Wolstan Dixie, 4th Baronet

Sir Wolstan Dixie, 4th Baronet (1700–1767) was among the most colourful of the 13 Dixie baronets of Market Bosworth, descended from the second Sir Wolstan Dixie, knighted by James I in 1604, and Sheriff of Leicester (himself grand-nephew of the first Sir Wolstan Dixie, Lord Mayor of London in 1585, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I).

The 4th Baronet was born at Bosworth Hall in 1700. The very rare but characteristic male given name is a variant spelling of , probably deriving from Wolstan the 11th century bishop.

Sir Wolstan was a colourful character and stories, real and possibly spurious abound. He was Sheriff of Leicestershire in 1727.

He had a reputation for being a pugnacious bully, with a penchant for using his fists to settle any dispute, which often set him at odds with his neighbours and even ex-employees. As the chief trustee of the local school he “had complete control” over the appointment of tutors at the establishment. In March 1732 he appointed the young and impoverished Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) to a position of usher at the school, even though he did not have the required university degree. Another stipulation of the school statutes that Dixie ignored was that the master be provided with a house of his own. Instead, Johnson was lodged at Bosworth Hall and, in the words of Johnson’s biographer James Boswell (who had it from Johnson’s lifelong friend, and near neighbour of Dixie, John Taylor of Ashbourne), Johnson became “a kind of domestick chaplain, so far at least, as to say grace at table, but was treated with what he represented as intolerable harshness; and, after suffering for a few months such complicated misery, he relinquished a situation for which all his life afterwards he recollected with the strongest aversion, and even a degree of horrour”.

As Dixie was also “legendary for his ignorance” there is an amusing anecdote told about his violent encounter with a neighbouring squire who objected to Dixie barring access to a footpath across his land. The ensuing fight must have been memorable, for Dixie at least: when he was presented to the Germanic King George II at a levee as Sir Wolstan Dixie “of Bosworth Park”, the king, wanting perhaps to show some knowledge of important English battles, said, “’Bosworth-Bosworth! Big battle at Bosworth, wasn’t it?’ ‘Yes, Sire. But I thrashed him’, replied Sir Wolstan, oblivious of any other fight than his own”.

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