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, Greenwich a Director of Studies; and Professors of Mathematics, Physical Science, Chemistry, Applied Mechanics, and Fortification. It was to take in officers who were already Sub-Lieutenants and to operate as "the university of the Navy". The Director of Studies, a civilian, was in charge of an Academic Board, while the Captain of the College was a naval officer who acted as chief of staff. The Royal Naval War College, which had been established at Portsmouth in November 1900, transferred its activities to the college at Greenwich in 1914. During the First World War the Royal Naval College was requisitioned as a