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On March 2, 1832, Henry Dixon succeeded Francis
Whitcombe as vicar of St Andrew's Ferring, with the parishes of Kingston and
East Preston. Ferring was a discharged vicarage worth 6 pounds 8 shillings
and fourpence. There was, for a long time, a close association between St
Andrew's and the chapels of Kingston and East Preston. All three were
included in the prebend of Ferring founded by Bishop Hilary of Chichester in
the 12th century.
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2 March 2007: Thanks for your helpful site, I am selling
2 old shakespeare volumes on Ebay from 1770 that were owned by Henry Dixon
and so I was able to glean some information about him that way. If you want
to find the books and watch them on eBay just search for
kistlerinternetauctions (my seller name). The books have a long paragraph of
his history written inside, from 1816 when he apparently bought them at
Brasenose College.
Kistler Internet Auctions, 556 Pike St. Box 603, Meadow Lands, PA. 15347
John M. Kistler 301 West Pike St., Apt. 4B Houston, PA. 15342
[email protected]
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The living was presented to Henry Dixon on March
18, 1832. He was the first rural dean to be vicar of Ferring. He would live
at Ferring Vicarage permanently only after his mother died in 1835 (before
that he had commuted to Ferring from Worthing, where he lived with his
widowed mother). He would become the longest serving vicar of the parish (38
years).
Henry Dixon was born in the late Mrs Copley's
house in Storrington on Jan. 12, 1798, second surviving son of the Rev.
Joseph Dixon, rector of neighboring Sullington, by his wife Anne Partridge.
He was baptized at Sullington Church by his father on Feb. 1, 1798. He went
to Eton, and from there he was admitted as a commoner into Brasenose
College, Oxford, matriculating as a trainee cleric on Jan. 22, 1817. He
got his BA in 1820, was deaconed in 1821, and became a curate under his
father at Sullington. In 1823 he got his MA and was priested. He also served
as curate to his father's successor at Sullington, the Rev. George Palmer.
His father, the Rev. Joseph Dixon (1756-1824)
was the son of an eminent London builder, Richard Dixon (1724-1785). His
mother, Anne Partridge (1762-1835) was the daughter of the most famous and
notorious publican of her time, Henrietta Partridge (19 men died one evening
at her pub in Slough, the Castle Inn, in 1773 - bad turtle soup). Henry
Dixon had an older brother, William (1795-1859), who became a captain the
Royal Artillery and spent most of his working life in Corfu, marrying into
the Corfiote nobility. Henry also had a younger brother, Fred (1799-1849),
who became a doctor, the founder of what became Worthing Hospital, and a
notable geologist and paleontologist and early dinosaur hunter. Henry had
helped Fred found the Ann Street Dispensary in Worthing in 1829, and been
the first chairman and treasurer.
On March 8, 1837, Henry married Anne Austen at
St George Hanover Square in London. Anne, baptized July 27, 1799, in
Cranbrook, Kent, was the third child and only daughter of Maj. John Austen
of Goudhurst, by his wife Harriet Hussey. There would be no children of this
marriage. Anne died at Ferring Vicarage on March 20, 1864.
In 1842 the flat ceiling of St Andrew's
Church in Ferring was removed and a higher one installed under Henry's
direction, and with the co-operation of Squire Henty, of the Grange. At the
same time new pews were placed in the nave.
In 1851 Henry became involved in the Montague
Peerage Claim, which had to do with the pedigree of the third branch of the
Browne family. At one point the controversy revolved around a key entry that
had been entered in the Storrington parish register during the time that
Henry was relieving the sick curate Mr Griffith (between July 1822 and May
1823). During this time the register had been borrowed, and perhaps doctored
by persons about to perpetrate a fraudulent peerage claim.
Henry died intestate on Nov. 6, 1870, and was
buried at Ferring on Nov. 11. The officiating ministers were Gregory
Bateman, curate of Ferring, and Charles William Salius, curate of East
Preston. On Nov. 23 his effects went to his nephew, Col. Henry Dixon of the
Indian Army. Gregory Walter Pennithorne took over as vicar of Ferring.
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