Transcript

of

Frederick Binley Dickinson [Obituary]

Trans. Devon. Assoc. vol. XXXVII, (1905), pp. 33-34.

by

J. Brooking-Rowe (Ed.)

Prepared by Michael Steer

The obituary was read at the Association’s July 1905 Princetown meeting. The National Archives holds a draft mortgage from John Greenway of Stratford-upon-Avon, builder, to the Reverend Frederick Binley Dickinson of Ottery St. Mary, co. Devon and Thomas William Norbury, surgeon, and Willoughby Norbury, solicitor, both of Stratford-upon-Avon, of houses and gardens in Shipston Road called The Sycamores and Eastnor House, 16 December 1897. The obituary, from a copy of a rare and much sought-after journal can be downloaded from the Internet Archive. Google has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. These books, on which copyright has expired, are available for free educational and research use, both as individual books and as full collections to aid researchers.

Frederick Binley Dickinson. The Rev. Frederick Binley Dickinson was born at Macclesfield, Cheshire, 27 December, 1832. His father, a doctor in that town, was a very good antiquary and numismatist. He matriculated at Oxford, and was Hulmeian Exhibitioner at Brasenose, and was second in Moderations in 1863. He took his degrees of BA. and M.A. in 1855 and 1858. He was ordained deacon by the Bishop of Worcester in 1857, and priest the following year by the Bishop of Exeter. He was curate at Dawlish 1857-8, Tavistock 1858-61, St. Martin's-in-the-Fields 1861-5, and morning reader at Westminster Abbey 1864-5, curate of Lillington, Warwick, 1865-9, and after-noon lecturer at Leamington 1867-8. From 1869 to 1871 he was in charge of Hulme Walfield, Cheshire, and curate of Great Chart in 1872, and vicar of Ashford in the same year. At Ashford he remained until 1887. About twenty years before his death he came to reside at Ottery St. Mary, where he spent the rest of his life. He very soon became a most useful personage in the place, and interested himself greatly in the welfare of the town and neighbourhood. He was a justice of the peace for the county. Chairman of the Ottery St. Mary Rural District Council, a governor of the King's Grammar School, and a manager of the National Schools, Secretary of the Cottage Hospital and of the Kennaway Habitation of the Primrose League, and Chairman of the Ottery School Board up to the time of its dissolution. Mr. Dickinson was a member of the church choir, and always ready to assist the clergy of the parish in their work by taking various services, preaching, and visiting. The fine parish church was a continual source of delight to him. He studied it and its history with great interest and intelligence, and in 1897 he gave a lecture upon it at the Church Institute. This lecture was afterwards printed, and it is a clearly written and valuable contribution to the church's story. He also published a handbook to the church for the use of visitors. His loss to the Association is serious. He took much interest in our work, and attended some recent meetings; we had hopes of assistance and of contributions from him in the future. On Christmas Day, 1903, he was seized with the first of a series of alarming heart attacks, and on the evening of Sunday, December 18th, 1904, after a few seconds of unconsciousness, he passed peacefully away.