AOSA CENTENARY HISTORY 1841 - 1941
page nineteen
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
Such interests were largely, though by no means entirely confined to the school, but another cause which received his almost life-long attention demanded a wider audience. George Dixon’s father had encouraged him in temperance work, and at Ayton he carried on a campaign both in the village and in the school. The children’s conversion was bound to be swift and certain but he gripped the village as well. In 184.9 they celebrated progress by a temperance tea in the boys’ schoolroom where 320 people assembled to eat and drink before they adjourned to the British School to hear teetotal eloquence. As the tea parties took place annually, most of the people of the village took the pledge, and Ayton was called the teetotal village. Those under sixteen ran a juvenile Band of Hope which held fortnightly meetings : all the scholars were members and to each leaver the superintendent presented a medal and a paper of verse.
On the obverse of the base metal was stamped a churchwarden pipe with a fanged serpent coiled round the stem; below, a death’s head was imprisoned in a glass; the warning words read “Touch not : Taste not Handle not.” On the reverse the neophyte promised to abstain from all intoxicating drink as a beverage, and the use of tobacco; to discourage their use in others and to forswear bad language and gambling.
These ideals were fixed in the mind by the page of verse:
Three things there are I’ll never do;
I’ll never drink, nor smoke, nor chew.
I ne’er will form an appetite
For Whisky, beer, cigar or pipe;
No alcohol or nicotine
About my person shall be seen.
And these three things I will forbear.
I’ll never lie nor steal nor swear.
I’ll speak the truth to everyone;
What is not mine I’ll leave alone.
My lips, I vow, shall ever be
From naughty words and swearing free.
Now these six things I will not do;
I’ll never lie nor steal nor swear
Nor drink, nor smoke, nor chew.’
The self-forgetting simplicity which such lines revealed showed in other matters. At his very first arrival at the School time was lacking to put up the bedsteads they had brought, so ‘we spread our bedding on the floor and retired to rest having read a psalm and asked our Heavenly Father’s blessing on our new home.’ And again when the Irish famine raged at its worst he decided, and persuaded the housekeeper, Emma Walker, and the mistress, Sarah Ann Hodgson, to agree that the three should give up the use of butter for three months so that they might do a little more for the distressed Irish, and he asked the committee to allow them a sum equivalent to its cost. The committee duly agreed; the butter money went to sustain the starving Irish and during March, April and May of 1847 the three adults ate their dry wholemeal bread, more palatable for the self-denial.
Such a simple and direct attitude towards daily work and duty did not arise from any weakness or indecision of character. He well knew when to make a stand and when the time came he stood. This same Emma Walker tried to arrogate her power and place and clashed with George Dixon. The Committee supported their superintendent and had an interview with the housekeeper in which they tried ‘to impress upon her correct views of the subordinate character of her position in this Institution to which she appeared disposed to accede.’ But within a month the recalcitrant housekeeper again rebelled and the committee realised that its hopes were not well founded. They handed the matter to the women’s committee who reported that they had ‘had an interview with Emma Walker when it was agreed that she should be free from her engagement at the expiration of three months.’ Within this time they secured another housekeeper and suggested that the way was open for ‘her leaving this Institution prior to the 7th of the 12th Month should her arrangements consider this desirable.’ But she hardened her heart and stayed her time out.
In another similar case George Dixon reported on ‘the unsatisfactory conduct of Robert Waller, the principal farm servant, in a moral point of view, personally in his want of care in his language with the boys and suitable civility to himself.’ This was enough and the Committee was ‘unitedly of the judgment that he leave the employ of this Institution as early as may be.’ Those who withstood George Dixon’s will and tried to encroach on his authority soon appreciated his power and persistence.
George Dixon ruled the School for twenty-four years, developing from the untried novice who mistrusted his own capacity to the firm, kindly, occasionally irascible autocrat, sure of himself and his place. He knew what went on in the house, school, garden and farm; he watched over scholars and old scholars and was delighted to receive from them on his retirement a beautiful travelling bag and ‘a purse of twenty-one guineas in gold;’ and he appreciated the minute of farewell that the committee passed on his resignation. They recorded that ‘of the North of England Agricultural School he took the entire superintendence and of the accounts and correspondence. On him also devolved the duties of headmaster and great was the interest manifested by him in seeking to promote the moral and religious welfare of the pupils under his care, as well as their school-learning, blended as it was with Agricultural and Horticultural labour; neither should the self-denial and economy which marked the commencement of the Institution pass away without a record, nor the affectionate interest with which, in after years, he has continued to watch by correspondence and otherwise, those who have partaken of his instruction and his care.’
The minute further stated that, remembering
George Dixon’s long and faithful service, they felt ‘the
severance involved in the pending changes.’ They hoped that the
Divine blessing might be with him in his proposed work and that he
might ‘be permitted to return to his children and his native
land with comfort and in peace.’
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