Right: The portrait at Wallasey Golf Club
commissioned by Sir Ernest Royden and signed by Jones himself
young man of the artist as a
Portraits
PHILIP STERN TELLS THE STORY OF THREE GREAT PAINTINGS OF BOBBY JONES AND HIS
GRANDFATHER’S ROLE IN CREATING TWO OF THEM.
A LITTLE WHILE AGO my good friend Anthony Shone pointed out to me the article in last year’s edition of this magazine about the Club gift book. It reproduced a page from the book which shows that in 1930 a gentleman called J.R. Dixon presented to Royal Liverpool a portrait of R.T. Jones. Knowing a little of my family Anthony
asked me if this J.R. Dixon was my grandfather, and I was able to tell him that indeed he was. As I was unaware that JRD had gifted
this portrait to the Club I was prompted to do a little research into its background. John Rothwell Dixon was born and raised at Great Marton not
far from
Blackpool and became a member of nearby Royal Lytham & St
Annes
Golf Club. Among the Dixon family’s business
interests were textiles, and JRD assumed control of three cotton mills in Blackburn, running them from offices in Manchester. Round about 1913, after his marriage,
Above: The Hoylake portrait by Berrie of Bobby Jones
Below: The entry in the Club gift book
he moved from Blackpool to Bidston on the Wirral peninsula and a house on Vyner Road South. The following year he became a member at Hoylake. As a cotton mill owner he would have visited Liverpool frequently to buy raw materials, and it is likely that among the merchants he encountered were a Royal Liverpool member or two who invited him to join them. From Bidston JRD would commute
to either Blackburn or Manchester, a reminder that the rail network of more than a century ago was at least as efficient as today’s if not more so.
26 ROYAL LIVERPOOL GOLF CLUB MAGAZINE 2018–2019 Throughout his life JRD remained
actively involved with his birthplace of Marton, particularly with the working men’s club which his father, John Picken Dixon, had founded and of which he was the president until he died. It was considered to be one of the finest such clubs in the country. JRD is buried in the churchyard of St Paul’s, built on Marton land which his father had donated. JRD was a gregarious man who
loved to entertain friends at his Wirral home. A frequent guest at his house was Sir Malcolm Sargent who would often visit when conducting at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall. JRD himself was rather a musical philistine and would infuriate my
grandmother, a great
admirer of Sir Malcolm, by greeting him with the words, “Hello, Malcolm. How is your band?” He maintained his membership at
Lytham and was elected Captain for 1926, the year of Bobby Jones’s victory there in the Open Championship. Sadly he was unable to present Jones with the Claret Jug due to illness - his place was taken by General Topping, a senior past Captain. Because his poor health meant that
JRD could not fulfil much of his role in 1926 he was elected Captain again in 1928. When Jones accepted life membership of Royal Lytham in 1930, JRD presented to the Lancashire Club the portrait of Jones by J.A.A. Berrie which still hangs in the members’ clubroom. By coincidence, a few days after my conversation with
Anthony, my first
cousin Charles Dixon, also a grandson of JRD, stayed with us, and I took him
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64
