Prof. William Macneile Dixon


1866 - 1946

Poet and scholar of the English language. Born in India, Dixon was educated in Belfast and Trinity College, Dublin, graduating in English Literature. He worked in Dublin and Birmingham before being appointed to the Regius Chair of English Language and Literature at the University of Glasgow in 1904. Dixon remained in that position until his retirement in 1935. He was awarded an honorary doctorate the following year.

Dixon published popular and academic works of poetry, history, literary criticism and philosophy, and his patriotic works made his one of the best-known British authors of his day. His publications included English Poetry from Blake to Browning (1894), Poetry and National Character (1915), The Fleets Behind the Fleet: The Work of the Merchant Seamen and Fishermen in the War (1917), The British Navy at War (1917), The Englishman (1931), The Human Situation (1937, based on his Gifford Lectures) and Thoughts for the Times (1941).

Dixon died while visiting Edinburgh.


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