John Dickens John Dickens John Dickens (21 August 1785 – 31 March 1851) was the father of English novelist Charles Dickens and was the model for Mr Micawber in his son's semi-autobiographical novel "David Copperfield". The son of William Dickens (1719–1785) and Elizabeth Ball (1745–1824), John Dickens was a clerk in the Royal Navy Pay Office at Portsmouth in Hampshire. On 13 June 1809 at St Mary le Strand, London, he married Elizabeth Barrow, with whom he had eight children. He was later transferred to London and then to Chatham, returning to live in Camden Town in London in 1822 to work
Sydney Smith Haldimand Dickens Sydney Smith Haldimand Dickens Sydney Smith Haldimand Dickens (18 April 1847 – 2 May 1872) was a Royal Navy officer; the fifth son and seventh child of English novelist Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine. An endearing child, nicknamed "The Ocean Spectre" and "The Admiral" by his father, Sydney Dickens was born at 3 Chester Place and baptized at the church of St. Mary in Marylebone in London on 24 June 1847, his godfathers being William Haldimand of Lausanne, and Henry Porter Smith (1797 - 1880), an actuary for the Eagle Life Assurance Company. He was educated at Brackenbury's Military