Frederick Dixon-Hartland

Sir Frederick Dixon Dixon-Hartland, 1st Baronet, DL, FRGS (1 May 1832 – 1909) was an antiquary, banker and a Conservative politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1881 to 1909.

Dixon-Hartland in 1895.

Hartland was born in a small rural village, Charlton Kings, Gloucestershire, or close to Evesham, Worcestershire the son of Nathaniel Hartland and his wife Eliza Dixon of dissenting Christian sects, termed at the time nonconformists.[1] He was educated at nearby Cheltenham College and in London at Clapham Grammar School.[2] Hartland was a traveller — he published Tapographia; or a collection of tombs of royal and distinguished families, collected during a tour of Europe. He was elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1854.[2]

In 1875, he purchased land at Middleton-on-Sea and Felpham in Sussex[3] in addition to his other home and agricultural holding at the time The Oaklands, Charlton Kings.

In business, he was a partner in Woodbridge Lace & Co and the Uxbridge Old Bank, a bank of a main historic market town in Middlesex, an abolished county centred on western and central London. In 1891, he sold the Smithfield Bank to Birmingham and Midland Bank [4]

Dixon Hartland stood unsuccessfully at Hereford in 1880, but was elected as MP for Evesham in 1881. He donated chancel gates and screens to the Church of St Mary's at nearby Cheltenham.[5] In 1885 he stood at Uxbridge with the same party and held the seat until his death in 1909. He was a Conservative.

Dixon Hartland was a County Alderman for Middlesex in 1889, a Deputy Lieutenant for the City of London, and a justice of the peace for Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and Middlesex. He was created a baronet on 3 October 1892[6] and adopted the prefix of Dixon to his surname in 1861.

In 1895 he was appointed Chairman of the Thames Conservancy.[2] Dixon-Hartland was the first president of Fulwell Golf club in 1904, which sat on a south-eastern border of his constituency.[7] He married his second wife, 28 years his junior, in 1895 Agnes Chichester Christie. His latter life London home was at 14 Chesham Place, Belgravia/Knightsbridge,[8] and he died on 15 November 1909 at Glyndebourne, East Sussex.[9] His probate was resworn by his widow the next year at £176,584 (equivalent to about £18,200,000 in 2019).[9]