Gerald Charles Dickens Gerald Charles Dickens Admiral Sir Gerald Louis Charles Dickens (13 October 1879 – 19 November 1962) was a senior Royal Navy officer and the grandson of Victorian novelist Charles Dickens. Born in Kensington, London, the son of Sir Henry Fielding Dickens, Dickens joined the naval college HMS "Britannia" at Dartmouth in Devon in 1894 as a Naval Cadet, following preparatory education at Stubbington House School. Dickens served on with the Channel Fleet, 1896–1897, and in the East Indies Station, 1897–1899. He was promoted Sub-Lieutenant in 1899, and in that year he served aboard before transferring to the Royal Naval College,
Royal 1st Devon Yeomanry the new regiment. The Royal 1st Devonshire Yeomanry Cavalry and the Royal North Devon Hussars co-sponsored the 27th (Devonshire) Company of the 7th Battalion, Imperial Yeomanry which arrived in South Africa on 23 March 1900. On 17 April 1901, the regiment was renamed as the Royal 1st Devon Imperial Yeomanry and reorganised in four squadrons and a machine gun section. On 1 April 1908, the regiment was renamed for the final time as the Royal 1st Devon Yeomanry and transferred to the Territorial Force, trained and equipped as hussars. The regiment was based at Dix's Field in Exeter at this