Dickins, Market Harborough

The Dickins Family of Market Harborough, Leicestershire and elsewhere.

Church of St Dionysius, at centre of Market Harborough. The Old Grammar School sits beside it.
Text/Photographs edited Friday, March 14, 2008

Edith (born in Nottingham, whose mother's name was Downing, 1890-1967) and
Ernest Frederick Dickins (1890-1975):
and their eldest sons: firstly Kenneth Arthur (1914-1998), who married Ivy, née Falkner, who died on March 6th., 2003, found in her favourite chair by a neighbour.
Second to arrive was Geoffrey Stewart (1915-1997), whose wife (Annie) May, raised by grandparents, died March 11th., 2008.
Last to arrive was Raymond Ernest, (1919-) who married Margaret (née Douglas, 1919-2002).

From the 1901 Census: Lying amongst the details for other families present on each census page, here are several versions of one file for the Dickins household at 10 Midland Cottages, namely a gif, a tiff and a pdf. All versions are large, and the original tiff files were downloaded as shown. The gifs were edited by rotating and cropping.

Similarly, here is the same set for the Downing household at 3 Dob Hall, Gold Street, namely a gif, a tiff and another pdf.

What is clear is that Edith's mother, father and brother are absent. It is quite likely that Edith's mother (as, when she was old, Edith related to my father) died in 1896, and it is clear that her father and brother had by this time emigrated to Canada. I have yet to discover anything about them, although I have cause to believe that at least one of them returned to England.

Edith and Frederick's youngest son, Raymond Ernest (1919-), lives in Ottawa. Margaret Douglas (known as Peggy) was his wife for 61 years. They met in Belfast, Northern Ireland in WWII and married in 1941. At the time of my birth Dad was a Telegraphist (finished as Petty Officer) in the Royal Navy and was moved to the south coast of England prior to the invasion of Normandy, which was why they found themselves in Southampton with a little boy starting to walk.

Ray and Peggy's daughter, Lynn Margaret, a Deputy Head Mistress at Mount Roskill Intermediate, was born in Southampton, April 1944, and lives in Auckland, New Zealand. Lucky, lovely and highly vivacious lady!

Ray and Peggy's son, Paul Raymond, born March 1942 in Belfast, the author of these pages, lives in Ottawa, now alone. Lived until recently with his second wife, Michelle, and his second daughter, Katharine Norva Edith Dickins (those two moved to Montréal end of October, 2000, a direct consequence of me suffering from double depression). I have another daughter, by my first marriage to Christine Diana Munson-Barkshire, named Sarah Rachel, who lives in London, England. Sarah went to Gordonstoun, the same place as old Charlie Cyclops. Who? He of the very close eyes and very wide ears, HRH Charles, Prince of Wales, that's who. (Actually, he's a great chap; why wouldn't you like his attitude towards the environment and his love of Camilla Parker-Bowles? Of course, now she's his wife and a princess something or other). Neither schoolchild cared for the race every morning into the cold water lake at that edifice, near Nairn, on the bleak eastern shore of Scotland.

Ken & Ivy's and Geoff and May's respective family members still live in Market Harborough and Kibworth, and there is more of the family living in Wellingborough and in other places in the East Midlands. Both of Margaret's brothers, David and George, from Belfast, were killed in the Second World War. None of my generation were conscripted: I, as the eldest of the three brothers children, just missed the last postwar call up.

See further down this page for other notes related to the family:

For Market Harborough and District, although there are links elsewhere on these pages, please do visit Bigfern and perhaps the Harborough Mail or the Market Harborough Information site

On November 10th., 2001, I had a chat with Dad. He told me about some of his family and here is the gist of the conversation (which is updated whenever I discover more incidents):

1. Edith Downing: her mother, a Downing, and father were unwed. The father, and Edith's elder brother, went to Canada to find a job and never came back, I understand. This situation was, of course, frowned upon in those days, and Ernest's mother's attitude towards Edith was tainted by the common failing of those days of believing that bastards, ahem, illegitimates, were lesser people. Edith's brother was killed in Europe early in WWI. There is no known record of him at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

2. Edith was married into a strict, highly non-conformist (not quite as bad as the Knox variety of Presbyterianism) religious family: Methodists, who built the Dickins Memorial Chapel in Wellingborough, on the Finedon Road, next to which establishment were two houses where several of the family were raised. The Chapel is now a part of the Wesleyan Reform Union.

3. Edith's sister, Ethel, was born in 1886, and, married Fred Frost and had three children: Bill, Reg and Margaret.

4. Edith's brother, James, firstly went to Canada and then returned to England. He subsequently fought and was killed in France, WWI.

5. Edith had a younger cousin, Gertie, deceased, who married A. Norman Wood, 1904 -. Norman (who is now blind, but is approaching a century) had a lady send Mum and Dad a Christmas card in 2001 and 2002, although Dad had thought him dead, since there wasn't one for 2000. They had a son, Richard, born in about 1937, who was a car mechanic, and emigrated to Johannesburg, Suid Afrika. I remember their house in Wellingborough, and their garden, which led to some allotments, where they had a couple of plots, and where they also had chickens, and an apple tree that had very large, very wet, sweet fruit.

These first three satellite images, from Google Maps, show the chapel, and also Eastfield Street, and No10 is just down it on the left-hand side. The chapel is adjacent to the roadway passing by the large grey roof. The fourth image shows the derelict train yards where Hubert worked, and where the Beyer-Garrett steam engines were shedded before the results of the Beeching Report, for which see a potted history at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_axe . It is clear that the houses where my great-grandmother lived have been demolished, but they were close to the chapel, and reachable by a lane up from the goods yards.

6. Ernest Frederick, Edith's husband, had a sister, also named Edith, born 1891-2, with whom he was very close. She was a lovely lady, but Dad admitted he was frightened of her!! She married Fred Faulkner, who served in submarines in WWI. They had three children: Keith, who became a bank manager, Terence, and Sheila. I remember them clearly. Ernest also had a brother, Hubert, who married Lottie (Charlotte), see above. He spent four years in the trenches in WWI. He was gassed twice, as well as being buried alive. He survived, in general ill health, for some time. He was a wheel tapper, in the Wellingborough train yards.

7. Ernest had an aunt, Belinda, who married a publican, heavens above! named Tom Millichap. Dad has inherited Tom's monogrammed walking stick.

8. Now then, my Great-grandfather was called Arthur, who was an engine driver in the shunting yards at Wellingborough, and his father was named William, and that's all I know at this time. Except that I have Great-great-grandfather William's sickle (from the Latin secare, to cut). I can remember Arthur's wife, who I believe was named Martha, my Great-grandmother. She it was who gave me a Bible for Christmas, 1942: not that I remember the actual event at nine months! I can remember walking up from the train station, alongside the tracks and then up a slope to her street, to her house, in a dark terrace, three or four stories high. I was never allowed higher than the ground floor, for whatever reason. This was when I was fairly young, around ten to twelve years old.

In the thirties, the time of the Depression, only my father Raymond, as the youngest, was sent to Grammar School in Market Harborough. His father, Ernest Frederick, had a chat with Ken and Geoff about whether they would mind him going, since they had missed out because of expense. I also discovered that my Dad was given spending money every week by Ernest, and his two (working) brothers, Ken at Symingtons and Geoff on the railway. Edith would put the odd penny in, as well, when she sent it off to Loughborough College, where Raymond Ernest, my father, was becoming a teacher, pre-WWII. He could not, otherwise, pay his bus fare to go and play in any of the college's soccer away games. He was generally positioned at left-half, but was able to play anywhere, a utility player. His team won the 1938-39 UAU Championship, 6-4, played in Aberystwyth. The college actually paid the fare for the final!!

Lastly, at 42 Caxton Street, neighbours: on one side the Bennetts, who grew strawberries, and on the other Mrs Davey. Dad can't remember which one of the ladies was called Belinda, and which was Melinda. Nevertheless, one of each was.

Plus, I wonder what happened to David Baker, Graham Manning and Michael Hayward who were at Little Bowden County Primary School, ca 1952. We were in the soccer team together and Mr. Ward was our teacher, and, I believe, a Mr. Davies was the headmaster. Miss Gleason, who had taught my father some decades before, taught me in turn in my early years. She told me, apropos of some clownish thing I must have done, that I would never be as accomplished as my father, Raymond, Ernest Frederick's youngest, and only remaining, son.

I was standing on the high board in the old swimming baths on the Northampton Road when I was about 11 years old, ca 1953. Next to me was Peter Harris. I looked down and noticed a little boy lying at the bottom of the pool. He had lain there for a while and I had noticed he was not moving. Peter at first disagreed, when I mentioned this, but Peter could dive and I could jump so I told him to dive and bring the boy to the surface. Which he did as I ran for the caretaker. Clear as day, that memory. Read Peter's recollections (and other messages).