Lt Richard Thomas Dixie

Richard Thomas Dixie

• General Notes
  • Richard Dixie of the Royal Marines was the youngest brother of the sixth, seventh and ninth baronets and in 1809 married Harriet the daughter of Lieut. T. Wilson RN of Pamcastle, Carmarthen. He was commissioned as 2nd Lieut. in the Marines in May 1804 aged twenty- two, was promoted to 1st Lieut. in May 1808 and from 1815 until his death in 1834 appeared in successive Army Lists as a 1st Lieut. on half-pay.
    
    Both Richard Dixie and his brother Alexander had handsome bequests from their cousin Eleanor Pochin.  In Richard's case there was an annuity of £300, the sum of £2000 for his own use and a further £10,000 to be invested for him and his heirs. He made his own Will in 1831 and is described therein as "of the parish of Llandefeilog Carmarthenshire, esquire about to leave this Kingdom for Canada". The Will was proved in London three years later by Lieut. W.R. Davies R.N. one of the executors. Richard's widow was to have only £50 a year if she remarried, the surplus to accumulate and to be shared equally among their children after her death. The eldest daughter, Harriet, who had recently married was not to benefit. The other children named in the Will were Eleanor, Wolstan, Beaumont and Richard born between 1816 and 1821. But in Richard Dixie's family bible another son, Henry George Pochin Dixie, is stated to have been born in 1827 and, like his brother, to have been baptised at Kidwelly. This child is not heard of again and it seems likely he died in infancy.
    
    In September 1832, when Richard had settled at Stamford near Niagara Falls, he added a Codicil to his Will. This dealt with the lands he had acquired in Canada: 500 acres in Tosseronto township in Simcoe County, eleven town lots in Stamford  totalling 6 ½ acres and four park lots totalling over 11 acres. These properties, together with furniture, plate, linen, carriages, stock, crops and other effects were left to his wife for her lifetime and then to their children in order of seniority, Harriet again being excluded. Each of the three sons each received a personal gift; a pair of silver spurs for Wolstan, a snuff box for Beaumont and a gold watch and seals for Richard. These articles are now in the possession of descendants of Beaumont Dixie.
    
    The names of all three brothers appear in the student's roll of Upper Canada Colege at Toronto but the only later information we have about Wolstan is contained in two of his letters dated 1837 and 1840. In the first, written from Toronto, he asks his mother for an affidavit certifying him to be the eldest son so that he can receive the title to 100 acres in Medonte township in Simcoe County which was omitted from his father's Will. The second letter tells his mother that he has been ordered up to Chatham (near Lake St. Clair) and is comfortably settled in "a good house ready furnished" but would be more satisfied if she would consent to his marriage. He continues "The Colonel of my Regiment has already consented and from what he hears of the Lady he has no doubt but that she is a person who will have such an influence over me that it (marriage) will be the means of steadying me which is an object in my case, as he says he thinks that no good will ever come of me unless I get married and settle myself down quietly …  He has promised to keep me here as long as the Regiment remains in the Western District".
    
    That passage, revealing though it is as to Wolstan's character, is equivocal in other respects. Although there were twelve English regiments of Foot and two of Cavalry in Canada in 1840, the name of Dixie is nowhere to be found in that year's Army List. What then can Wolstan's military rank or civilian status have been? Was he attached to a Canadian militia regiment or a local volunteer force or was he, even though he was twenty-three – under the Colonel's guardianship?
    
    It is not known whether the proposed marriage ever took place. There are no marriage records for Chatham at that period and no later information about Wolstan has been found. The conclusion of his letter is hardly reassuring. It reads "Give my love to all who will accept it" leaving the impression that he was something of a black sheep, albeit an amiable one. It may, finally, be significant that, under the Will of Miss Christiana Wilson, Mrs Dixie's sister who died at Stamford in 1867, all Wolstan's brothers and sisters benefit substantially whereas Wolstan himself is not mentioned at all. It may be that by then he had either died or fallen into disgrace and disappeared.
    
    Wolstan's brother Beaumont after leaving Upper Canada College studied medicine with Dr. King of Toronto but for some unknown reason betook himself to Peterboro at the end of 1839. Two months later on February 22nd. we find him writing to his sister, Eleanor asking her to prevail on Dr King to take him back again. Whether or not he was successful, Beaumont qualified as a doctor in April 1842.
    
    Six years later Mrs Dixie died. She and Eleanor had left Canada, probably with the intention of spending the winter at Trawsmawr in Wales at the invitation of David Davies, brother of W.R. Davies R.N. and a family friend of long standing. It is likely that Mrs Dixie also intended to be present at the wedding of her youngest son Richard which was to take place at St. Clears, Carmarthenshire on 10th. February. In the event, however, she never reached Wales; we have Eleanor's account of how her mother, having fallen ill at Gibraltar, was carried on board on a stretcher, only to die off Cape Trafalgar on 5th. February.
    
    Meanwhile Dr Beaumont Dixie, after practicing for a few years at Sydenham, a village on the western outskirts of Toronto, moved to to Springfield (now called Erindale) about five miles away. Here he died in 1898. He was clearly held in high esteem in the neighbourhood, for in 1864 Sydenham was renamed Dixie in his honour.
    
    Dr Dixie married Anna Skynner in 1842 and by her had two sons and four daughters. But, tragically enough, two of these daughters and both the sons died during a severe diphtheria epidemic in 1854.  The oldest of them was nine years old. By his second wife, Elizabeth Blackley, Dr Dixie had only one daughter and thus left no male heir to carry on the name of Dixie.
    
    One of the daughters by his first marriage – born after the diphtheria outbreak – was Mary Amelia who became the wife of Henry Sprowl and whose granddaughter Mrs A.C.Forster (nee Lillian Sprowl) now lives at Streetsville, Ontario. Many of the papers and relics of the Canadian Dixies have been preserved by her family and have been the source of much of the foregoing information.
    
    The Doctor's younger brother, Richard Thomas Dixie, returned to Carmarthenshire and, as we have seen, was married in February 1848. His wife was Ann, daughter of William Thomas an innkeeper of St. Clears. They had twelve children, all born in Carmarthenshire between 1849 and 1868. This brood included four sons, two of whom died in infancy and another in 1879 at the age of twenty-one The remaining son, Richard Thomas Dixie III was born in 1866 but there is no record of his marriage in England or Wales. Towards the end of the century he was living in Sydney but left Australia in order to take part in the Boer War. He is believed to have settled in South Africa after the war and it seems that his family heard no more of him.
    
    Two of Richard's sisters also went to Australia and both settled in Sydney, Harriet starting a guest-house and Clementina a successful dressmaking business. A third sister, Caroline remained in Carmarthenshire and married John Davies, a widowed bank-cashier, at St Clears in 1893, two years after her mother’s death. Her father was still living. It is interesting to recall that by then the association of the Dixie family with South Wales, dating from the marriage of the Rev Beaumont Joseph and Margaret Shewen (see p.46), had persisted for at least a century and a quarter.
    
    Dr Beaumont's sister Harriet, the elder daughter of Richard Thomas Dixie R.M. has already been briefly referred to; having married John Waters early in 1831 she did not go to Canada with the rest of the family. Her husband was the fourth son of John Waters J.P. for Carmarthen, and the grandson of Thomas Waters of Penally Court, Pembrokeshire. According to Burke's Landed Gentry (1846) these gentlemen were descendants of Sir Richard Waters "father of the celebrated Lucy Waters of the Court of Charles II". The Dictionary of National Biography however says that Charles II's mistress, although often incorrectly spoken of as Mrs Walters or Waters was in fact the daughter of William Walter (d.1650) of Roch Castle, near Haverford West, Pembrokeshire.
    
    John Waters died in or before 1852 and letters of that date written by his widow to her uncle, Sir Alexander Dixie are in the possession of the present baronet. Harriet's second husband was Thomas Morgan Esq. of Mairogevada, South Wales; she is referred to as Harriet Morgan when her aunt Christiana Wilson made her will in 1865.
    
    Two of the sons of Harriet and John Waters have been lost sight of. Their names were John and Edward and it is thought possible they went to Canada. Two other sons, Thomas Beaumont and Alexander, emigrated to Australia about the time of their father's death. Thomas we know had with him a letter of introduction written by Major Thomas J. Deverall of the 67th Regiment of Foot who had married Thomas Dixie's (incorrect should be Waters) aunt Eleanor in 1845. Deverall became a full Colonel in October 1858 and by that time had transferred to the 77th (East Middlesex) Regiment, which in 1858 was on passage to Australia.
    
    Details of the descendants of Alexander Waters are at present lacking but a considerable number of Thomas's grandchildren are settled on the land in various parts of Victoria and New South Wales.  These are fourth cousins of Sir Wolstan Dixie the present baronet.
    
    Much of the information about this branch has been supplied by a great-granddaughter of Thomas Waters: Miss Wendy Waters of Boonderoo, Jingellie, New South Wales. She has since married.
    

Details of Richard's family with Mrs Harriet Wilson