Cedric David Charles Dickens was an author and businessman, and the last surviving great-grandson of British author Charles Dickens and steward of his literary legacy.
Background
Cedric "Ceddy" Dickens was the son of Philip "Pip" Charles Dickens (1887–1964), a chartered accountant and the first secretary of Imperial Chemical Industries. He was the grandson of Sir Henry Fielding Dickens, the sixth of Dicken’s ten children, a Common Serjeant of London, and the nephew of Admiral Sir Gerald Charles Dickens.
Education
He attended Eton and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, graduating in Law in 1935.
Career
Following three trips to the Caribbean by banana boat, Dickens joined the British Tabulating Machine Company in 1937. Dickens joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve on the outbreak of World World War II in 1939, leaving the Royal Navy in 1946 as a First Lieutenant. After leaving the Royal Navy, Dickens returned to his old firm, which eventually became International Computers Limited, and where he became Director of Communication.
He was a lifelong supporter of the Charles Dickens Museum in Holborn.
He was twice President of the Dickens Fellowship, a worldwide association of people who share an interest in the life and works of Charles Dickens, first taking that position on the death of his father in 1968, and again on his retirement in 1976, when he also founded the Dickens Pickwick Club, a society with an international membership. This he kept true to the spirit of the original in The Pickwick Papers by only allowing men to join, which in 2000 led to an accusation of sexism.
In demand internationally as a guest and speaker at meetings of Dickens Fellowships and other events connected with Charles Dickens, he also worked to preserve the heritage of the George and Vulture inn in the City of London, which was frequently mentioned in The Pickwick Papers, where Charles Dickens himself often drank, and which was threatened with demolition. And Gads Hill Place in Kent, Dicken"s final home, becoming a governor of Gad"s Hill School, which occupies the building today.
Dickens suffered a severe stroke following emergency surgery, and died on 11 February 2006 aged 89.
Membership
In 2005 he appeared in the first episode of British Broadcasting Corporation Four"s documentary series Dickens in America with Miriam Margolyes, during which he talked about what it was like growing up as a member of the Dickens family.