AOSA CENTENARY HISTORY 1841 - 1941

Contents
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Appendix

Return History
Contents

For fifty-four years father and son ruled in the school. George Dixon held the position of superintendent from the start in 1841 until his resignation in 1865. His son Ralph, successively scholar, apprentice, assistant, followed his father and remained in office until the end of 1895. During their joint rule nearly 900 boys and 800 girls passed through the School; the grandchildren of scholars whom the father had taught were themselves taught by the son. The Dixons’ influence affected the career and character of all; their teaching and discipline directly guided these children; indirectly their example, their own lives, their very presence exerted a hidden pressure, secret yet powerful.

Deep differences separated the temper and character of the father from the temper and character of the son, yet each marched along a very similar path of attainment. In their teaching they both achieved the easy dexterity of habit, and Ralph Dixon’s year at Flounders, his sole professional training in the theory and practice of that education to which he devoted his life and work, brought no startling changes.

To this habitual mastery was added the immense prestige of age, tradition and success. The children were young; the contact between pupils and staff was formal, regulated and restrained. The ties of blood emphasised the similarity of position; the superintendent was a Dixon almost of right. Growing age only marked more clearly the difference between the heads and the assistants and the children themselves, and marriage emphasised this difference.

Their physical appearance, sitting in bearded solemnity at the head of the meeting, their spiritual leadership as recorded ministers of the Society, their customary reserve and controlled speech, their effortless mastery, attested their local eminence. They were endued with continued authority; they saw the success of their own work as each cautious innovation marked an advance, slow, steady and considered. They appeared immune from the trials and troubles of ordinary men.

One desire seemed to move them and one only, that the children under their care should be able with God’s help to develop such powers of mind as they possessed, to grow in happy health, and to follow the leading tenets of Christian morality. To these by no means unworthy objects they devoted their thoughts and lives; this task came first; personal affairs provided its background. Such fidelity to their calling left a deep and indelible impression alike on the history of the school and in the hearts of the children who were their constant concern.

The appointment of George Dixon as superintendent in 1841 appeared to be the climax of a series of events in his life, apparently trivial, which had happened during the previous twelve years. The first of these events occurred when George Dixon was seventeen. He was born in 1812 at Staindrop near Darlington and in 1829 suffered from a severe attack of typhus fever. Extreme weakness and general debility remained which decided his father, himself a convinced Friend converted after soldiering in the Napoleonic wars and fighting at Talavera, that for a time the lad should live in the open air, and he accordingly apprenticed his son to a farmer for three years.

When he came back home he continued to work as a farm hand in the day time; in the evenings he devoted himself to those branches of study where he felt himself deficient. This added education brought about the next step in his preparation for life. He decided to teach others as well, and to open a day school for young children. Joseph Pease, prominent in Darlington, when he heard of George Dixon’s wish, suggested that a training in the Lancasterian system of teaching could be obtained in the Skinnergate School at Darlington. So on the next Monday after the suggestion of the plan, George Dixon went to Skinnergate. He was introduced to William Shotton the headmaster, who promised, as a member of his committee was sponsoring the young man, to train and practise him in the Lancasterian system.

This famous development of education combined cheapness, charity, and simple effectiveness. Joseph Lancaster, himself a Friend, devised a plan for securing to any child the elements of elementary learning. His method entailed only a very small outlay so that all but the very poorest could benefit; it enforced a rigid formality of discipline likely to produce well-drilled workers with a suggestion of intelligence; it opened the way to a general system of elementary education; it provided a grounding in the non-denominational aspects of the Christian faith.

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