Turtle Bunbury

On October 5th 2002, Emily Dacres Dixon was married to the Hon. William Leopold McClintock Bunbury in the pretty Church of Ireland in Ballyhooly in County Cork. The sun beamed blue skies across the River Blackwater flowing through, the congregation sang their hearts out and the subsequent knees up lent the occasion a golden hue that will shine bright in the memories of all who were in attendance. Among the spirits watching from the heavens was Emily's grandmother, Marjorie Dacres Dixon, herself a granddaughter of the 2nd Earl of Yarborough and his wife, Lady Victoria Hare. Marjorie's great-uncle, William Hare - Victoria's brother - was the 3rd Earl of Listowel and owned a splendid mansion just outside Ballyhooly called Convamore. As a child, Marjorie regularly joined her family on hunting and fishing trips to Convamore. In 1919, she was married at St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, to Lieutenant Henry George Dacres Dixon, a 32-year-old veteran of the Great War. For the sake of clarity, Lt. HGDD is henceforth referred to as Harry Dacres Dixon.

Marjorie Dixon was one of three children born to Henry and Edith Anderson-Pelham. She was born at 8 Stanford Road, Kensington Court, on 23rd May 1897. On 12th August 1914, two weeks before the outbreak of World War One, the 17 year old Marjorie attended the Scottish wedding of her elder sister Esme (born 9 June 1893) to William Laidlaw of Kippilaw, St. Boswells, Scotland, only son of John Laidlaw of Peebles and Glasgow. (1) Her uncle, the 4th Earl of Yarborough, was present at the wedding, as was her grandmother, Victoria, Countess of Yarborough. So too was Marjorie's younger brother, Henry Pelham, then a 14-year-old schoolboy at Eton. (2) Harry Dacres Dixon' uncle, the Reverend James Murray Dixon presided over the service as he had done for Harry's parents in 1886. The wedding took place two weeks after the second anniversary of the death of the artist Henry Murray Dixon, the Reverend's eldest son, at Vimy Ridge. The newly-weds soon settled into a house at 7 Vicarage Gardens, Kensington.

Forty five years later their second son Anthony Dacres Dixon married Philippa Spicer. Two daughters, Charlotte and Emily, were born soon afterwards. In 1989, three years after Anthony's untimely death, Philippa took up residence at The Old Rectory in Ballyhooly. Hence the spectacular setting for Emily and William's wedding.

The following sets out a potted history of the families of Marjorie Anderson-Pelham, Harry Dacres Dixon and the various countries and houses they were associated with.

Convamore

Alas, Convamore itself no longer stands. The house was one of nearly 200 big houses burned during the Irish Troubles of 1919 - 1922. It was built in the early 19th century for William Hare, later 1st Earl of Listowel, to celebrate his elevation to the peerage. The architects responsible were the celebrated Pain brothers.(3) The house, one of the first in Ireland to feature large plate glass windows, was much praised by contemporaries.

"For the first in beauty and magnificence is Convamore, now the property of the Honourable Richard Hare, eldest son of Lord Ennismore. This place was much and justly admired for the singular beauty of its situation, before it derived any adventitious graces from the hand of art. The addition of a superb house and grounds, highly dressed and judiciously planted, fully entitle it to the pre-eminence here bestowed. This fine mansion is not less calculated to gratify the accomplished spectator within than without. Lord Ennismore and his son are both distinguished for their skill and love of painting, and have in consequence profusely adorned the house with pictures of the best Masters".(4)

Another visitor noted Convamore's beautiful setting:

"… in a fine domain stretching along the banks of the Blackwater, and commanding an interesting view of the winding of that river through rich masses of woodland to the picturesque ruins of the ancient castle of Ballyhooly, situated on a rocky prominence over the Blackwater, and, with the present church and the ruins of the former, both closely adjoining, presenting a highly picturesque and romantic group".

The Earl of Listowel sold off most of the Convamore estate in the wake of the Irish land reforms of the early 20th century. The present Earl recalled his childhood at Convamore as a time of "baked potatoes from the bottom of a bonfire in the garden, and a vast Christmas tree dressed by my grandmother, who was extremely annoyed when we dashed for the presents underneath it, instead of admiring her work in dressing it. This was not unnatural, as having a staff of at least 20 indoor servants and nothing to do in the house, she had spent hours tying little baubles to the branches of the tree. I also remember the golden pheasants which fluttered about like farm-yard fowls in the great park. There was general jubilation when my grandfather celebrated his 80th birthday by half a day's woodcock shooting at Convamore".

During the War of Independence, a reign of terror swept across Ireland with a bloody tit-for-tat war between the Black and Tans and the IRA. The latter concluded that the big houses of pro-British gentry were "legitimate targets". One fine summer evening in 1921 three country houses in North County Cork were burned down in retaliation for a reprisal. Convamore was the first to go. Lord Listowel's elderly niece, Mrs. Wrixon-Beecher was in the house at the time. She survived but was found wandering dazedly around the house without her false teeth, which perished in the fire. (5)

The Earls of Listowel

Painting of a Kerry -Dexter cow from the 1830s The family of Marjorie Dacres Dixon's grandmother, Victoria, Countess of Yarborough, descend from a Norfolk branch of the Norman family of D'Harcourt. The first of the Irish line, Michael Hare, arrived in Ireland in the wake of the Cromwellian conquest and settled in Monkstown, Co. Dublin. Michael's nephew and heir, John Hare, relocated the family to Cork City where he made a considerable fortune exporting dairy produce to Britain. In 1789, the year the French Revolution broke out, John's son and eventual heir, an unscrupulous Presbyterian named Richard Hare, purchased 20,000 acres of land in County Kerry from the Knight of Kerry, as well as other properties in Cork City and Counties Cork and Tipperary. The Kerry estate included the site of the present town of Listowel, then a small village with a ruined Norman fortress. In 1796 Richard's son and heir, William Hare, increased the families' Kerry land-holdings by purchasing the lands of Ennismore from Sir Maurice Fitzgerald, Knight of Kerry.

The disastrous rebellion of the United Irishmen in 1798 spelled the end for the Irish Parliament in which William Hare had represented Athy on behalf of the Duke of Leinster. With the very real threat of a French invasion of Britain from Ireland, the British Government were adamant that Irish affairs be henceforth decided in Westminster. In 1800 the Irish Parliament voted itself out of existence and ceased to exist, an event formalised by the 1801 Act of Union. There had initially been strong opposition to the Act from the Anglo-Irish elite but many found themselves re-evaluating their position when London offered substantial "compensation" to those of a wavering disposition. Discontent amongst the aristocracy was further quelled by the reassurance that their order - the peerage - would continue to exert an influence in London through the 28 "Representative Peers of Ireland" in the British House of Lords. Among the 28 new peers was William Hare, former MP for Athy, who was created Baron Ennismore of Kerry. His father had successfully advanced his status from merchant to landowner. William now went one higher and joined the British aristocracy.

Maria Hare (nee Wyndham), Countess of Listowel Convamore was probably built to celebrate this newfound status. The lands at Convamore had been purchased from the O'Callaghan family some years before the Act of Union; a house was built in the mid 18th century by Colonel Bailey who married a daughter of Lord Doneraile. This house was demolished to build the new house, which Lord Ennismore almost immediately handed over to his eldest son, Richard. Lord Ennismore was a Whig (or Liberal). As such his advancement to the peerage in 1822 as the Earl of Listowel by Lord Liverpool's Tory government remains something of a mystery. From the time he handed over Convamore to Richard, he lived in Kingston House, Knightsbridge, and rarely returned to Ireland. He died in London in 1837 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Victoria Hare's grandfather, Richard, Viscount Ennismore, was born in 1773 and, as MP for Cork, proved himself a rabid anti-Catholic, vetoing all bills for Emancipation. In 1797, he married Catherine daughter of 1st Baron Clonbrock. In 1827, he died suddenly of "apoplexy" - presumably the word used for a heart attack . As such, when the 1st Earl died in 1837, the family estate and titles passed to Viscount Ennismore's eldest son, William Hare, 2nd Earl of Listowel. His early parliamentary career is best remembered for "Hare's Election" of 1826 in which, following major allegations of vote-rigging against Hare, a riot broke out in Kerry leaving 16 people dead. One major fear was that Hare, like his father before him, would demand his substantial tenantry vote against the bill for Catholic Emancipation then being put before Parliament. However, the 2nd Earl proved a more enlightened individual. A Free Trader and a Liberal, he regularly addressed his audience at Westminster with such speeches as "No, Sir, the cause of these evils is as clear as the noonday sun, and may be expressed in three words, Protestant against Catholic. The people of Ireland were oppressed solely because they maintained that religion which was once your own - a Protestant Church was forced upon a Catholic people". On 23rd July 1831, he married Marie Augusta Wyndham, a kinswoman of the Earl of Dunraven, who gave him five sons and six daughters (including Victoria, who was named for her godmother, Queen Victoria). (6) The 2nd Earl retired from party politics in 1846 and became a Lord-in-Waiting to Queen Victoria. He died on 4th February 1856 at the early age of 54.

Edward VII dressed in costume for the Devonshire House Ball in 1897 The 2nd Earl was succeeded by his son - Victoria's brother - another William Hare, 3rd Earl of Listowel. (7) He was born in 1833, educated at Eton and joined the Scots Guards aged 19. He was soon dispatched to serve in the Crimean War where he was seriously wounded at the battle of the Alma in September 1854. His uncle, Captain Charles Hare, was killed in the same action. Invalided home, he took up service as ADC to Baron Wodehouse, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, until he succeeded his father in 1856. He chiefly lived at Kingston House in London where he was much involved in politics although he occasionally returned to Convamore for the fishing and hunting seasons. He was also presumably present in 1870 for the opening ceremony of the new Protestant church in Ballyhooley, designed by George C. Ashlin, a pupil of Pugin. In 1865 he married Lady Erenestine Brudenell-Bruce, daughter of the 3rd Marquess of Ailesbury. On 8th December 1868, he achieved his life-long ambition when Prime Minister Gladstone rewarded his support for the Liberal party with a Peerage in the British House of Lords - "Lord Hare of Convamore". In 1873 he became, like his father, a Knight of St. Patrick, and in 1880 he became a courtier as Liberal Lord-in-Waiting to Queen Victoria, again following in his father's footsteps.(8) He also increased the family property in County Kerry from 25,500 acres in 1870 to 30,000 in 1883.

In the spring of 1885, the Earl of Listowel and Lady Erenestine received at Convamore perhaps the most prestigious visitors in Great Britain, namely the Prince (the future Edward VII) and Princess of Wales. (9) A beacon blazed on top of Ballyhooly Castle to welcome the guests and announce their arrival to people for miles around. There was, however, a disruptive element to the greeting crowd, including some young fellows who stood by the road roaring "Up the Mahdi!" in support of the Sudanese leader who had just killed the great Victorian hero, General Gordon, at Khartoum. Gladstone urged the Royal couple to make the trip to Ireland to boost their popularity but things went from bad to worse when a crowd showered them with rotten onions during a subsequent visit to Cork City. As reported by the Prince's equerry, Arthur Ellis, to Queen Victoria on April 15th: "The fact is that the lower class, the lazzaronis of Cork, which exists in overpowering numbers, were rabid rebels. No other word can convey their hostility and behaviour." However, there was a well-dressed middle class crowd to cheer the Prince and Princess outside the Protestant Cathedral. The 3rd Earl died on 5th June 1924 at the ripe old age of 91. He was the second oldest member in the House of Lords at the time. He was succeeded by his son Richard Hare (1866 - 1931), 4th Earl of Listowel. (10)

The Earls of Yarborough

The Pelhams first rose to prominence in the Middle Ages when Sir John Pelham fought alongside Edward III during the Hundred Years War. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, Field Marshall Sir William Pelham of Brocklesby in Lincolnshire emerged as one of the most eminent military commanders in England. In 1579, following the sudden death of Sir William Drury, he was appointed provisional Lord Deputy of Ireland. His wife Lady Eleanor Neville was a daughter of Henry Neville, the Earl of Westmoreland, who led the Revolt of the Northern Earls in 1569.

Subsequent generations of Pelhams continued to live at Brocklesby and advanced up the social ladder in step with Britain's advance to imperial glory. When the future of the Pelham surname was threatened by the death of the last male heir without issue, the lands and title passed to a nephew, Charles Anderson (1749 - 1823), on condition he assume the surname and arms of Pelham in addition to those of Anderson. (11) In 1794 Charles was raised to the peerage as 1st Baron Yarborough of Yarborough, Lincolnshire. His wife, Sophie, was the sole heiress of a wealthy London merchant called George Aufrere. The Baron's eldest son, Charles Pelham-Anderson (1781 - 1846), distinguished himself in Parliament and, in 1837, was simultaneously created Baron Worsley of Appuldercombe, Isle of Wight, and 1st Earl of Yarborough. It was the 1st Earl's grandson, another Charles Anderson Pelham (1835 - 1875) who married Lady Victoria Hare. The marriage took place on 3rd August 1858, the same month that the British crown assumed control of India. There were four sons - Charles (Lord Worsley) and the Hon. Victor, Henry and Dudley - and a daughter, Lady Gertrude.(12)

The 3rd Earl of Yarborough and Lady Victoria Hare were Marjorie Dixon's grandparents. Her father was their third son, Henry Cornwallis Anderson-Pelham. He was born on 31st August 1868 and married on 16th July 1892 to Edith Katherine Jemma Roberts. The service took place in Kensington, London. In 1897 the couple are recorded as living on 8 Stanford Road in Kensington Court. When their second child Marjorie was born on 23rd May that year, Henry described himself as a "Stock Jobber". By the time their only son, Henry, was born in May 1905, they were living at 6 Campden Hill Court. At the time of the 1919 marriage of his daughter Marjorie to Henry George Dacres Dixon, Henry was described as "Captain, The Hon. Remounts". He died on 5th December 1924.

Edith was the eldest of three children. She belonged to an offshoot of the great military dynasty of Roberts. (13) Her father Colonel Ben Roberts was born in 1842 and joined the Royal Artillery in 1857. He stayed with the army until 1889 when he retired with the rank of Colonel, joined the Metropolitan Police and became Chief Constable shortly before his death, aged 64, on 7th May 1906. I have no records for whom he married or who Edith's mother might have been. Her brother Charles Roberts was serving with the Egyptian Army when killed in a polo accident in Cairo in 1902 at the age of 34. Her younger brother Arthur Roberts (1870 - 1917) served in the Boer War and World War One, during which he won the DSO and CMG. He was badly injured while commanding the 80th Brigade of the Salonika Forces and died in a London nursing home on 17th May 1917 after an operation.

Early Dixons: Astronomers & Railway Engineers

Arms : Gules, on a bend or three torteans between six plates, a chief erminois.

Crest : A cubit arm erminois, cuffed argent, hand proper, holding a roundle of the first.

Popular belief is that that the Dixons descend from a family of Quakers who arose to prominence during the industrial revolution which engulfed County Durham from the late 18th century.

In 2004, Michael Dacres Dixon recalled a visit to the office of the Richmond Herald in London where he was shown "the contemporary, cow-hide covered Herald's register, dated 1631 or 2 … [with] … the drawing of our crest and coat of arms. James I granted these to the family when he set forth from Scotland to take up the crown of England. The Herald told me that in those days and for many years later, the Heralds had employees who rode around the country checking to see if people with Arms were sticking to what they had been granted and not embellishing them! If they were caught doing so they got a hefty fine. The book I was holding had been carried around County Durham 300 years before in the saddle bag of one of these people!"

MAp from 1861 showing the Mason-Dixon Line Another tradition suggests the coat of arms was conferred on one George Dixon of Ramshaw Hall near Evenwood in the parish of St. Helen, Auckland, Durham, during a visitation of 1616 by Richard St. George, the Norroy King-of-Arms. This George Dixon had been the long-standing money collector for the Barony of Evenwood (1577 - 1606) on behalf of the Bishops of Durham. His term in office commenced just eight years after the Revolt of the Northern Earls of 1569, the last - and unsuccessful - attempt by the great Catholic aristocratic families of Northern England to reassert their regional independence against the growing centralization of power under Elizabeth I's Protestant administration.(14) George's father, Myles Dixon was buried at Hawkshead, Lancaster, in 1571.

If the Durham connection is correct, this would put the Dacres Dixon family in close genetic proximity to the great Jeremiah Dixon, the surveyor-astronomer who inadvertently gave his name to Dixieland in America. Jeremiah was born near Raby Castle in Bishop Auckland, Co. Durham, on 27th July 1733, the fifth of seven children of George Dixon, a well-to-do Quaker coal-mine owner, and his wife Mary Hunter of Newcastle. (15) Among his close acquaintances as a young man were the mathematician William Emerson, the natural philosopher Thomas Wright and the instrument-maker John Bird. It was the latter who, in 1760, recommended that Jeremiah be dispatched by the Royal Society of London to accompany Charles Mason (1728 - 1786) on his mission to Sumatra. Mason's mission was to plot the 1761 Transit of Venus, an event predicted by Edmund Halley, which, it was hoped, would solve the vexatious question of the solar parallax once and for all. The two men successfully observed the transit of the Planet and managed to dodge a troublesome French warship on their way home.

Upon their return to England they were approached by Thomas Penn (grandson of William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania) and Frederick Calvert, 7th Baron Baltimore. The Americans, hereditary proprietors of the provinces of Pennsylvania and Maryland, commissioned Mason and Dixon to travel to North America and survey the now legendary Mason-Dixie Line which separated the slave states of Maryland and Virginia from the free Quaker state of Pennsylvania. After further adventures in St. Helena, the Cape of Good Hope and Norway, Jeremiah Dixon returned to Durham and resumed his work as a surveyor. He died unmarried in Cockfield, Co. Durham, on 22nd January 1779.(16)

Stephenson's Locomotive Edward Pearse Jeremiah's brother George Dixon (1731 - 1785) of Cockfield was one of the architects of the 1767 canal scheme, an ambitious plan to connect the coalfields of Durham to the sea at Cleveland. George was something of a genius. A self-taught chemist, mathematician, engraver, geologist, colliery engineer and china-painter, he pioneered the use of gas in heating and lighting in a series of experiments, one of which resulted in the accidental destruction of his own home. George rented a colliery at Cockfield Fell from Sir Henry Vane, 2nd Earl of Darlington. His predicament was that Cockfield was an inland mine; it was thus a complicated and time-consuming business to transport his coal over 40 miles to the nearest port.(17)

In 1767, the same year his brother Jeremiah returned from America, George built a small stretch of canal on Cockfield Fell that ran towards Darlington's home at Raby Castle. Realizing that he might have discovered a break-through in coal transport, he galloped to nearby Darlington, whistled up a group of like-minded entrepreneurs at the Post Office and proposed a commercial enterprise. The group included Edward Pearse, whose grandson of the same name would come to be called "the Father of the Railways" and James Backhouse, later founder of the Backhouse Bank that bankrolled the railway. An idea was hatched. James Brindley, Britains foremost canal engineer, was summoned to survey the landscape. In due course, a scheme was devised for a canal 33 miles and four fathoms long. Everybody hurrahed. Then Brindley gave his quote: £63,722 (about £3.5M in today's money). The canal sponsors shook their heads solemnly. Foiled again, George Dixon returned home to find some fresh hay for his pack-horses.

George Stephenson The Opening of the Stockton & Darlington Railway Sixty years later, George's grandson would have considerably more success. John Dixon is regarded as the unsung hero of the pioneering Stockton & Darlington Railway Line. Born at Cockfield in 1796, he started work as a clerk in the Darlington bank of Jonathan Backhouse, a relation by marriage who actually bought the Dixon family colliery of Cockfield Fell shortly after John's birth. As a young man he was transferred to the S&D Railway as its first clerk before securing a post as resident assistant engineer to George Stephenson when the great Northumbrian locomotive engineer came to survey the line in 1822. He remained Stephenson's second in command until 1845, serving on the Canterbury, Whitestable and Liverpool & Manchester Railways. His invaluable assistance is recalled in the name of Dixon Street, Darlington. John Dixon died of bronchitis at his home, Belle Vue, Darlington, on 10th October 1865.

It is not known exactly how the Dacres Dixon family are connected to this Durham line. However, their fascination with all things geological and surveyable seems to have been genetic. It certainly passed down at least through to George Gough Dixon, who was involved in land surveying British Guyana, Colombia and Liberia during the 1890s.

The Dixons of Henley: Frothy Pints in The Red Lion

Recent information suggest that the only verifiable Dixon line is that of Robert Dixon (c. 1752 - 1810), great-great-grandfather of Henry George Dacres Dixon. I have no records as to whom his father or mother might have been but it is believed he was direct descendant of Robert Dixon, Prebendary of Rochester, sometime Vicar of Hoo who was a 'great sufferer in the Royal cause' and died in 1688. (*) The younger Robert was landlord of a traveler's inn called The Red Lion on Hart Street in Henley-on-Thames at least from 1799 until his death in February 1810. (18) The actual ownership of the pub seems to have belonged to somebody else, perhaps Barrett March, until at least 1808.(19) The Red Lion, which still exists today under the ownership of the Miller family, lies at the foot of the Chiltern Hills on the banks of the Thames in Oxfordshire, close to the towns of Reading, Maidenhead and Oxford. The pub claims to have been serving travelers - including three Kings of England - since the 15th century. During Robert Dixon's day, Henley was a small hamlet, often frequented by those traveling between London and Oxford. The town was granted a Charter by Henry VIII in 1526, a year in which Oxford graduate Cardinal Thomas Wolsey was at the peak of his career. The Charter was subsequently confirmed by Elizabeth I in 1571 and George I in 1722. A stone bridge erected across the Thames at Henley in 1786 must have boosted Dixon's sales profits. (20) The Henley Royal Regatta did not commence until 1839 but the Dixons must have derived further income from this elitist event prior to the double tragedy that befell the family in 1849.

* A print of Robert Dixon the Prebendary has been handed down through many generations to Helen Dixon whose sister Evelyn Dixon is mother to Chris Peglar who helped me with this article. Helen and Evelyn are great-granddaughters of George Griffith Dixon, brother of the Dr. Henry Dixon mentioned below. The Prebendary lies buried in the chancel of Tunstall church, under an handsome monument.
He was a man of outspoken opinion and most conscious of verbal injury from his fellow prebendaries. He had been ejected from his living of Tunstall in 1647 by the Commonwealth and for the rest of his life imagined many a personal insult that was never intended. Ever to the forefront in any discussion on prebendal privileges, he many times clashed with the then Dean, Dr. John Castillion; his reputation on this account was made worse by his sons Robert Dixon, vicar of Stockbury, and James Dixon the understeward, whose careers he wished to further and who were in temperament so like their parent. DRc/AC2/5 f.7 (DRc_Dean_and_Chapter_of_Rochester_Cathedral_1541_1994/00_Intro ) Also from: 'Parishes: Tunstall', The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 6 (1798), pp. 80-98. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=62948. Date accessed: 21 December 2007.

The Murray Connection

Robert married Deborah Murray (c. 1766 - May 1832), daughter of George Murray of Great Marlowe in Oxfordshire. She gave him four sons and six daughters, few of whom lived to adulthood. Robert Dixon died at the age of 58 and was buried at St. Mary's in Henley on 12th Feb 1810. His widow took over the running of The Red Lion.

Princes in the Pub

At the time of Robert's death, Britain was still heavily embroiled in the Napoleonic Wars. Over the next three years, the Duke of Wellington managed to drive the French army out of both Spain and Portugal and, on 11th April 1814, Emperor Napoleon abdicated and was sent to live in Elba. The following February, Napoleon escaped from Elba, landed near Cannes and advanced on Paris without firing a single shot. From 20th March to 22nd June 1815 he again ruled as Emperor from Paris in the episode known as the "Hundred Days" which ended at Waterloo. He was subsequently exiled to the island of St. Helena, which Jeremiah Dixon had visited more than fifty years earlier. The following account from Anne Cottingham's book relates a colourful anecdote about The Red Lion in Mrs. Dixon's day. The event took place while Napoleon was still at Elba and the Allied Princes were in full but misguided assurance that the war was over.

"George III, whose parents had lived in Park Place … knew the Red Lion … the Prince Regent was another habitue. His friend, the Earl of Barrymore, lived at Wargrave and the Prince was often at Henley. It is said that at one sitting he ate 14 mutton chops. The visits of royalty continued, culminating in the visit to Henley in June 1814 of the Allied Princes on their way to Oxford to receive academic honours. Among them were Alexander of Russia, the King of Prussia with his nephews, one of whom became William I of Germany, and lastly General Blucher". [In other words, Emily's great-great-great grandfather arguably served up pints to the Tsar of Russia] The procession passed in front The Red Lion but did not stop [alas!] except for General Blucher who was brought back to drink wine with Lady Malmesbury, who had been watching from a window of the Red Lion".

James Dixon of The Bell Inn

At this time, The Red Lion was under the management of Robert Dixon's widow, Deborah, which she ran until her own death aged 66 in May 1832. (21) However it may be assumed that her eldest son, James, was at her side during these years. James Dixon (1785 - 1849) (great grandfather of Harry Dacres Dixon) was born in 1785. He was the second of ten children (22) . Variously described as Vintner, Victualler and Innkeeper, James was landlord of The Bell Inn at Northfield End, Henley, at least from 1823 although, in 1826, the Brakspear Inventory described The Bell as being "in occupation of Mrs. Dixon", presumably meaning his mother. (23) At this time, the coach service to London, known as "Dixon's Coach", went from The Bell, calling at The Red Lion, every morning at nine. He married a lady named Mary Anne and his firstborn son, (the Rev.) James Murray Dixon was born on 20th March 1816. Following his mothers' death aged 66 in 1832, James and his younger brother George Dixon co-ran both The Red Lion and The Bell Inn. (24) By 1847 the P.O. Directory had him down as Alderman and landlord of The Red Lion and the Bell Tap on Bell Street.

Death of James & George Dixon

Tragedy struck in early September 1849 when both James, aged 64, and George, aged 62, died of some mysterious ailment. As Ann Cottingham observed, "their death at the same time suggests some disease, possibly cholera, though rumour insisted that they were poisoned". Cholera was certainly rife in England during these Dickensian times, a situation not helped by the vast influx of refugees from Ireland which was then in the midst of the Great Potato Famine. The brothers were buried on 11th September 1849.

The End of the Red Lion

After their death, The Red Lion was closed. James's youngest son Robert Murray Dixon took over the tenancy of The Bell until the lease expired at the end of 1853 and then it too closed. By 1853 Henley's Grammar School had taken over the larger part of the premises and the Bell Tap had been relegated to the northern side. The Red Lion was closed and advertised for sale in 1855; the advertisement stated that, since Mr. Dixon's death, business had been "suspended".

The Nine Children of James Dixon

Before his sudden death in 1849, James Dixon fathered nine children.
The firstborn son, the Rev. James Murray Dixon, MA, matriculated at Oxford, joined the clergy and was serving as Rector of the Holy Trinity in Bath by 1881.
The second son, Robert Dixon, born 15th July 1817, married a Londoner named Caroline and took over the tenancy of The Bell Tap from 1849 until the lease expired in Christmas 1853. In 1881 he was described as a coal merchant and Railway agent, living in New Street with his wife, nephew George Gough Dixon and a servant.
The third brother George Griffiths Dixon was born 23rd Jan 1819 and became a land agent, settling at Swyncombe, near Watlington. In 1881 he was living at Swyncombe with his wife Anne, his younger sister Elizabeth, his son Maurice and two servants. No more is known of Maurice who was born circa 1860 but George was great-grandfather to Helen and Evelyn Dixon; the latter is mother to Chris Peglar who assisted with this article.
Of the fourth son, Dr. Henry Dixon, I will treat anon.
A fifth son William Murray Dixon born in December 1821 died aged 20 in March 1842.
A sixth Edward Francis Dixon was born in 1824, emigrated to Australia and settled in Melbourne. His son Edward Murray Dixon had ten children, including Arthur Dixon who married Ellen Margaret Osborne, mother of Linda Mary Eddy (nee Osborne) who helped me write this tale.
Little is recorded of the three Dixon sisters - Marianne, Deborah and Elizabeth except that the latter, born in 1827, lived with her brother George at Swyncombe.

Dr. Henry Dixon of Greenfield Manor

Returning now to the fourth son, Dr. Henry Dixon (1821 - 1891), MRCS (1843). LSA (1844). Dr. Dixon (the grandfather of Harry Dacres Dixon) was born on 23rd February 1821 at Henley-on-Thames where his father James Dixon was helping his widowed grandmother, Mrs. Deborah Dixon, run the The Bell and The Red Lion. Henry took a career in medicine and, by 1847, was a practicing surgeon in Oxford. On 24th June 1847, he married 24-year-old Helen Frances Shrubbs.(25) The service took place at St. Helen's, Benson, Oxon, and was presided over by his elder brother, the Rev. James Dixon. Two years later, his father and his Uncle George died unexpectedly and both The Bell and The Red Lion entered their twilight. Henry later became Coroner for South Oxfordshire and settled at Watlington with his wife, seven sons and five daughters. I can find no information about Dr. Dixon's activities in later life save that, in the Census returns for 1861, 1871, 1881 and 1891, his family were living in Shirburn Street, Watlington. In 1881 they were described as living at East End House; they later lived at a farm at Greenfield Manor, Watlington.

Dr. Dixon had twelve children. The eldest, Henry Dixon, born 1849, followed in his father's footsteps and became a GP. A bachelor, he lived in The Square, Abingdon, along with his unmarried sisters Elfrida (b. 1850) and Mary (born 1854), youngest brother Christopher (born in 1868, he later went mining in Colombia with his brother George) and a servant. By 1891 Elfrida had moved back to live with her parents and her younger sisters, Kitty and Amy. Michael Dacres Dixon recalls going to see "the old Aunts during the [Second World] War … they died in the 1940s aged 102 and 104". The second son, the Rev. James Murray-Dixon was born in 1852 at Watlington, Oxfordshire, and joined the Church. In August 1882, he married Ethelreda Trevelyan, youngest daughter of the Rev. Otto Trevelyan of Somerset. At the time of their wedding, Ethelreda's first cousin, Sir George Trevelyan, was serving as Chief Secretary for Ireland.(26) James was then a Curate lodging at Church Lane, Lapworth, Warwickshire. From 1884 to 1925 the couple lived at Aston Hill in Aylesbury where he stood as both Rector of Swithland, near Loughborough, and Land Agent to the 6th Earl of Lanesborough of Swithland Hall.(27) A third son, Theobald Dixon, born 1857, never married but was managing a cotton mill in Wigan in 1881. The fourth son was George Gough Dixon, of whom we treat anon. The fifth, Charles Dixon, was a scholar who never married while the younger sons Frank and Christopher Dixon will arise again when they joined their brother George in Colombia during his adventures in South America at the close of the 19th century.

George Gough Dixon: Guyana to Liberia

Thus were the siblings of George Gough Dixon, father of Henry George Dacres Dixon. And what of himself? The seventh of Dr. Henry and Helen Dixon's twelve children, George was born on 15th June 1861 at Wattington in Oxfordshire where his father, Dr. Dixon, was Coroner. When he was 20 he went to live with his uncle Robert Dixon, a coal merchant who had formerly run the families' pub, The Bell Tap, in Henley. George was his uncle's clerk for several years, during which time his elder brother James married into the well-to-do House of Trevelyan in Northumberland. On 8th June 1886 George himself was married to Mary Catherine Bevan.(28) The marriage took place at Shirehampton in Gloucestershire and was presided over by his brother, the Rev. James Murray Dixon. His sister Helen and brother Theobald stood as witnesses.

McGill University in Montreal George was a mining and civil engineer and worked variously in Colombia (where his son Henry "Harry" George was born in 1887), British Guyana, Ceylon and Liberia. I have no accurate dates as to when he was in which particular country although, according to Emily's aunts notes, "he and his younger brothers Frank (then 41) and Christopher Dixon (then aged 38) were in Colombia at the time of their parents Diamond Wedding in 1907". His grandson, Mike Dacres Dixon believes the brothers studied at Marlborough before going on to the great geology school of McGill University in Canada. "After graduation they spent the next two years slowly moving south down the West Coast of America, working at whatever they could find until they reached Colombia where my grandfather [George] learned his father had died, leaving him a farm in Oxfordshire to which he returned". This was presumably sometime in the 1880s. Mike goes on to say that the younger brothers, who were working in an emerald mine at the time, "decided to stay on and became famous emerald experts … one married a Colombian girl who had endless children".

Muzo Emeralds The Dixon brothers were most probably working on the famous Muzo Emerald Mines in Colombia at this time. These are situated in the western foothills of the eastern branch of the Colombian Andes, about 60 miles north west of Bogotá. When the Spanish Conquistadors arrived in South America during the 16th century, they were quickly impressed by the legend of El Dorado, "the golden one". This story arose from a ritual of the Indians in the Muzo region who annually adorned their king with gold and emeralds by coating his body in sticky resin and covering him entirely with gold and emerald dust. Spanish eyes grew wide with greed. A brutal war was initiated against the Muzo Indians; the noble ladies and Christian Bishops of Europe were soon sporting emeralds to dinner. As technology improved, so the worlds' obsession with Colombia's emeralds started drawing gem-hunters from across the world. In 1819, Simon Bolivar secured independence for Colombia but it was an unhappy independence. Internal conflict was protracted and bitter; civil war became a regular feature of Colombian life. In 1886, a year before Harry's birth, an anti-federalist revolution had culminated in the formation of the Republic of Colombia. The new Government, lacking the organization necessary for running the mines, quickly contracted them out for private exploitation. Among these contractors was The Colombian Emerald Mining Company, an English company controlled by South African diamond interests. Toward the close of the 19th century, companies like the CEMC began recruiting geological and engineering consultants to improve their profits. I suggest that the Dixon brothers were part of this new arrangement. It can't have been an easy time. Joseph Pogue, who visited the Muzo mines in July 1915, describes it as a wild hinterland, accessible only by 2 ½ days mule ride down a virtually impassable trail. "The region is intensely tropical, characterized by excessive heat and high humidity, with a rank jungle growth that quickly obscures abandoned workings and makes exploration peculiarly difficult and costly. The region round about is sparsely inhabited by Indians who live in squalor and poverty - modified descendants of warlike aborigines, docile and peaceable, even servile, speaking a Spanish patois. The region in general is unhealthful; the natives suffer from tropical anaemia, malaria, dysentery, and other complaints incidental to the latitude. Work in the mines, however, is reasonably safe owing to the excellent location of the workmen's quarters and the medical attention and sanitation enjoyed under recent management."

Just how long the Dixon brothers remained in Colombia is unclear. I imagine they would have fled before the outbreak, in 1899, of a civil war of unprecedented violence that raged for the next three years leaving as many as 100,000 people dead. In 1909, the Colombian Government closed down the contract with the CEMC and began exploiting the mines of their own accord. (29) 20th century Colombia history was one of continued daily uprisings, civil wars, assassination, guerilla warfare and the emergence of the drug cartels as the greatest power. In 2006, Colombia remains the world's biggest producer of emeralds.

Juan Vicente Gomez, dictator of Venesuela from 1908 - 1935 Further clues as to George's South American activities lie in two publications attributed to him. The first is a Compass-Survey of the River Barima from the Eclipse Falls to the Source, by George Gough Dixon, published in 1895.(30) The second featured in The Geographical Journal of 1896 under the title "The British Guiana and Venezuelan Boundary Frontier" and concerned the frontier then in dispute between Great Britain and Venezuela. (31) Formerly part of the Spanish colony of New Granada, Venezuela had become an independent republic under Jose Paez in 1830. The ongoing frontier dispute with Britain became a major international crisis in 1895 when the US President Grover Cleveland surprised everyone by declaring his support for the Venezuelans. International arbitrators were rapidly summoned in to calm the situation down and no doubt George's map was studied with the greatest care. A treaty was signed in 1897 with Britain backing down. However, the refusal of Venezuelan authorities to compensate foreign nationals injured in the country's miscellaneous rebellions led to a series of naval blockades by the British, Germans and Italians in 1902 and by the Dutch in 1908. In 1909 the country fell to the military dictator Juan Gomez whose 26-year rule saw Venezuela become the largest exporter of oil in the world.

Map of Liberia George's death took place perhaps as early as 1898 when, according to MDD, "mapping, exploring and prospecting" in Liberia, "he just disappeared in the bush". It is worth a quick look at Liberian history. Situated on the southern shores of West Africa, this 43,000 square mile territory was founded in 1822, remarkably enough, by a Quaker led group in Washington called The American Colonization Society. The idea was that it could become a new home for the freeborn blacks and former slaves of America's Plantation System. (32) In 1847 - the year George's parents married - Liberia, meaning "land of freedom", declared its independence and the Virginia-born black Joseph J. Roberts became its first President. Alas, tensions between the Americanized settlers and the indigenous coastal peoples combined with economic impossibilities to bring the fledgling African democracy to its knees within a few decades. The European powers were quick to seize on Liberia's misfortune, laying claim to vast tracts of its borderland. I imagine George was commissioned by the British Government to survey some of these disputed borderlands. Exactly which area he was surveying is a mystery but it may be relevant that in 1900 Liberian President Garreston W. Gibson granted rights to the Union Mining Operations to investigate the hinterland for minerals including gold. He may also have been involved in a joint commission between Great Britain and Liberia to survey the Northern Boundary initiated by Gibson.

Mary Dixon & the Houses of Bevan & Dacres

Portalegre where Colonel Bevan took his life George's wife, Mary (nee Bevan) died at Nettlebed in Henley-on-Thames (The Hill) on 26th August 1911. She must have been a courageous and enterprising lady to have joined her husband during his exploits in South America. A year after her June 1886 marriage in Gloucestershire, she gave birth to her first son, Henry George Dacres Dixon, in Tolima, Colombia. It is not known how long she remained in Colombia but I am inclined to think she stayed until George himself left.

Her family background is of interest. Her great-grandfather was Lieutenant Colonel Charles Bevan (1779 - 1811) of the 4th King's Regiment. In 1808 the British Government decided to send an army to the Iberian Peninsula in order to encourage Portuguese and Spanish resistance to Napoleon's occupying forces. The operation was headed up by Sir Arthur Wellesley (later Duke of Wellington). In May 1811, Wellesley was blockading the French at Almeida when his army was attacked at Fuentes de Onoro on the Spanish border; the French were beaten and retreated to safety into Spain. Wellesley then ordered the 4th and 2nd Regiments to prevent the garrison at Almeida escaping. However, in a manner reminiscent of the disastrous Charge of the Light Brigade forty years later, Sir William Erskine failed to pass this vital message to Colonel Bevan. As such both regiments were late reaching the Barba del Puerco and the French escaped into Spain. Wellesley is said to have reprimanded the unfortunate Colonel Bevan in front of his men saying "The 4th are always late!" These words preyed so much on the Colonel's exhausted mind that, on 8th July 1811, he shot himself at Portalegre. He was buried at Portalegre two days later. (33) The crucial order was subsequently discovered in Sir William's pocket. The eccentric Erskine eventually committed suicide by jumping out of a window in Lisbon in 1813. Found dying on the ground, he memroably asked bystanders, "Why on earth did I do that?"

The Battle of Lake Champlain (1776) Colonel Bevan's wife Mary is also relevant to this tale for her maiden name was Dacres and it is from her that the family name "Dacres Dixon" originates. Her father, Admiral James Richard Dacres, was born in 1749 and joined the Royal Navy in 1762 at the age of 13. During the American War of Independence, he commanded the British ship "Carleton" at the battle of Lake Champlain in 1776. As Captain of the "Barfleur", he was in the Commodore Ford at the capture of Port-au-Prince, in action in June 1795 and on Feb 14th 1797. He held command at Plymouth from 1804 to 1808, an important time with the Napoleonic Wars still in full flow. Mary's brothers were also naval men. The eldest Captain Barrington Dacres served in the Mediterranean as Captain of the "Hercules" under Nelson but ultimately succumbed to the West Indian climate. The second brother was (like Mary's father) called Admiral James Richard Dacres (1788 - 1853) and performed many dashing deeds during the latter stages of the Napoleonic Wars and the Anglo-American War of 1812 - 1814, including the capture of two Spanish privateers and the recapture of an English merchant brig. (34)

Mary Bevan (nee Dacres) gave her husband three sons and a daughter. (35) The second son Thomas Bevan, sometime Vicar of Twickenham Green, married Mary, daughter of George Moore, and had four sons and five daughters, before his death at the age of 44. His eldest son was Captain George Dacres Bevan, RN, father of the Mary Bevan who married George Gough Dixon. This latter Mary may well have inherited her sense of adventure from her father who, true to family tradition, joined the Royal Navy at an early age. During the 1st Chinese War he commanded the "Kestrel" in an action on the Peiho River in 1859. His brother Charles won the "Sword of Honour" at Woolwich and, securing his commission as Captain with the Royal Artillery in 1854, saw action in the Crimea at the close of the war. A third brother Edward was a lieutenant in the Royal Navy while the youngest brother, James, served a Captain with the 31st Regiment.

Lieutenant Harry Dacres Dixon

Construction of the Aswan Dam by DS George George and Mary Dixon left three sons - Harry (Henry George Dares Dixon), Francis and George - and daughter, Mary. The eldest son Harry Dacres Dixon was born at Guyaval, Tolima in Colombia on 9th June 1887, a year and a day after his parent's marriage. His birth was registered in 1891 with the British Consulate General in Bogota. During his youth, according to his son Michael, he spent his time with "an Aunt who lived at 100 Park Lane and which became his home until he married my mother". Michael also mentions a pet leopard that George brought home from abroad, which his great-uncle Murray Dixon painted. (36) Michael goes on to say that "strangely enough, my Father followed almost exactly the same course as his father … Marlborough, McGill and then a couple of years wandering around America until the first war started and he came back to join up". During this time, Francis Dixon was married and, "in a moment of abandon", Harry presented his younger brother with the old farmhouse at Greenfield. Francis later became involved with the construction of the second Aswan Dam, for which he was awarded the CBE. He had a son, Robert, and three daughters. Harry's sons were at Durnford Preparatory School with Robert. (37)

On April 28th 1919 Harry married 24-year-old Marjorie Edith Pelham, granddaughter of the 3rd Earl of Yarborough.(38) The service took place at St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, and was presided over by Harry's uncle, the Rev. Murray-Dixon who had also married his parents. Witnesses included the Earl of Yarborough, Victoria Countess of Yarborough, G Pelham and HC Pelham. On the marriage license he was described as a Lieutenant with the Royal Engineers, residing at 8 Wilton Crescent, SW, while her residence is given as 7 Vicarage Gardens, Kensington. Harry Dacres Dixon died on 23rd January 1947 leaving four children - Elizabeth, Michael, Anthony and Robin.

Elizabeth - or Betty - was born on 24th July 1920, but tragically contracted MS shortly after her marriage in 1939 to Edward Butler-Henderson.

Michael (George) Dacres Dixon was born in 1922 and served in World War II with the KRRC. By his wife Evie (nee Evelyn Nancy Bell) he had a son, Harry, and daughter, Annabell. Michael presently lives at Sotogrande in Spain with his third wife.

The second son Anthony Dacres Dixon was born in 1924 and served with the 17th/21st Lancers at Monte Casino in World War Two. He was married twice, firstly from 1950 to 1964, to Juliet Carmichael and then to Philippa Spicer, daughter of Captain S. R. F. Spicer, 12th Lancers, of Carnew Castle, Co. Wicklow. Philippa is perhaps better known as the artist Philippa Dixon. Anthony passed away in 1989, leaving two daughters, Emily and Charlotte. Emily runs exclusive weddings at Lisnavagh House in Co. Carlow, Ireland, as well as the upmarket corporate entertainment company Tailormade Ireland. Emily and her husband, William Bunbury, elder brother to this writer and founder of The Lisnavagh Timber Project, have two daughters, Roseanna Jane McClintock Bunbury, born on 8th September 2004, and Alice McClintock Bunbury, born on 13th May 2007. Emily's sister Charlotte Dacres Dixon lives near Bath in England and has three sons, Micheal Anthony Charles Holliday (born 29 March 1995), Tobias William George Holliday (born 22 June 1998) and Thomas Peter Mark Holliday (born 7 July 2000).

Harry and Marjorie's youngest son Robin Dacres Dixon was born on 7th August 1926 and educated at Marlborough. Like Michael, he served with the Kings Royal Regimental Corps in World War Two. In 1956 he married 23-year-old Sally Manners Bacon who gave him twin girls, Sophie and Anna, the following August and a son, Charles, in 1960.

With thanks to Janet Hudson, Linda Eddy, Chris Peglar, Michael Dacres Dixon and Emily Bunbury.

Notes:

1. The Laidlaws descend from the family of the poet William Laidlaw (1780 - 1845), private secretary to Sir Walter Scott. Esme's husband, William Laidlaw, died on 7th February 1959.

2. Henry Pelham was born on 27th May 1905, served as a Flight Lieutenant with the Royal Air Force in World War 2 and was living at Mendlesham, Stowmarket, Suffolk in 1980.

3. James and George Richard Pain trained in London under James Wyatt, the architect who reconstructed Windsor Castle. They also studied under the celebrated John Nash (of Cahir's Swiis Cottage and Buckingham Palace fame) who sent them to Ireland to supervise the building of Lough Cutra Castle for Lord Gort. The Pains started their own practice and soon earned reputations as leading architects in Ireland. During their hey-day, they also built the enormous neo-Gothic mansion of Mitchelstown Castle for the Earl of Kingston, Dromoland Castle for Sir Edward O'Brien, Elm Park for Lord Clarina, the New Gaols in Limerick and Cork, and several churches, both Catholic and Protestant. James Pain was also a distinguished Freemason.

4. The Old Masters collection were subsequently transferred to Kingston House, Knightsbridge, the Listowel's town house in London. Originally built as a country house for Elizabeth Chudleigh, the notorious Duchess of Kingston, Kingston House stood in its own grounds just five minutes walk from Hyde Park Corner. The 1st Earl bought the house from the childless Earl of Stair in 1813. From 1837 to 1842, it was rented by the Marquis Wellesley, elder brother of the "Iron Duke" of Wellington. The Listowel family continued to live there from 1842 until its demolition in 1937. In Marjorie Dacres Dixon's childhood, cows were still brought over from Ireland to graze in the adjacent pasture, now Ennismore Gardens, and provide fresh milk for the children.

5. The following is an extract from The Times of the 29th October 1921: "£85,000 COMPENSATION - Lord Listowel's burnt mansion: At Fermoy Sessions yesterday £150,000 was claimed for Lord Listowel for the destruction of his mansion, Convamore, Ballyhooly. His solicitor submitted to the Court a typewritten document addressed to Lord Listowel from "Headquarters, Cork, No. 2 Brigade," saying "On Wednesday, the 13th instant, the enemy bombed and destroyed six houses of Republicans as reprisals for IRA activities on the 10th instant. You being an aggressively anti-Irish person and your residence being in the Battalion area of enemy reprisals, I have hereby ordered that the same be destroyed as part of our counter-reprisals, - Commandant." The Recorder awarded £85,202, including £55,319 for the mansion, £21,234 for the furniture, and £7,430 for pictures. The article goes on to tell of : "A schoolteacher [who] was awarded £5,000 compensation for the loss of her husband, who was taken from his home by armed and masked men and was found by the roadside shot dead."
Mitchelstown Castle, the largest of the 200 or so big houses destroyed during the Troubles, was burned by Irish Republicans on 29th June 1922.

6. Lady Marie Augusta Listowel was the widow of George Thomas Wyndham of Cromer Hall, Norfolk, and second daughter of Vice Admiral William Wyndham of Felbrigge Hall. In 1862 she paid for the restoration of the old Roche castle in Ballyhooley, wrecked during the Cromwellian Wars, and converted it into a residence.

7. Aside from the 3rd Earl and Lady Victoria, there was Rear Admiral Richard Hare (1836 - 1903), whose son Harry was killed in France in September 1914; Major Ralph Hare, RHA (1838 - 1879); Lieutenant Hugh Henry Hare (1839 - 1927), Bengal SC, Queen's Foreign Service Messenger (1865-95) and father of the much decorated Captain Percy Hare; Augusta who married (1853) the 4th Earl of Carysfort; Emily who married (1857) Sir John Wrixton-Beecher; Sophia who married (1854) Arthur MacNamara of Caddington Hall, Hertford, and was Lady of the Bedchamber to Princess Louisa, the Duchess of Argyll and the twins Adele (who married (1864) Colonel Cuthbert Larking, 15th Hussars, and was Lady-in-Waiting to the Duchess of Connaught) and Eleanor (who married (1864) Edward, 1st Baron Hennage, PC).

8. His tenure as a Lord-in-Waiting started in May 1880, and ended abruptly that August. In that month he resigned, in protest against W.E. Forster's tenant-friendly "Compensation for Disturbance (Ireland) Bill".

9. The Royal couple stayed at Convamore from April 8th to April 27th 1885.

10. Richard Hare (1866 - 1931), 4th Earl of Listowel studied at Eton and Oxford before joining the First Life Guards in 1890 During the Boer War he was part of the "Irish Hunt Contingent" sensationally captured at Lindley. A combination of Boer cunning and British ineptness led to the capture of the regiment after a battle in which 80 British and 500 Boers were killed or wounded. "A still more humiliating coup (inflicted by de Wet's brother, Piet) was the capture of the thirteenth battalion of the 31st. To British eyes, this mounted Battalion was the social and political show-piece of the new Volunteer Army; a company of Irish M.F.H.'s known as the Irish Hunt Contingent, including the Earl of Longford and Viscount Ennismore; two companies of Ulster Protestant Unionists, including the Earl of Leitrim, a whiskey Baronet (Sir John Power) and the future Lord Craigavon; and a company of English and Irish men-about-town raised by Lord Donoughmore, who had insisted on paying their own passage to South Africa". Thomas Pakenham, The Boer War.
The 4th Earl was a man much given to field sports and spent much of his time salmon fishing in the Blackwater at Convamore and shooting woodcock in the surrounding woodlands. He was Master of the Dulhallow Hounds. In the autumn he often visited Scotland to stalk deer and shoot grouse. He also made several safari trips to Africa. His son recalled their home in England being "a menagerie of dead animals - stuffed or affixed by their horns to the walls". In later life he turned to gardening and embroidery. He died of pneumonia in November 1931.

11. This was by no means a rare situation. Indeed, a similar situation arose following the death without male issue of Thomas Bunbury, MP, of Lisnavagh in 1846. In order to inherit the estate at Lisnavagh, Thomas's nephew, William McClintock, was obliged to assume the surname and arms of Bunbury in addition to those of McClintock. Hence, the family of McClintock Bunbury.

4th Earl of Yarborough by SPy 12. Charles Alfred Worsley (1859 - 1936) succeeded as 4th Earl of Yarborough in 1875 at the age of 16. He was Lord Lieutenant and Vice Admiral for Lincolnshire and County Alderman for the Lindsey Division. He was also an Honourary Colonel of the 3rd Battalion of the Lincolnshire Regiment. On 5th August 1886 he married the highly prized 23 year old Marcia Amelia Lane-Fox, Baroness Fauconberg & Conyers. She was the eldest co-heir of the two great generals, the Duke of Schomberg and the Duke of Marlborough. As such she succeeded in her own right as 13th Baroness Conyers (cr. 1509) and, in 1903, to the Barony of Fauconberg (created by Edward I in 1295). She was awarded the OBE in 1920, was an LJStJ and died on 17th November 1926. The 4th Earl survived her by a decade and died on 12th July 1936. Their eldest son, Charles Sackville Pelham, Lord Worsley, was killed in action at Ypres in October 1914. The title thus passed to his younger brother Sackville George, 5th Earl of Yarborough, who was educated at Eton and Trinity College Cambridge before joining the Sherwood Rangers (formerly 11th Hussars) during World War One (in which he won an MC). On 23rd September 1919, he married Nancy Brocklehurst, niece of the enigmatically entitled Baron Ranksborough. She died in 1977. They had no children and, on the 5th Earl's death in 1948, he was succeeded by his younger brother, Marcus, 6th Earl of Yarborough.
Lady Gertude (1861 - 1920) married Sir Francis Astley-Corbett (d. 1939), 4th Bt, of Elsham Hall, Lincs. Victor Pelham (1866 - 1927) married Gertuude, daughter of Charles Gordon Adams but had no children. Dudley Roger Hugh Pelham (1872 - 1953) served in both the Boer War and World War One, winning the DSO in the latter campaign. On 9th February 1907 Dudley married Evelyn Waldo-Sibthorp; there were no children.

13. Her uncle, Colonel Charles Fyshe Roberts, CMG, RA, graduated from Carshalton Military School and RMA Woolwich in time to serve in the Crimean War as 2nd Lieutenant with the Royal Artillery. He was wounded at the siege of Sebastapol during the Crimean War but had recovered sufficiently by 1859 to command the artillery team of the Sikkim Field Force in Dacca, India. In 1863 he was promoted Major and set out for Australia with the Royal Artillery. In 1866, he married an Australian girl from the Snowy Mountains named Alice Bradley, daughter of William Bradley of Lansdowne, Goulburn & Bibbenluke in Monaro. He later served as aide de camp to Queen Victoria, Edward VII and George V.

14. The rebellion was spearheaded by three great noble families - the Percys (Earls of Northumberland), the Nevilles (Earls of Westmoreland) and, curiously, the Dacres. The rebels took Durham and celebrated Mass in the cathedral on 14th November 1569 but the revolt did not spread as anticipated and, by December, it was crushed. More than 600 people, including Northumberland and Leonard Dacre, were subsequently executed.

15. Jeremiah Dixon's great-grandfather George Dixon or Dickson (1636 - 1707) was amongst the first people to join the Quakers, for which he was imprisoned in 1662 and several times fined. His great-uncle, George Dixon (1671 - 1752) was House Steward to the 2nd Baron Barnard of Barnard Castle.

16. As the Oxford University Press National Dictionary of Biography points out, he should not be confused with his contemporary Jeremiah Dixon, FRS (1726 - 1782) of Gledhow, near Leeds.

17. Up until the 1760s, coal was generally hoofed over the hills in carts or panniers slung over the back of packhorses. A horse could reasonably expect to drag one ton of coal about 10 miles a day.

18. That Sarah Raylton, the wife of George Dixon (of the 1767 Cockfield Canal), was daughter of an innkeeper from Bowes in Yorkshire named John Raylton (1706 - 1784) suggests that becoming an innkeeper was not a socially frowned upon profession for the Dixons of this time.

19. "It appears that Robert Dixon was landlord in 1799in 1799, since it was he who was accused by the Court Leet of making an encroachment by taking a piece of land of 38 square yards in a triangular line on the east front of the Red Lion. Barrett March was still the owner and it was he who was taken before the Court Leet in 1808 for another encroachment". (Ann Cottingam).

20. They may also have derived some benefit from the opening of the Kenton Theatre in Henley in November 1805 by two stage actors named Penley and Jones. However, the theatre rapidly declined in popularity and was converted into a non-conformist chapel by 1813.

21. She may also have secured a second inn for the family, variously known as The Bell Inn and The Bell Tap.

22. James's elder sister Mary Murray Dixon (1783 - Nov 1832) lived at Henley and married John Dickisnon of Henley on 10th August 1811. James's younger brother George (born 1787), was a bachelor who helped manage the family business after their mothers death; he died in 1849 under the same strange circumstances as James. Another son Henry was born in 1800 and died a bachelor at Henley in 1842. A third son Robert was born in May 1806 but died five months later. Little is known of James's other five sisters although they were all born, baptized and almost certainly buried at Henley. Sarah (b. 1791) died in October 1812 aged 21. Ellen died aged 2 in September 1803. Frances was born in 1803 but no more is recorded. Helen was born on 27th December 1804 but died aged 14 in July 1818. The youngest sister Ann, born on 27th April 1808, fared somewhat better and lived to marry (1827) James Gardiner of Sonning. Her mother, Deborah Dixon, and brother, James Dixon, stood as witnesses at the service in Henley.

23. Breakspear's Beer remains the defining Henley beer to this day.

24. In Pigot's 1830 and 1839 Directories James Dixon is described as landlord of the Bell Inn & Posting House, Northfield End.

25. Helen was born 3rd January 1823 at Benson, Oxfordshire, and baptized at St. Helen's that July. Her father, Edward Shrubb, was a farmer at Benson; his parents, James and Sarah Shrubb, and grandparents, John and Mary Shrubb, also lived at Benson.

26. Ethelreda's grandfather, George Trevelyan, was the third son of Sir John Tevelyan, 4th Bt, of Nettlecombe, Somerset, was Archdeacon of Taunton. Her uncle, Sir Charles Trevelyan, (1807 - 1886), 1st Baronet of Wallington, Northumberland, KCB, was the controversial Secretary to the Trasury during the Irish Potato Famine and was later in high office in India. Ethelreda Dixon died in 1943.

27. The Rev. James and Ethelreda Dixon's eldest son Henry Murray-Dixon (1886 - 1917), first cousin to Harry, was an artist of great promise. As a boy he studied at the Slade School of Art but his natural talent lay in ornithology. He became the friend of Archibald Thorburn and was greatly influenced by him. Nearly all his work is water-colour. "Had he lived it is considered he would have become the greatest painter of birds and wild life of his generation". Alas he went to France as 2nd Lieutenant with the 1st / 4th Battalion of the Seaforth Highlanders and died of wounds received at Vimy Ridge on 10th April 1917. He was buried at Aubigny Communal Cemetery. His younger brother Gerald Murray-Dixon was living in Canada in 1981. Their sister Rosemary Murray-Dixon married a man named Hamilton and settled in Suffolk; their son John Hamilton was awarded the MC during World War II, was a marine artist and has a series of naval paintings on permanent display in HMS Belfast, moored on the Thames near Tower Bridge, and another series commissioned by the US Navy.

28. Mary (sometimes Margaret) Catherine Bevan was the daughter of Captain George Dacres Bevan, RN. Nothing is recorded about her mother's family. Her grandfather was the Rev. Thomas Bevan and her grandmother was Mary Catherine Moore. The Reverend Bevan's father was Lieutenant Colonel Charles Bevan (died 1811) and his mother was Mary Dacres, daughter of Admiral James Richard Dacres, RN.

29. The Dixons may also have been involved in the controversial construction of the Panama Canal which, in 1903, led to the creation of the US-backed Republic of Panama.

30. Compass-Survey of the River Barima from the Eclipse Falls to the Source. GG Dixon, Darbishire, B.V. 1:250 000 13 x 42cm col. GJ V.5 p.408 (1895).

31. "The accompanying map will give an idea of the position of the three boundary-lines which are now in dispute between Great Britain and Venezuela. The eastern portion crossed by open lines is not in dispute. The lightly shaded portion indicates Venezuela's extreme claims to territorial right. The cross-shaded portion indicates the extreme claims of Great Britain, which include the while of the drainage area of the Essequibo river, with its tributaries, the Mazarina and Kuyuni rivers, also the Barama and Barima rivers, with their tributaries, and the land up to the right bank of the Amakuru river. Great Britain claims this as having received the territory in cession from the Dutch, who had farms and plantations on their banks. The line laid down by Sir R. Schomburgk commences at the mouth of Amakuru river, which it follows to its source, continuing round the head of the Barima and Barama rivers, to the source of the Akaribisi creek, which it follows to its junction with the Kuyuni river, then continuing up the Kuyuni to its source in Roraima mountain. The British Government are willing to go to arbitration on the territory west of the Schomburgk line, but do not recognize that Venezuela has any claim to any land east of the line. It was at the junction of the Yuruan river with the Kuyuni river that the Yuruan incident took place. The British Yuruan frontier station is situated immediately opposite the junction of the rivers, on the right bank of the Kuyuni". Quoted from "The British Guiana and Venezuelan Boundary Frontier", The Geographical Journal. Vol. VII, pps. 99-100. Jan - June 1896.

32. The capital city Monrovia is named for James Monroe, the American President at the time.

33. Mary Dacres' sister Eleanor married Colonel Patterson, another officer in the 2nd King's Regiment who was killed in action in the Peninsula War shortly after Colonel Bevan's suicide. Mary's three younger sisters, Jemima, Matilda and Lucy Dacres lived in Yorkshire and do not appear to have been married.

34. Admiral James Richard Dacres commanded the "Elk" aged 19. In 1805 he defeated a flotilla of 11 gunboats off Cartagena, having engaged them for 3 hours. In 1806 he captured the Fort of Coro del Mare [?] and in the same year the boats of the ship cut out, under heavy fire from Santa Marta, two Spanish Felucca privateers and recaptured an English merchant brig. In 1807 he commanded the "Bacchante" with the "Mediator" under his orders, attacked Sancann [?], San Domingo, and after a heavy cannonade for more than two hours, landed and stormed the fort in the harbour, captured two privateers together with an American and an English ship taken by the "Dauphin" (which ship they had taken a few days earlier). For this he was given the [Lloyd's?] Patriotic [Fund?] Medal and Sword. He was subsequently wounded in the action in which the Guerriere (on which ship he had a commission at the time) was taken by the Americans and placed as a prisoner on parole with an American family with whom he was "all his life on the friendliest terms". He held the command of the Cape Station from 1846 - 1849. He married a girl named Dalrymple, a niece of Lord Stair, by whom he had a large family including Mrs. Kirwan of Guildford, Surrey, and Miss. Louisa Dacres of Shamley Green in Surrey. The death of his only son from yellow fever was a grief from which he never recovered.

35. The eldest, Charles Dacres Bevan served as a County Court Judge in Cornwall and died unmarried at the age of 60. The youngest son, Edward Bevan, a messmate of Sir Henry Keppel, entered the Royal Navy and served as a lieutenant on board the "Pantaloon". Alas he was paralyzed at an early age by a bout of yellow fever he contracted in the West Indies. The daughter Eleanor Bevan, born after her fathers' suicide in 1811, married the Rev. Charles Stuart of Wragby Vicarage in Yorkshire.

36. It may be irrelevant but there is an article by an FF Dixon entitled "Leopard Hunt in Ceylon" in Outing; the Gentleman's Magazine of Sport, Travel and Outdoor Life (subtitle varies) 23 (1893-94):449. I found this reference on www.google.com; on a keyboard "FF" could easily have been intended as "GG".

37. Another Durnford pupil in those times was the James Bond creator, Ian Fleming.

38. Marjorie Edith Pelham was born at Kensington Court on 23rd May 1897; she died in 1995 aged 98. Emily recalls her in latter days as looking very like the late Queen Mother.

Special thanks to Mrs. Philippa Dacres Dixon, Michael Dacres Dixon and Emily Bunbury.

Turtle Bunbury

Writer and Historian

HISTORY

FAMILY HISTORY

The Dacres Dixon Family: 1630 - 2006

(with sub-chapters on the Earls of Listowel, the Earls of Yarborough & the Bevans)