Let us journey back to this day, 21st January in 1878, to Gravesend, Kent. Imagine the children, thrilled to avoid school, lining the Thames estuary to witness the grand arrival of Cleopatra’s Needle. This 3,500-year-old, 224-ton, 21-metre-high granite obelisk had been towed from Alexandria to London in a cumbersome iron vessel shaped like a cylinder. This obelisk now graces the Embankment, looking as though it has always been there, untroubled by its arduous journey.
For the Egyptians, obelisks were sacred to the sun god Ra, their shape apparently a representation of a ray of sunlight. This particular specimen, crafted around 1450 BC in Heliopolis (now part of Cairo), was carted off to Alexandria by the Romans in 12 BC, where it languished on a beach for two millennia.
In 1819, the Sultan of Egypt thought it a splendid idea to gift the obelisk to Britain, celebrating Nelson’s victory at the Battle of the Nile. Unfortunately, he neglected to consider how the British might transport such an absurdly large present. Naturally, it stayed put for the next 58 years, gathering dust and sunburn. Then, enter James Alexander, a Scottish traveller and soldier who heard the story and managed to convince William Wilson, a businessman, to fund its transportation. No doubt an easy sell.
Civil engineer John Dixon came up with a grand plan: build an iron vessel to house the obelisk in London, dismantle it, haul the pieces to Alexandria, reassemble it, and tow it to London. His brother, Waynman, designed the iron cylinder—an uninspired contraption named the Cleopatra—and John had it built.
In September 1877, the steamship Olga set off from Alexandria, towing the Cleopatra and its precious cargo. All went smoothly until, predictably, the Bay of Biscay. A storm forced the crew to cut the Cleopatra loose to avoid a collision, resulting in the tragic loss of six sailors who tried to rescue the Cleopatra’s crew. The next day, the Cleopatra was nowhere to be seen, and the Olga, assuming she had sunk, continued to Falmouth. Meanwhile, the Cleopatra, remarkably still afloat, was found by the steamship Fitzmaurice and towed into a Spanish port before continuing her way to London. Upon the Cleopatra’s eventual arrival, John Dixon devised an ingenious apparatus to raise the obelisk and place it on its pedestal.
Today, plaques at the obelisk’s base lavish credit on Wilson, while the Dixon brothers are conveniently ignored. History, as ever, chooses its heroes.
Now, you may wonder, what has this to do with North Yorkshire? The Dixon family, originally coal mine owners in County Durham, squandered their fortune, forcing the father to work in a Newcastle bank, where John, Raylton, and Waynman Dixon were born.
John became a prominent international civil engineering contractor based in London, building bridges and piers. Raylton, the civic-minded one, owned the Cleveland Dockyard on the River Tees, built iron ships, became Middlesbrough’s mayor, and received a knighthood. It is even rumoured that Dixon’s Bank, an infamous climb out of Middlesbrough, is named after him. Waynman, on the other hand, toiled in obscurity. Haunted by the near-loss of the obelisk and the very real loss of six sailors, he abandoned his brother’s ventures and settled in Middlesbrough, where he managed the Cleveland Dockyard for Raylton.
And that, in a long-winded fashion, is how Cleopatra’s Needle and the North Riding of Yorkshire are tenuously connected.
Source
Pearce, Ian. “John Dixon—The Man who could have built the Forth Bridge.” 2018. Tyne Bridge Publishing.
And of course, as ever, Wikipedia.
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