In 1925, Waynman Dixon put a series of photos of the 1925 celebrations and a book by Waynman Dixon on the origins of the railways in a brown paper package, sealed it with wax and wrote on the cover that it should be carefully preserved until the next centenary in 2025. The Dixon family have carefully preserved the package for the last 100 years. Wayman Dixon was a civil engineer and nephew of John Dixon who assisted George Stephenson in surveying the line 1821-2. Waynman’s oldest surviving descendant, Jeremy Dixon, has the package; he is 92 and lives in Essex with his wife Judy. He will be travelling north with the package so that it can finally be opened after its 100 year wait.

Your ticket will allow you access to the closed off area of the Locomotion site and a close up view of the package opening. (Please note that visitors to the museum will be able to see and hear the event from a distance.) Your ticket price will also include a sandwich platter to enjoy during the event. Water will be provided and tea/coffee will be available from the Locomotion Cafe. Proceeds from the sales will go towards the conservation, digitisation and transcription of the contents to make them available to the wider public.

The format of the event is likely to be:

1. Welcome and speeches to provide some historic context
2. The package to be opened by Jeremy Dixon with support from an archivist
3. A brief announcement of the contents of the package.
4. The package will be removed to a side room for closer inspection and a quick assessment of significance with representatives of the Dixon family, Caroline Hardie from the Friends and an archivist,  while attendees enjoy their refreshments
5. The Dixon representatives and/or Caroline and the archivist will return with the package and give a more detailed outline of what was found inside. There will then be an opportunity to inspect the contents under glass.
6. The package will be handed over to be accessioned and curated locally and so that the Friends and the archivists can work together to raise the resources to have the contents scanned or photographed, transcribed and made accessible via the internet.
7. You will then be free to explore all that is happening at Locomotion on the day.

If you would like to learn more about Waynman Dixon, you can do so here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waynman_Dixon

You can read more about John Dixon in an article by Jonathan Peacock here The Globe for December 2024.