Dear Jack
I was very pleased to receive your letter of the 14 Dec, and interested to read all your family news.
I felt sure you would be interested in the family trees I managed to get together, the major details of which I got from my mother (who was of course your grandmother's next sister).
You mention wondering how your Great Grandfather Isaac Dixon (ii) (my grandfather) came to be in Hartlepool, and how he made his fortune. He was born in Kings Cliffe and after leaving school, he set out in business as what was known as a Tally man, going round the country villages with his pack, selling goods to farmers wives and daughters on tick, and in the course of his peregrinations, he called at the Robinson farms in Lincolnshire, where he took a fancy to Sarah Robinson, and married her. The Robinsons very staunch Calvarstie Methodists were prosperous farmers, not rich but comfortably off, some of them very much so. Sarah was the eldest daughter and her elder brother Levi was a Chemist in Alford, and in addition ran a farm, bred horses for sale, and made quite a packet. He had no children, I have a copy of his Will, in which, inter alia, he left all the residue equally divided between all his nephews and nieces, and if you study the Robinson family tree, you will see what a lot he had, Among them your Grandmother (nee Sarah Dixon) and my mother (nee Elizabeth Dixon) received each £400 odd, and of course so did their sisters Eliza, Susannah, Ada and Emily. This was a godsend in the years of depression when Sally and Lizzie's husbands were out of work.
When Isaac Dixon (ii) married Sarah Robinson he received a very substantial dowry from her family, and those being days before the Married Women's property act, Isaac naturally took control of her money, and used it to buy a shop to get up on a permanent basis. His Tallyman days were over. He thus set up in business in the High Street at Hartlepool, at that time a thriving seaport - now I'm afraid a slum of West Hartlepool, or nearly so. His first wife only had 17 years of married life, and died in 1867 in childbirth. He married again, and had a second family. He died in 1908 and my Father was Executor of his will. I was 20 years of age at that time. My Grandfather Dixon certainly did not bury his talents, but was industrious and left about £3000. As the bedrock of this was Robinson money, the first family resented, the second family sharing in the bequests. There is often dissention in familys over Wills.
My Grandfather Dixon was friendly with a local chemist, and they took up Photography when details of the process became known.
He had his own darkroom , and had to make his photographic plates. He showed me how he did it. On glass of course. There were not any to buy. Having exposed his plate in his camera, he developed it in his darkroom, and after processing he had a negative. Photo paper had not been invented then. So that to get a Positive, he made another plate, same as before and when this was dry (all done in the dark) married the second plate with the first in a holder, and exposed it to daylight a few seconds only. Thus on developing the second plate in the same way, he got a positive with the image the right way round. I have not any of his negatives, but I have positives (on glass) of his wife (Sarah) taken in 1862 and his grandparents Isaac and Sarah Rate. My problem was to take a negative from these glass positives, so that I could take positive prints on paper. I enclose for you to keep.
1 My taking a copy of photo of Isaac Rate
2 " " " " " " Sarah Robinson (1st Mrs Dixon) with a negative of my making of same from
3 which you can get positive copies made for your sister and others if you wish
4 my taking copies of photo of Isaac Dixon (i) and his wife (nee Eliza Rate)
all the best
William
