thumb|Carte de visite from about 1868
William Hepworth Dixon (30 June 1821 – 26 December 1879) was an English historian and traveller from Manchester. He was active in organizing London's Great Exhibition of 1851.
Early life
Dixon was born on 30 June 1821, at Great Ancoats in Manchester to Abner Dixon of Holmfirth and Kirkburton in the West Riding of Yorkshire and Mary Cryer. His uncle, Elijah Dixon, was the reform campaigner and manufacturer. He spent his boyhood in the hill country of Over Darwen, being schooled by a great-uncle, Michael Beswick. As a lad he became clerk to a Manchester merchant named Thompson.
Man of letters
Early in 1846 Dixon decided on a literary career. He was for two months editor of the Cheltenham Journal. While there he won two main essay prizes in Madden's Prize Essay Magazine. In the summer of 1846, he was advised by Douglas Jerrold to move to London. He entered the Inner Temple, but was not called to the bar until 1 May 1854 and never practised.
Traveller
thumb|1872 caricature of Dixon entitled 'One farthing damages'
Dixon travelled in 1861 to Portugal, Spain and Morocco, and then in 1863 eastwards, returning to help in founding the Palestine Exploration Fund, of which he became an executive committee member and eventually chairman. In 1866 he travelled through the United States as far west as Salt Lake City. On the tour he lit upon a collection of state papers, originally Irish, in the public library at Philadelphia, which had been missing since the time of James II; on Dixon's suggestion it was passed to the British government.
In the autumn of 1867 Dixon travelled in the Baltic provinces, then in the latter part of 1869 spent some months in Russia and in 1871 mostly in Switzerland. Thereafter he was sent to Spain on a financial mission by a council of foreign bondholders. On 4 October 1872 he was created a knight commander of the Crown by Kaiser Wilhelm I. In September 1874 he travelled through North America, and in the latter part of 1875 once more in Italy and Germany.
thumb|150px|Grave of William Hepworth Dixon in [[Highgate Cemetery]]
Dixon was a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, the Society of Antiquaries of London, the Pennsylvania Society and other learned bodies. Before the end of 1878 he visited Cyprus, where a fall from a horse broke his shoulder bone and left him an invalid. He was revising the proof sheets of the final volumes of Royal Windsor and on Friday 26 December 1879, made an effort to finish the work. He died in his bed on the following morning from a seizure. He was buried on 2 January 1880 on the western side of Highgate cemetery.