Edward Dickens
Encyclopedia
Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens (13 March 1852 – 23 January 1902) was the youngest son of English novel
English novel
The English novel is an important part of English literature.-Early novels in English:A number of works of literature have each been claimed as the first novel in English. See the article First novel in English.-Romantic novel:...

ist Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

 and his wife Catherine
Catherine Dickens
Catherine 'Kate' Thomson Dickens was the wife of English novelist Charles Dickens, with whom he fathered 10 children.-Marriage:...

 and was an Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n politician.

Edward 'Plorn' Dickens was clearly named after Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton PC , was an English politician, poet, playwright, and novelist. He was immensely popular with the reading public and wrote a stream of bestselling dime-novels which earned him a considerable fortune...

 — nowadays much satirised for the famous opening line of his 1830 novel Paul Clifford
Paul Clifford
Paul Clifford is a novel published in 1830 by English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton. It tells the life of Paul Clifford, a man who leads a dual life as both a criminal and an upscale gentleman...

, "It was a dark and stormy night
It was a dark and stormy night
"It was a dark and stormy night" is an infamous phrase written by Victorian novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton at the beginning of his 1830 novel Paul Clifford. The annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest uses the phrase as a signifier of purple prose...

" — and educated at Tunbridge Wells in Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

 at a private school owned by the Reverend W. C Sawyer, later Anglican
Anglican Church of Australia
The Anglican Church of Australia is a member church of the Anglican Communion. It was previously officially known as the Church of England in Australia and Tasmania...

 bishop of Armidale
Anglican Diocese of Armidale
The Anglican Diocese of Armidale is a diocese of the Anglican Church of Australia, located in the state of New South Wales. The diocese was created in 1914 as a result of a division of the previous Diocese of Grafton and Armidale which was created by letters patent in 1863...

 and Grafton
Anglican Diocese of Grafton
The Anglican Diocese of Grafton is one of the twenty-three dioceses of the Anglican Church of Australia. It is located in north-east New South Wales and covers the area from the Queensland border to Port Macquarie in the south and west to the Great Dividing Range.Created in 1914 as a result of a...

. He also attended lectures at the Royal Agricultural College
Royal Agricultural College
The Royal Agricultural College is a higher education institution located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, UK. Established in 1845, it was the first agricultural college in the English speaking world...

 in Cirencester
Cirencester
Cirencester is a market town in east Gloucestershire, England, 93 miles west northwest of London. Cirencester lies on the River Churn, a tributary of the River Thames, and is the largest town in the Cotswold District. It is the home of the Royal Agricultural College, the oldest agricultural...

, Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....

.

Charles Dickens encouraged Edward, along with his elder brother Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson Dickens
Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson Dickens
Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson Dickens was the sixth child and fourth son of British novelist Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine...

, to migrate to Australia, which he saw as a land of opportunity. Alfred migrated in 1865 and Edward in 1869. Edward Dickens settled at Wilcannia, New South Wales
Wilcannia, New South Wales
Wilcannia is a small town located within the Central Darling Shire in north western New South Wales, Australia. This was the third largest inland port in the country during the great river boat era of the mid-19th century. At the 2006 census, Wilcannia had a population of 596.- Geography...

 where he became manager of Momba station. He married Constance Desailly, the daughter of a local property-owner, in 1880. He opened a stock and station agency, was elected as an alderman of Bourke Shire Council
Bourke Shire Council
Bourke Council is a local government area in the Orana region of New South Wales, Australia. It is on the Darling River, which is known as the Barwon River upstream from Bourke. It is also on the Mitchell Highway...

 and bought a share in Yanda station near Bourke
Bourke, New South Wales
-Transportation:Bourke can be reached by the Mitchell Highway, with additional sealed roads from town to the north , east and south . The town is also served by Bourke Airport and has Countrylink bus service to other regional centres, like Dubbo...

. He lost heavily from bad seasons and in 1886 he was appointed government inspector of runs in the Bourke District. He was never able to pay back a loan of ₤800 from his most successful brother, Henry
Henry Fielding Dickens
Sir Henry Fielding Dickens, KC was the eighth of ten children born to British author Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine. The most successful of all of Dickens's children, he was a barrister, a KC and Common Serjeant of London, a senior legal office which he held for over 15 years.-Early...

.

Dickens was elected as the member for Wilcannia
Electoral district of Wilcannia
Wilcannia was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of New South Wales from 1889 to 1904. The electorate included Wilcannia. Its first member was the son of Charles Dickens.-Members for Wilcannia:...

 in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly
New South Wales Legislative Assembly
The Legislative Assembly, or lower house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of New South Wales, an Australian state. The other chamber is the Legislative Council. Both the Assembly and Council sit at Parliament House in the state capital, Sydney...

 in 1889 and held the seat until defeated by the Labor Party
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...

 candidate, Richard Sleath
Richard Sleath
Richard Sleath was an Australian politician.Born in Cerres in Fifeshire to ploughman Richard Sleath and Mary Fernie, he migrated to Queensland in 1877, becoming a shearer and prospector. In 1882 he moved to Sydney, working as a contractor before mining at Broken Hill from 1887. On 11 March 1887 he...

 in 1894. Dickens then became a rabbit inspector for the Government of New South Wales
Government of New South Wales
The form of the Government of New South Wales is prescribed in its Constitution, which dates from 1856, although it has been amended many times since then...

 and was afterwards an officer for the Lands Department in charge of the Moree
Moree, New South Wales
Moree is a large town in Moree Plains Shire in northern New South Wales, Australia. It is located on the banks of the Mehi River in the centre of the rich black-soil plains....

district. He subsequently had difficulty finding employment and died after several months' illness in Moree, in debt and childless. He was buried in Moree cemetery.
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