Harriet Anne Dickinson's notes
Of the Dickinson Family
It is said that our great-grandfather, Captain John Dickinson [1723-1781], ran
away from a school in Northumberland to go to sea, having been left to the care
of some relations who neglected him; that he thereby lost a large property from
the difficulty of proving his identity, and that he took no measures to
establish his rights until after his marriage, when his wife persuaded him to
look into the matter. He had collected some papers and documents for this
purpose when they were all lost in the Great
Lisbon Earthquake [1755]. So
ended the family prospects of wealth and greatness.
Captain Dickinson, as he was called, was a man of great energy. He was an Elder
Brother of the Trinity House, and was certainly an officer in the Navy. But we
do not know whether he attained the rank of Captain.
He was in an engagement as one of the officers of a ship named the Brunswick,
which conquered "the enemy" under disadvantages.
John Dickinson was Commander of the Lisbon Packet in 1752. He married an Irish
lady, Alice Quin, who was a woman of energy and talent. She exerted herself,
whilst residing at Lisbon, with the Portuguese Government to obtain redress of
the grievance of a British subject.
She escaped on board her husband’s packet, then at Lisbon, at the time of the
great Earthquake. [1755]
Their house, and most of their property in that city, was destroyed. A broken
silver spoon picked out of the ruins is still possessed by the family; and a
pair of well shaped silver candlesticks, which were fortunately in the ship, are
still [1840's] in use atAbbots Hill.
A miniature portrait of this Captain Dickinson is also in my mother’s
possession, set as a brooch.
One anecdote bordering of the supernatural still survived respecting John
Dickinson and his wife. Captain Dickinson is said to have started on his voyage
to Lisbon on one occasion leaving his wife very ill. On the return voyage he
dreamt one night that he saw her on her deathbed, and that she expired. Awaking
in great agitation, he made a note of the circumstance, and hastening home as
soon as he landed found that she had died the very night that he had witnessed
her death in his dream.
John Dickinson died in 1781. His son Thomas, our grandfather,
left his ship at Portsmouth to attend his father in his last moments. He
was under the care of a Dr. Dominicetti, then in high repute.
He left two sons, William, who died without children at Newnham in
Gloucestershire in 1828 “(no entry of this can be found in the Register at
Newnham, says Maynard Colchester-Wemyss)” and Thomas, who was born in 1754, and
who married, 1781, Frances de Brissac, and died, May 26th 1828.
[These notes of Harriet Ann Dickinson 1826 - 1858, date from the 1840's.]