Prof. S. M. Dixon, O.B.E

PROF. STEPHEN MITCHELL DIXON, who died on March 25 at Nice at the age of seventy-four, was a leader in civil engineering education. Born in Dublin, he studied experimental physics and carried out research under Fitzgerald at Trinity College, and then qualified in civil engineering. After experience as contractor's engineer on railway works in England he was appointed to a newly established chair of civil engineering at Fredricton, New Brunswick, in 1892. Ten years later he moved to Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, and in 1905 was called to Birmingham to organize the Department of Civil Engineering. When, in the general re-organization following the formation of the Imperial College of Science and Technology, the Mechanical and Civil Department of the City and Guilds (Engineering) College was divided into two autonomous departments in 1912, Dixon was called to the chair of civil engineering there.