THE funeral of John Dixon, a keen local historian who led research to get his famous ancestor recognised in County Durham, is to be held on Thursday.
John died suddenly at his home on April 8, aged 76, only a few weeks after returning from Montana in the US where he had been filming a television programme about his illustrious ancestor, Jeremiah Dixon.
John Dixon in front of the American television cameras talking him his famous ancestor
Jeremiah was the lad from Cockfield Fell who, from 1763 to 1767, joined surveyor George Mason, from Gloucestershire, in creating the 230-mile long Mason-Dixon Line in America which separated the free states of the north from the slave-owning states of the south during the American Civil War.
John threw himself into his family history when he took early retirement from lecturing in French and economics at the Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College in Darlington. He’d been born in Croxdale in 1946, attended Bishop Auckland Grammar School and after studying economics at Liverpool University, lived in Canada for eight years where his wife, Alison, gave birth to their two daughters, Melissa and Caroline.
They returned to Bishop Auckland in 1984, and when he retired he was able to discover that he was the great-great-great-great-great-nephew of Jeremiah, as he was directly descended from Jeremiah’s brother, George, who pioneered coal and gas experiments on Cockfield Fell. George’s attempts to build a canal on the fell are said by some to be the start of the Stockton & Darlington Railway project to connect coalfield with seaport, and later generations of the Dixon family continued to be pioneering engineers.
John went to the US on several occasions to research Jeremiah’s story, and was deeply involved in the 250th anniversary celebrations of the Mason-Dixon line in 2017.
He helped organise the exhibition and international conference at the Bowes Museum which celebrated Jeremiah’s work, and he created information boards for the fell and blue plaques for Cockfield and Staindrop. He led walking tours on the fell and gave talks to local history societies.
John Dixon to the immediate left of the Cockfield sign with the committee who celebrated Jeremiah's life in 2013. From the left: Jeanette Newell, Carole West, Christine Watters, Simon Land and John Dixon. On the right are Pauline Charlton and Jonathan Peacock
A supporter of Sunderland FC, he was a past president of Darlington Snooker Club as well as being a volunteer at the Bowes Museum and was also deeply involved in Darlington’s railway history.
He is survived by his daughters and two grandchildren, Albie, seven, and Isabelle, three.
His funeral is at Darlington Crematorium at 1pm on Thursday, May 4, when people are asked to dress colourfully. Donations in lieu of flowers will be collected for First Stop, the local charity which John supported.
John Dixon, whose funeral will be held on Thursday, May 4, in Darlington
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