Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson Dickens

Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson Dickens, the son of Charles Dickens and Catherine Hogarth Dickens, was born on 28th October, 1845. It was a difficult birth but she eventually recovered. He was named after the poet, Alfred Tennyson.

In 1853 Alfred was sent with his brother, Frank, to a boarding school for English boys in Boulogne, run by two English clergymen, one of whom had been a teacher at Eton College. They were later joined by a third brother, Henry . He later reported: "It was confined to English boys who were sent there, presumably, with a view to their becoming proficient in the French language. I was very young then, and although two of my brothers were at the school, I felt rather sad and forlorn. I cannot say I look back on my days there with any degree of pleasure. I did not quite like dining off tin plates, nor was the food altogether appetizing. Very pale veal with very, very watery gravy and the usual stick-jaw pudding were most often the delicacies put before us." The boys were given two months vacation in summer, and none at Christmas unless the parents wished to see them then. It meant that they could be away from home for nearly ten months of the year.

Alfred wanted to join the army but he failed his examinations in 1862. Attempts were made to enter the medical profession. In 1865 he decided to go to Australia to become a manager of a sheep station in New South Wales. The author, Arthur A. Adrian, has pointed out: "He sailed for Melbourne at the age of twenty, with introductions designed to facilitate contacts with some mercantile firm. Behind him he left a welter of unpaid bills. Wearily going through the itemized statements from the haberdasher and the tailor, his father found evidence of appalling extravagance - the curse that had already run through two generations of the family and now plagued the third. Eleven pairs of kid gloves (most of them the finest quality), eight silk scarves, three pairs of trousers, a treble milled coat and vest, as well as cambric handkerchiefs, cameo and onyx scarf pins, a railway rug, two umbrellas (one of brown silk), a silver mounted cane, a bottle of scent-all charged in a period of eleven months! And how were the eight pairs of ladies' gloves to be accounted for? Had any father ever been burdened with so many irresponsible sons?"

In 1868 Charles Dickens decided to send the sixteen-year-old, Edward Bulwer Dickens , to Australia. He wrote to Alfred asking him to help his younger brother. He added that he could ride, do a little carpentering and make a horse shoe but raised doubts about whether he would take to life in the bush. After the death of his father in 1870 he used his inheritance to buy the Wangagong Sheep Station, near Forbes. In 1874 he moved to Hamilton, Victoria, to take up a position as a station agent.

Alfred Dickens married Augusta Jessie Devlin and over the next couple of years she gave birth to Kathleen Mary (1874-1951) and Violet Georgina (1875-1952). Jessie Dickens died from her injuries on 14th December 1878 after having been thrown out of her carriage.

Alfred Dickens moved to Melbourne where he married Emily Riley (1863-1913), who was seventeen years his junior. The marriage was not a happy one, and there were no children. When he suffered financial difficulties in the 1890s he gave lectures about his father's life and work.

Alfred went to America on a lecture tour and died at the Astor Hotel in New York City on 2nd January, 1912. He was buried in Trinity Church Cemetery in Manhattan. His brother, Henry Fielding Dickens , pointed out: "He had been quite a stranger to the family from the time he went to Australia. He left two daughters, who came over to this country some years ago, and remain great favourites with all of us."

Primary Sources

(1) Henry Fielding Dickens , The Recollections of Sir Henry Dickens (1934)

Alfred went to Australia in about 1867, where he was afterwards joined by his brother, and remained there continuously until 1911, when he went to America on a lecturing tour and died there in January, 1912. He had been quite a stranger to the family from the time he went to Australia. He left two daughters, who came over to this country some years ago, and remain great favourites with all of us.

(2) Arthur A. Adrian, Georgina Hogarth and the Dickens Circle (1957)

Frank was taken into the office of All the Year Round, being thought to have a "natural literary taste and capacity". Finally, this last experiment proving unsatisfactory, his father got him an appointment to the Bengal Mounted Police and sent him to India in the month after Walter's death, but before the news of it had reached England. Just before he embarked Frank celebrated his twentieth birthday. Seventeen months later Alfred, the next son, set out for Australia. Though he was considered a "good, steady fellow" and had originally been prepared for an army career, he could not meet the competition for the engineers or the artillery. After a short-lived ambition to prepare for the medical profession, he took a London position with a large China house. It was after two years of this work that he sailed for Melbourne at the age of twenty, with introductions designed to facilitate contacts with some mercantile firm. Behind him he left a welter of unpaid bills. Wearily going through the itemized statements from the haberdasher and the tailor, his father found evidence of appalling extravagance - the curse that had already run through two generations of the family and now plagued the third. Eleven pairs of kid gloves (most of them the finest quality), eight silk scarves, three pairs of trousers, a treble milled coat and vest, as well as cambric handkerchiefs, cameo and onyx scarf pins, a railway rug, two umbrellas (one of brown silk), a silver mounted cane, a bottle of scent-all charged in a period of eleven months! And how were the eight pairs of ladies' gloves to be accounted for? Had any father ever been burdened with so many irresponsible sons?