Henry Horatio Dixon (1869-1953), Irish botanist, was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1869 the son of George and Rebecca (Yeates) Dixon. He got his Sc.D. at Trinity College, Dublin and also was educated at the University of Bonn in Germany (Marquis Who’s Who, 1968). He married Dorothea Mary Franks in 1907, and they had three sons. Between 1892-1904 he rose from assistant to professor of botany at Dublin University and was university professor of botany from 1904 to 1950. He was professor of plant biology at Trinity College, Dublin from 1922; director of the botanical gardens at Trinity College from 1906-1951; and its keeper of the herbarium from 1910-1951. He was a trustee of the Imperial Library of Ireland. He became a commander of the Irish Lights from 1924. He was a visiting professor at the University of California in 1927. He was honorary chairman of the 6th International Botanical Congress held in Amststerdam, The Netherlands, in 1935; and he was honorary president of the International Botanical Congress held in Stockholm, Sweden in 1950.
He was recipient of the Boyle Medal in 1917. In 1908 he became a fellow of the Royal Society and was its Croonian lecturer. He was a member of the International Institute of Agriculture and was its chairman for the Committee on Biochemistry in 1927. He was a member of the Royal Dublin Society and was its president from 1945 to 1949. He was a corresponding member of the American Society of Plant Physiologists. He was a member of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and was the president of its Botanical Section in 1922. He was author of several books, including Traspiration and the Ascent of Sap in Plants (1914), Practical Plant Biology (1922), and The Transpiration Stream (1924). He is best known for his research on plant transpiration. He died December 20, 1953 (Marquis Who’s Who, 1968).
This Biography of Henry Dixon was compiled by Mary B. Kirkham, Kansas State University. It was quoted directly from her book – Principles of Soil and Plant Water Relations, page 335-336. Elsevier Academic Press – 2005.