William Dixon (1788-1859) was a Scottish industrialist and the second generation of the Dixon family of Govan, Glasgow, who ran a number of the coal and iron businesses in Lanarkshire.
Dixon's father was William Dixon (1753–1824) senior, who was one of the first to exploit the Old Monkland coal fields in North Lanarkshire, leading him to own several iron works, collieries and estates that were used for mineral and coal extraction.
Early life and marriage William Dixon was born in Glasgow in 1788 to William Dixon (1753–1824) and Janet née Smith and was one of 7 children. Dixon married Elizabeth Dixon née Strang and the couple had one child, William Smith Dixon, who was born in Gallowknow, Gorbals in 1824.
Career By 1834, Dixons organisation, which used the Longwall mining technique in his collieries to extract the coal, were amongst the biggest in Scotland.
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