Major-General Matthew Charles Dixon, R.A., V.C. was born 5 Feb 1821 at Avranches in Brittany, the eldest son of General Matthew Charles Dixon R.E. and his second wife Emma Dalton, daughter of William Dalton and his wife Rebecca Wright. Born in 1821, the son of a Major General and grandson of an Admiral, Captain Dixon, he gained his Victoria Cross soon after he was ordered to the front at the outbreak of the Crimean War.

On 17th April 1855, the battery Captain Dixon was commanding was blown up by an enemy shell which destroyed the parapets at Sevastopol. Ten men were killed or wounded, five guns were disabled and a sixth was covered with earth. Dixon took control of the remaining gun and, despite heavy enemy fire, continued firing until sunset brought relief.

Major General Dixon married Henrietta Louisa Eliza Bosanquet, daughter of Vice-Admiral C. J. Bosanquet on the 13 May 1862 but had no family. They lived in Pembury soon after he retired from the army in 1869 until his death on 7th January 1905. He was buried at Kensal Green and a memorial tablet to the Major General can be seen in St Peter's Church, Pembury.