Arthur Dixon was born in West Vale, Yorkshire, England, in 1879, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Dixon of Woodstock Street, Oldham. He married Bertha Miller in Oldham in 1906, and they had a son named Stanley, who was born in 1908. The also had a second child who died in infancy.
He began his professional life as a clerk with the Oldham Police Force at the Central Police Station, and then in 1901, he joined the Oldham firm of Hirst Brothers, wholesale jewellers, at Roscoe Street, Oldham. In 1902, he became Hirst’s Welsh representative and then in 1914 he was sent to Auckland, New Zealand to set up a branch of the firm there. Naturally, he took his wife and son with him.
In a short period of time, he managed to build up a most successful and substantial business and the senior partner in the firm, Councillor A. Hirst said of him: -
He has been a splendid fellow and has done well for himself and for us.
On 23rd March 1915, he set out to return to Oldham with his family for a five week holiday and mindful of the dangers of sea travel during the war, he decided to travel across the Pacific Ocean to Canada and thence by rail to New York, and consequently, having travelled from New Zealand to Australia, they boarded the Niagara at Sydney, Australia, and landed at Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, on the 10th April 1915. From there, they travelled by rail to New York. Once there, they boarded the
Lusitania's as second cabin passengers on the morning of 1st May 1915, at the Cunard berth at Pier 54, in time for her scheduled 10.00 a.m. departure.
Ever, professional, however, before he left Auckland, he made a complete inventory of Hirst’s stock and fearing its possible loss, he sent it via a mail steamer which was making the long route home via the Suez Canal.
This arrived at the firm’s premises at Roscoe Street on Saturday morning, 8th May 1915 and a letter which accompanied it stated: -
I am writing [to] you to give you all information regarding my stock, samples, where deposited, [and] money owing to the firm, so that if on my way home we do strike a mine or a submarine of the Huns, you will know just how I have left the business over here. ..... I am sailing to-morrow with my wife and child via Vancouver.
By the time the letter had arrived, however, Arthur Dixon was already dead, as he was killed when the
Lusitania was sunk on the afternoon of 7th May 1915, by the German submarine
U-20. He and his wife had joined the vessel just six days earlier at the Cunard berth at Pier 54 in New York. He was aged 36 years.
His son Stanley was also killed, and neither of their bodies was ever found and identified afterwards. Bertha Dixon did survive, however, although her shoulder was broken in the course of the sinking and after spending some time in hospital at Queenstown she eventually made it back to Oldham.
When Arthur Dixon's will was proven at London on 11th August 1915, administration was granted to his widow, his effects amounting to £414-9s-1d, (£414.45½p).
Bertha Dixon was in the early stages of her third pregnancy when she lost her husband and son, and gave birth to a boy, Kenneth Raymond Dixon, in Oldham on the 6th December 1915
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1911 Census of England & Wales, Canadian Passenger Lists 1865 – 1935, Cunard Records, Oldham Evening Chronicle, Oldham Standard, Probate Records, PRO BT 100/345, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.