1591–2 he became alderman of St. Michael Bassishaw ward in exchange for that of Broad Street. He had a high character as an active magistrate and charitable citizen, and died 8 Jan. 1593–4, possessed not only of the manor of Bosworth, which he had purchased in 1567 from Henry, earl of Huntingdon, but of many other ‘lands and tenements in Bosworth, Gilmorton, Coton, Carleton, Osbaston, Bradley, and North Kilworth.’ These estates devolved upon his brother Richard, except the manor of Bosworth, which he settled upon Richard's grandson, his own great-nephew, Wolstan. Dixie was buried in the parish church of St. Michael Bassishaw. His heir, Wolstan, was knighted, was sheriff of Leicestershire in 1614, and M.P. for the county in 1625. His son, a well-known royalist, was made a baronet 4 July 1660. The baronetcy is still extant.
Dixie left large charitable bequests to various institutions in London—an annuity to Christ's Hospital, of which he was elected president in 1590; a fund for establishing a divinity lecture at the church of St. Michael Bassishaw, in which parish he resided; 500l. to the Skinners' Company to lend at a low rate of interest to young merchants; money for coals to the poor of his parish; annuities to St. Bartholomew's and St. Thomas's Hospitals; money for the poor in Bridewell, Newgate, and the prisons in Southwark; for the two compters, and to Ludgate and Bedlam; 100l. to portion four maids; 50l. to the strangers of the French and Dutch churches; 200l. towards building a pesthouse; besides provision for the poor of his parish and of Ealing, where he had a house, on the day of his funeral. He had subscribed 50l. towards the building of the new puritan college of Emmanuel in Cambridge (1584), and in his will he left 600l. to purchase land to endow two fellowships and two scholarships for the scholars of his new grammar school at Market Bosworth. This fund for many years accordingly supported these fellows and scholars, while the surplus was employed in purchasing livings. It has recently been devoted to the foundation of a Dixie professorship of ecclesiastical history. At the time of his death he was engaged in erecting the grammar school at Bosworth, which he had endowed with land of the yearly value of 20l. This was completed by his great-nephew and heir.
One portrait of Dixie hangs in the courtroom of Christ's Hospital, of which an engraving is given by Nichols in his ‘History of Leicestershire,’ and another in the parlour of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. There are two other engravings of him—one in ‘A Set of Lord Mayors from the first year of Queen Elizabeth to 1601,’ and another head by H. Holland, 1585.
[Stowe's Survey of London (fol. ed. 1633), pp. 106, 138, 298, 590; Nichols's Leicestershire (fol. 1811), vol. iv. pt. ii. pp. 495–7; Orridge's Citizens of London, p. 230; Transactions of London and Middlesex Archæol. Soc. vol. ii. pt. iv. pp. 25–36; Visitation of Leicester (Harl. Soc.), p. 116; Overall's Remembrancia; Burke's Baronetage.]
DIXON, GEORGE (d. 1800?), navigator, served as a petty officer of the Resolution during Cook's last voyage [see Cook, James]. He would seem to have afterwards had the command of a merchant ship, and in May 1785 was engaged by the King George's Sound Company, formed for the development and prosecution of the fur trade of the north-western parts of America. Dixon was appointed to command the Queen Charlotte, and sailed from St. Helen's on 17 Sept. 1785 in company with the King George, whose captain, Nathaniel Portlock [q. v.], had been his shipmate in the Resolution, and was now the commander of the expedition. Doubling Cape Horn and touching at the Sandwich Islands, they sailed thence on 13 June 1786, and on 18 July made the coast of America, near the mouth of Cook's River, in lat. 59° N. In that neighbourhood they remained some weeks, and then worked their way southwards towards King George's, or, as it is now more commonly called, Nootka Sound, off which they were on 24 September; but being prevented by baffling winds and calms from entering the Sound, they returned to the Sandwich Islands, where they wintered.
On 13 March 1787 they again sailed for the coast of America, and on 24 April anchored off Montague Island. Here on 14 May the two vessels separated, it being considered more likely to lead to profitable results if they worked independently. During the next three months Dixon was busily employed southward as far as King George's Sound, trading with the natives, taking eager note of their manners and customs, as well as of the trade facilities, and making a careful survey of the several points which came within his reach. Cook had already denoted the general outline of the coast, but the detail was still wanting, and much of this was now filled in by Dixon, more especially the important group of Queen Charlotte Islands, which, in the words of their discoverer's narrative, ‘surpassed our most sanguine expectations, and afforded a greater quantity of furs than perhaps any place hitherto known.’ It may be noticed, however, that though he sighted and named Queen Charlotte's Sound, he missed the discovery that it was a passage
