It was once thought that Thomas Dixon might have been the eponymous son of a nonconformist minister who was removed from the vicarage of Kelloe, County Durham in the Great Ejection of 1662.
[1][2] He studied at Manchester under John Chorlton and James Coningham, probably from 1700 to 1704, during which period he was for some time uncertain whether he should follow the path of nonconformism or that of the Church of England.
He served briefly in the ministry at Colchester from 1704, but by October 1705 had succeeded Roger Anderton as minister of a dissenting congregation at Whitehaven that had been founded by Irish presbyterians.
[3] During his time at Whitehaven, when he was considered the leading nonconformist of the then county of Cumberland, he established a dissenting academy that concentrated mainly on the education of future ministers.
It was certainly in operation by 1710, the year after he and his probable advisor in the venture, Edmund Calamy, had travelled together to Scotland, where in April Dixon had been awarded an honorary MA degree.
[1] Dixon's status in the county enabled him to exert considerable influence in obtaining financial support for his students from the Presbyterian Fund Board.
[1] Thomas Dixon, son of the above, was born in Bolton[5] on 16 July 1721,[citation needed] and educated for the ministry at Kendal Academy, which he entered in 1738.