The register of Blundell's school, with introduction and appendices by Arthur Fisher ... / Printed and published for the Old Blundellian Club, Blundell's School, Tiverton, Devon.

  • Old Blundell's (School)
Date:
1904-
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The register of Blundell's school, with introduction and appendices by Arthur Fisher ... / Printed and published for the Old Blundellian Club, Blundell's School, Tiverton, Devon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

144/302 (page 112)
ALLDERSEY DICKEN 1823-1834. The Rev. A. Dicken, D,D., was born 28th February, 1794, the eldest of a family of thirteen children. The Dickens were a family of Shropshire landowners for 200 years before Mr. Perry Dicken, Dr. Dicken’s grandfather, settled at Tiverton about the middle of the 17th century, and here Perry Dicken married Mary Penleaze in 1767. Dr. Dicken’s father, the Rev. Perry Dicken (also of Blundell’s and after of Balliol), was for 40 years Vicar of Witheridge, near Tiverton, and married Mary, the daughter of Henry Venn, of Payhembury, in 1792. Dr. Dicken’s family, when it removed to Devon, became strongly Blundellian. I find his father, two uncles, a cousin, three brothers and two nephews, besides himself—ten Dickens—entered in the Register. Dr. Dic' en was at Blundell’s 1803-1806 and again 1808-1811 (vide Nos. 892 and 1075 in Register). He won the Composition Medal in 1810 and the Sidney Sussex Exhibition in i8n, graduated twelfth wrangler in 1815, became Fellow and Tutor of St. Peter's College, Cambridge, B.D. 1826, D.D. 1831, He won the Seatonian Prize in 1818 with the poem “ Deborah,” and was a member of the Council of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. In 1822 he published three sermons preached before the University, and in 1847 marginal notes and references on the authorized version of Holy Scripture. In 1831 Dr. Dicken was presented to the Rectory of Norton, near Woolpit in Suffolk, by St. Peter’s College, and he retired to Norton on resigning Blundell’s. There 45 years later he was still discharging his clerical duties without a curate. On February 15th, 1838, he married Caroline Mary Huddleston, the sister of one of his neighbours at Norton, who died 17th October, 1869. He was elected Head Master of Blundell’s on 30th June, 1823. On his resignation in 1834 he received a massive silver tray from his pupils with this inscription;—“Alldersey Dicken, S.T.P., hoc ubi plurima debentur vix munusculum quodque indicit quam declaret summa ejus in se merita afferendum Consenserunt discipuli A.D. MDCCCXXXIV.”* The testi- monial was presented by one of his old pupils, Edward Arthur Dayman, afterwards Vice-Chairman of the Governing Body and Fellow and Tutor of Exeter Coll., Oxon. He died 2nd January, 1879, and was buried at St. Peter’s, Bourne- mouth, Hants. His mother, some sisters, and others of the Dicken family lie buried at Tiverton. Dr. Dicken had seven children, four of whom survived him, including two sons, Frederick Rowland and Charles Gauntlett, both *“To Alldersey Dicken, S.T.P. This little gift where many gifts are justly due, intended to suggest rather than to express the great services which he has rendered to them, his pupils joined in presenting A.D. 1834.”