John Cooke Dixon (born at Retford, Nottinghamshire) and his son, John Ernest Dixon (1891-1970) were newspaper advertising canvassers. By 1921, J. & J. E. Dixon was operating an agency at 142 Oakbrook Road, Sheffield (John Ernest’s home address).  They later formed Stainless Utilities (‘stainless steel specialists’) at Oakbrook Road, but this was bankrupt in 1932 (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 22 December 1932).  In the Register of England & Wales (1939), John Ernest and his son, John Laurence Dixon (1920-2006), were living at Oakbrook, Rayleigh Road, Brentwood. John Ernest was a silversmith’s traveller; his son was an estate agent. 

After the War, they traded as a wholesale jeweller at Hatton Garden, London.  In 1947, they were summonsed at Clerkenwell, after it was alleged that John Ernest had conducted an ‘under the counter’ business to evade tax (Newsman Herald, 3 October 1947).  It seems that John Ernest Dixon returned to Sheffield.  In the Sheffield directory (1951), J. E. Dixon & Sons Ltd was listed as a silversmith, at 85 and 88 Denby Street. The firm incorporated William Bush & Sons Ltd (which had been based at Cambridge Street). In 1958, J. E. Dixon & Sons Ltd was struck off the register.  John Ernest Dixon, Bates Street, Sheffield, died on 21 August 1970, leaving £5,493.