Thomas Dixon (1831–1880) was a working class autodidact and literary correspondent of

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...

in the north-east of England. A cork-cutter by trade, he lodged with a close friend of the head of the School of Art in Newcastle, William Bell Scott, and through this became acquainted with many of the artists later known as the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and others in their circle, including Tennyson, Thomas Carlyle and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. His correspondence with the

Pre-Raphaelites The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James ...

, some of whom appear to have found him a nuisance, was important in bringing the Pitman Poet

Joseph Skipsey Joseph Skipsey (17 March 1832 – 3 September 1903) was a Northumbrian poet during the Victorian period and one of a number of literary coal miners to be known as 'The Pitman Poet'. Among his best known works is the ballad "The Hartley Ca ...

to wider notice. He enjoyed a lengthy correspondence with John Ruskin between February and December 1867. Ruskin published his half of the correspondence, with excerpts from Dixon in the appendices, ''Time and Tyde by Weare and Tyne: Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work''. The letters touched on themes of honesty in work, fairness and cooperation, in keeping with his essays engaging with John Stuart Mills,

Adam Smith Adam Smith (baptized 1723 – 17 July 1790) was a Scottish economist and philosopher who was a pioneer in the thinking of political economy and key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment. Seen by some as "The Father of Economics"——— ...

and

Malthus Thomas Robert Malthus (; 13/14 February 1766 – 29 December 1834) was an English cleric, scholar and influential economist in the fields of political economy and demography. In his 1798 book ''An Essay on the Principle of Population'', Malt ...

. He was widely read and a member of the Sunderland Literary and Philosophical Society. Though the recipient of many books as gifts from his correspondents, Dixon had few of them in his house, remarking that he saw no need for books as ornaments and that after reading and absorbing a book's contents, he would donate it to the local library. He sat for many of the artists he corresponded with and a portrait of him by Alfred Dixon (no relation) is in the collection of Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens. At his death, Dixon had a substantial archive of letters, which he desired to be left to the town of Sunderland as a single collection with his books and art. Instead, his letters were split up and auctioned in the 1970s.

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External links

* {{cite web , url=https://collectionssearchtwmuseums.org.uk/#details=ecatalogue.297754 , title=Portrait of Thomas Dixon
Ruskin's letters to Dixon
in Project Gutenberg British academic biography stubs 1831 births 1880 deaths