Author: Dickens, Thomas
Biography:
DICKENS, Thomas (1721-89: ancestry.co.uk)
He was born on 1 Oct. and baptised on 27 Oct. 1721 at Hemingford Abbots, Huntingdonshire, the third son and one of at least nine children of Rev. Samuel Dickens (1691-1748), the rector, and Mary Hildesley (1686-1774), daughter of a barrister and lineal descendant of Edward III, who had married at St. Michael’s, Cornhill, City of London, in 1713. His eldest brother, Samuel Dickens, was later Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford (1751-63). His other elder brother, Rev. Charles Dickens (1720-93), rector of Hemingford Abbots (1748-93), edited his posthumously published poetry listed here, which includes “Contemplatio Matutina” (A Morning Contemplation or Prayer), a theological poem asserting the supremacy of faith over reason and of the church over sects. He was educated at Charterhouse and proceeded to Christ Church, Oxford (matric. 1739, BA 1743, MA 1746). He was commissioned in the 1745 Jacobite rebellion in the 1st regiment of Foot Guards and served until at least 1758. He may possibly also have been a Fellow of Peterhouse College, Cambridge (1750-56). He was later a Commissioner of the Peace in Norfolk. He married Elizabeth Wright (1736-1807) on 2 May 1759 at St. George-Tombland, Norwich. They had at least two sons and two daughters. He died at Little Fransham, Norfolk, on 21 Sept. 1789, aged 68. A memorial tablet in the church calls him “Miles fortissimus et eruditissimus.” His wife, Elizabeth, died on 21 Sept. 1807, aged 71, and also has a memorial tablet. (ancestry.co.uk 26 Dec. 2023; findmypast.co.uk 26 Dec. 2023; CCEd; Geneaology in A Posthumous Poem [1790], 25; Alumni Carthusiani, 97; Northampton Mercury4 July 1774; Norfolk Chronicle 3 Oct. 1789, 26 Sept. 1807; GM Oct. 1789, 957) AA