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 Naval College of Canada Canadian Navy dockyard at Esquimalt. Classes were also held on the Dominion Government Ship "Naden", commissioned as a tender for training in sail. The College was closed in 1922. In the years between 1922 and 1940, Canadian naval cadets went to the Royal Navy's Royal Naval College in Portsmouth. The Royal Naval College of Canada was established to impart a complete education in Naval Science. Candidates were British subjects between 14 and 16 years of age. The terms and curriculum approximated those of Naval Colleges in Britain save for the initial two year rather than three-year program which was followed