This is the latest article in a series written by Nicole Jenkins, on behalf of the Deniliquin Historical Society. Each will cover stories from our region’s history, and those born in our town who have interesting stories of their own. Today’s article is on Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens.
I became interested in the sons of Charles Dickens, who came to Australia, and I found reference to one working at Eli Ewah, a property near Hay.
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Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens, known as Plorn to the family, was the youngest son of Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine, who was born on 13 Mar 1852. He was born when his father and mother were about to separate.
Lord Lytton, an English statesman, conservative politician and poet who used the pseudonym Owen Meredith, was his godfather.
Edward came to Australia in 1868 to join his brother, Alfred, a stock and station agent living in Melbourne.
Their father encouraged them to migrate as he saw Australia as a land of opportunity, ‘Utopia’.
Charles visualised all the poor in England flocking out here, to an idyllic place where they could live on little plots of land.
In their father’s opinion, his sons lacked application and staying power, which would be remedied by a colonial experience.
Charles wrote to Alfred asking him to help his younger brother.
He added that he could ride, do a little carpentering and make a horseshoe, but raised doubts about whether he would take to life in the bush.
In his parting letter to his son, Charles Dickens wrote:
“I need not tell you that I love you dearly, and am very, very sorry in my heart to part with you. But this life is half made up of partings, and those pains must be borne.
“It is my comfort and sincere conviction that you are going to try the life for which you are best fitted. I think its freedom and wildness more suited to you than any experiment in a study or office would have been, and without that training you could have followed no other suitable occupation.
“What you have always wanted until now has been set, steady, constant purpose. I, therefore, exhort you to persevere in a thorough determination to do whatever you have to do as well as you can do it.
“I was not so old as you are now when I first had to win my food, and to do it out of this determination, and I have never slackened it since. Never take a mean advantage of anyone in any transaction, and never be hard upon people who are in your power.
“I hope you will always be able in afterlife to say you had a kind father. You cannot show your affection for him so well, or make him so happy, as by doing your duty”.
After Edward landed in Melbourne onboard the Sussex in December 1868, he did not stay in the city long, as a job was lined up for him.
On December 26, it was reported widely in the newspapers that he was “embarking on squatting pursuits in the Riverina”.
Still three months short of his 17th birthday, in January 1869, he set off for Eli Elwah near Hay but was back in Melbourne 10 days later, claiming the station manager was ‘no gentleman’.
His second placement was at Momba Station on the Darling River near Wilcannia, owned by ES Bonney & Co.
He took on a managing position at Mount Murchison Station, also owned by Bonney, and remained there until 1881.
He was known by his Australian mates by Ted.
He purchased a share in Yanda station near Bourke using his inheritance, but lost heavily from bad seasons and was forced to sell.
In 1870, in a letter to his son Alfred Tennyson, Dickens shows his anxiety as to Plorn.
“I am doubtful whether Plorn is taking to Australia. Can you find out his real mind?,” the letter wrote.
“I notice that he always writes as if his present life were the be-all and end-all of his emigration, and as if I had no idea of you two becoming proprietors, and aspiring to the first positions in the colony, without casting off the old connection”.
This was Charles Dickens’ last letter. News of his death had been telegraphed before the letter was received.
After the death of his father, Edward’s maternal aunt sent a regular allowance.
By 1874 he was a JP, captained a cricket team, and raced his stud horses.
Women were in short supply on the Darling, and Edward contemplated going back to England to look for a bride. But he then met and married Constance Desailly.
Constance belonged to one of the most prominent families in Melbourne and was the daughter of the owner of Natallie Station, a nearby property, in 1880. The match must have been considered quite a coup for the Desailly family.
They had no children. She suffered at least two miscarriages.
Constance’s father, Alfred, firstly farmed at Steam Plains near Conargo when he moved from Tasmania.
He then purchased land in Wilcannia where Constance and Edward met.
Alfred Desailly’s sister Caroline married Dr Erasmus Wren in Hobart in November 1841. Dr Wren was a doctor in Deniliquin from 1860, which could have encouraged Constance’s father Alfred to purchase land near Conargo.
In 1881, Edward Dickens returned to Melbourne and established EBL Dickens & Co - a stock and station agency, in Collins St.
By 1882 he was back in Wilcannia, setting up a branch office there and leaving the city business to his brother Alfred.
He then nominated for the seat of Wentworth at the 1882 by-election but withdrew before the polls.
Edward had money problems. Appeals to his aunt for more funds were usually denied, and in 1884 his brother Henry sent him £800; a debt which was never repaid.
In 1886/1887 Edward was appointed government inspector of runs in the Bourke District.
Financial relief came in March 1889 when he first represented Wilcannia in the NSW Legislative Assembly, which had just voted an annual salary of £300 for its members.
He held the seat until 1894, but did not make a great name for himself as a parliamentarian.
Dickens then became a rabbit inspector for the Government of NSW and was afterwards an officer for the Lands Department in charge of the Moree district.
The next few years were restless ones for Constance and Plorn.
Constance spent time with her sister near Broken Hill and in Tasmania, before moving to Glebe.
In the late 1890s they are recorded as lodging at Toxteth Mansion in Glebe, with Plorn’s occupation listed as a gentleman.
He was supported by his wife, who worked as a ‘typewriter’ in Martin Chambers, Moore St (now Martin Place).
Plorn invested in shares unsuccessfully and applied for positions as far afield as Western Australia.
Letters of support failed to secure the post of secretary to the Department for the Protection of Aborigines in that state.
He sent a letter to the Melbourne-based author and historian George Rusden, asking to be recommended to the WA Premier. Rusden had helped Edward in the early days, but was now retired, with diminished influence.
The response from Rusden was not encouraging. On March 10, 1898, he wrote:
“My dear Plorn, I have just received a note from Sir J Forrest (Premier of WA) telling me that he has duly considered my letter, but that he fears there are too many resident applicants to permit him to go out of the Colony for any appointment, and especially the one referred to, but that your application will be placed with others and have consideration when the appointment has to be made.”
Edward did not get the job.
In June 1900, he was appointed a conditional purchase inspector, visiting country properties from his home base at the Criterion Hotel, Moree, checking for things as ring barking and prickly pear.
It was in the Criterion that he died of tuberculosis on January 23, 1902, leaving debts four times the value of his assets. He was 49 and was buried in Moree cemetery in an unmarked grave.
In the All Saints Church of England, there is a fine brass plate erected to his memory by the Dickens Fellowship.
The Dickens Fellowship, founded in 1902, is a worldwide association of people from all walks of life who share a common interest in the life and works of Charles Dickens.
The Fellowship’s aims to promote the knowledge and appreciation of his works and exercise charitable support as would have appealed strongly to the heart of Charles Dickens.
It reads: “Memorial to Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens, Charles Dickens’ youngest son, who after a life of good and evil fortune, is at rest in the graveyard of this town. Never take a mean advantage of anyone in any transaction, and never be hard on people who are in your power. Try to do unto other as you would them to you, and do not be discouraged if they fail sometimes.”
An obelisk was erected by Mr Gordon Williamson of Sydney, who was a cousin by marriage. An additional black granite plaque with some words in Gaelic placed on the grave.
Plorn was described by those who knew him as a likeable, fascinating fellow whose besetting sin was his love of gambling. His brother Charles described him as "amiable, shy, affectionate, but a boy of no real ability and, as it turned out, no real application or energy".
Constance had nursed him through his long illness, and lived in Sydney after Edward’s death. She is recorded in the 1913 and 1914 electoral rolls as living in Surrey Hills.
It is not known why she decided to move to Newmarket in Melbourne, but she died there in 1914 from heart failure linked to complications from alcoholism, aged 54.
It is little wonder that the grieving and impoverished Constance took comfort in alcohol. Little is known of her life in those final years, but it seems she moved around a lot, probably staying in furnished rooms or with friends.
Constance was buried in an unmarked grave at Box Hill. It would have been a pauper’s grave, but fortunately a benefactor, Mrs Elizabeth Gaunt, paid for it.
Later, the Dickens Society and descendant Robin Da Costa-Adams obtained permission for a memorial stone to be placed. The Desailly family contributed to the cost.
Her will stated, “late of Poolamacca Station, Broken Hill but temporarily living in Melbourne”.