Politician and Activist
At the general election of 1868 Dixon declined an invitation to stand for Marylebone, though he frequently addressed political meetings. In August 1869 he resigned the editorship of the Athenæum. Soon afterwards he was appointed justice of the peace for Middlesex and Westminster.
Dixon took a leading part in establishing the Shaftesbury Park Estate and other centres of improved dwellings for the labouring classes. He was a member of the first School Board for London (1870). During the first three years of the School Board's existence Dixon's labours were extensive. In direct opposition to Lord Sandon he succeeded in carrying a resolution which thenceforth established military drill in all rate-paid schools in the metropolis.
About 1873 Dixon began a movement for opening the Tower of London free of charge to the public. To this proposal the prime minister Benjamin Disraeli assented, and on public holidays Dixon personally conducted crowds of working men through the building.
Read more about this topic: William Hepworth Dixon
Famous quotes containing the words politician and/or activist:
“Nixon is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump for a speech on conservation.”
—Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965)
“...I was confronted with a virile idealism, an awareness of what man must have for manliness, dignity, and inner liberty which, by contrast, made me see how easy living had made my own group into childishly unthinking people. The Negro’s struggles and despairs have been like fertilizer in the fields of his humanity, while we, like protected children with all our basic needs supplied, have given our attention to superficialities.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 1, ch. 19 (1962)