Background
The son of William Dickens (1719–1785) and Elizabeth Bal (1745–1824), John Dickens was a clerk in the Royal Navy Pay Office at Portsmouth in Hampshire.
The son of William Dickens (1719–1785) and Elizabeth Bal (1745–1824), John Dickens was a clerk in the Royal Navy Pay Office at Portsmouth in Hampshire.
He was later transferred to London and then to Chatham, returning to live in Camden Town in London in 1822 to work in Somerset House. John Dickens found it difficult to provide for his growing family on his meagre income. Soon his debts had become so severe that all the household goods were sold in an attempt to pay his bills, including furniture and silverware.
John Dickens was released after three months, on 28 May 1824, on the death of his mother, Elizabeth Dickens, who had left him the sum of £450 in her will.
On the expectation of this legacy, Dickens petitioned for, and was granted, release from prison. Under the Insolvent Debtors Acting, Dickens arranged for payment of his creditors, and he and his family left Marshalsea for the home of Mistress
Roylance, with whom his 12-year-old son Charles was lodging. On 31 March 1851 John Dickens died of a urethral infection.
After the surgery, John Dickens lingered for several days before he died.
The death certificate listed the cause of death as: "Rupture of the urethra from old standing stricture and consequent mortification of the scrotum from infiltration of urine."
Dickens depicted his father in the character of Wilkins Micawber in his semi-autobiographical novel David Copperfield. Frances (Fanny) Elizabeth Dickens (1810–1848)
Charles John Huffam Dickens
Letitia Dickens (1816–1893)
Harriet Dickens (1819–1824)
Frederick Dickens
Alfred Lamert Dickens
Augustus Newnham Dickens.