buying bit by bit, he soon acquired the properties of Wilsontown and Fauldhouse. In all these districts he opened up fields of coal and ironstone from which millions of money have been realized. He died in October, 1822.
The property was left to his two sons, John and William. John had no love for the iron business, so sold his share in the Calder works to his youngest brother William, the subject of our present notice. Mr. Dixon had every advantage as to education. First going to the Grammar School, then to the University, he was thoroughly educated in the arts and sciences. In his early life he laboured and toiled in the personal management of his father's great business. Now he did the same for his own.
He was astir early in the morning - by six o' clock he would often be found at the pithead. He had no hesitation about descending to ascertain that everything was being properly attended to at the bottom. He was on the ground ready to superintend the boring of a new pit, or give instructions as to machinery. By ten o'clock he would always be found in his counting-house, sketching out the business of the day. In the evening he would be found maturing new plans for fresh operations, or interested in things that concerned the advancement and prosperity of his native city - all of which he would carry out, or help to carry out, with signal success. His mental capacity was great - his administrative powers were of a high order. He was well entitled to be ranked as one of the originators and controllers of the coal and iron trades of Scotland.
The Govan Iron Works and Colliery form one of the sights and wonders of Glasgow, employing over 1,000 men. Long before railways were in existence, the Dixons had iron tramways from their Govan pits, first to the Paisley Canal, and thence below the canal to the Clyde. These tramways crossed the old well-known Butterbiggings Road, crossed the road to Pollokshaws, crossed the road from Eglinton Street, and thence to the canal and the Clyde. The trucks were drawn by horses.
Ever active in his own pursuits, Mr. Dixon quietly displayed at the same time the characteristics of the true citizen. No public duty did he ever shirk. He had strong masculine common sense, and when he took up any project he went through with it with vigour and determination, it mattered not what the cost might be. In this way, of course, large sums of money were expended. He never hoarded money, he spent it with an open hand - on many things it was lavished with profusion. Anything that appeared as an undertaking that would give honest employment to his fellow-citizens would at once receive his heartiest support. He was at it with his head, and he would prop it with his purse.
Mr. Dixon had one dangerous failing - a fondness for law. It is said that he had more lawsuits in his day than any peer or commoner in Scotland ever had. He was a perfect treasury to the lawyers of Glasgow, Edinburgh, and London. He was constantly proposing new Acts of Parliament, and it is believed that most of these were carried through. No man in this century has so often stood as appellant and respondent in the House of Lords as William Dixon ; and as showing the correctness of his judgment and the justness of his cause, in most cases he was successful.
Lord Eldin, Ordinary (old John Clerk), sitting one morning when the roll was being called in the Outer House of the Court of Session, was led to say, and said in his own broad Scotch, "Bless me, is it my freen' Mr. Dixon again? I protest, he should get a Lord Ordinary to himsel', allenarly." Of course this set the whole Bar into a roar of laughter. This may have been fun to them, but it is supposed that Mr. Dixon spent in this way nearly a quarter of a million of money. The roll of the Parliament House in those days constantly resounded with his name. "The Clyde Trustees against Dixon," "Dixon against the Clyde Trustees," "Dixon against Fleming," "Dixon against the Monkland Canal Company," "The Monkland Canal Company against Dixon," "Neilson and the Hot Blast against Dixon," "Dixon and others against the Hot Blast." These, and a multitude like these, were constantly coming up, and in carrying on work of this sort, money goes quickly, and large sums were spent.
Mr. Dixon was not a man to be trifled with. If he thought the Clyde Trustees were charging him more than they should for carrying his large shipments of coals to Greenock, he would at once resist. He had no fear of even such a powerful body as the Clyde Trustees. If they would not carry his coal and his iron on what he thought fair and reasonable rates, he would tell them he would make a railway to Greenock. A railway to Greenock ! They laughed him to scorn. They were interested in the coal vessels, and then there were swift steamers on the Clyde - a railway to Greenock ! But to Greenock a railway was made, and William Dixon sketched out the plan, and saw it perfected and completed ; and the Clyde Trustees saw Mr. Dixon's coals carried to Greenock by railway. In like manner he sketched out the Clydesdale Junction Railway, which first led to the great Caledonian line. In that undertaking Mr. Dixon was the largest shareholder. He was sole proprietor of the Polloc and Govan Railway - a line from Rutherglen to the harbour.
While Mr. Dixon pursued with ardour all his own large and varied individual undertakings - acquiring within a short time the estates of Crosshill, Carfin, Broomelton, Earnockmuir, Mosesfield, &c. - he was far from being inattentive to the welfare of the public. Perhaps no man in the West of Scotland took a more lively interest in public affairs, or devoted more time or money to protect the community from real or supposed grievances. In early life he was a politician. He was one of an independent and manly band who fought for Liberalism when Liberals were rather out in the cold. Fox then was the idol of the people. Here, Mr. Dixon was ready with his usual energy and his usual liberality. His purse was ever found open. He took an active and prominent part in the early efforts for reform in Parliament. When the Burgh Reform Act was passed, he was elected a member of the first reformed Town Council - a council memorable for the number of high-class citizens it contained. In 1847 he was requested by his friends to offer himself as a candidate for the representation of the City in Parliament. In this he failed, though he obtained more than 1,800 votes out of a constituency of little more than 4,000, his opponent, Mr. Hastie, then Lord Provost and also a Liberal, being the successful man.
Mr. Dixon's prodigality in spending money once brought him serious annoyance, an annoyance that a little prudence would have avoided. He had property, good, undoubted property, but it was locked up. He had enough to pay every man ten times more than he owed, but he dealt in such large transactions that even the banks and his friends said, "No ; further you must not go." He, like a brave man, put himself into the hands of his friends. John Tennant of St. Rollox, and others, acting as a body of Trustees, put everything right, but not until after Mr. Dixon's death. They secured the valuable services of Mr. William Johnston, the manager of the Commercial Bank, and having paid off every obligation there was said to have been more than a million to the good.
For a number of years prior to his death, Mr. Dixon never enjoyed good health. Latterly he resided part of the year in the South of England, and in the winter and spring at Cannes. He died in London in 1859. He married, first, Miss Strang, a sister of our old and respected City Chamberlain ; and, second, the widow of James Stuart, Esq., S.S.C., Edinburgh. By his first wife he left two children, William S. Dixon and Miss Dixon, the latter of whom died in 1876 unmarried. His son, William Smith Dixon, succeeded him in the estates and works, and formed the latter into a private limited company in 1872. He died in London in June, 1880, having married in 1851 Catherine Anne, daughter of David Napier, merchant, of Singapore, by whom he had no children, and who died in 1884.
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