Frederick Augustus Dixey, FRS[1] (9 December 1855 – 16 January 1935) was president of the Royal Entomological Society of London, and was a distinguished British entomologist.[2]
Frederick Dixey was educated at Highgate School from 1867 to 1874, and was later a governor of the school from 1920 until his death.[3] He won a scholarship to Wadham College, Oxford, where after starting in optometry, the profession of his father and grandfather, he chose to read medicine. He became a fellow of Wadham[4] and also the sub-warden. He felt drawn to the Church of St Barnabas, Oxford, known for its Anglo-Catholic tradition and ceremonies; he sang in the choir for nearly forty years.[citation needed] Dixey never practised medicine, but devoted himself to natural history. He was in March 1900 nominated to be a curator of the Hope collections at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.[5] He was an expert on the "white" butterflies, Pieridae.
Dixey was an early supporter of Darwinian evolution who defended natural selection against anti-Darwinians.[1][6]
Dixey was knocked down and killed by a motorist in 1935, as he attempted to cross the road.[1]
In 1892 Frederick Dixey married Isabel Atkins (1863-1916).[7] Of their sons, Harold Giles Dixey (1893–1974) and Roger Nicholas Dixey (1895-1995 ), Harold, known as Giles, was an assistant master at the Dragon School in Oxford,[4] and a writer.[8]