Dicken

Do you recognise that feeling when you just have to know all there is to know about somebody on your family tree?

The person is my Great Grandfather Dicken Hinton. He was born in the village of Ightfield in Shropshire, United Kingdom, in 1842 to John and Martha (nee Darlington).

He was baptised in St John The Baptist Church in the village. Just seeing the font where it happened and realising my Great Great Grandparents and other family would have been surrounding that font in their Sunday best as he was baptised. The thought that I was touching the same font they had so many years before sent shivers through me. Not in a bad way, it gave me a lovely feeling of being connected with them.

In 1851 the census shows him living in Hollinwood in Shropshire, his father being a butcher/farmer of eight acres and Dickin, aged 8, down as a scholar along with his sisters Elizabeth, 11 and Ellen, 6.

One of the things we have learned about the Hintons is that they all appeared educated and able to read and write and sign their name. We have the signatures of all our direct line back to Richard born in 1709.

In 1861 the family had moved to Agden in Cheshire where his father farmed 50 acres and employed a labourer.

Dicken married Mary Lee on January 26th, 1863 at the Parish Church in Stockport. Mary’s father was an Innkeeper. By the 1871 census, they were living in Higher Wych, Shropshire. His father-in-law had died and it shows Dicken and Mary living with her mother Margaret who is now the publican. The pub, The Wheatsheaf, is now a private home (pictured). 

Dicken’s occupation is listed as a grazier, a person who rears and fattens cattle for market. His occupations for the rest of his life are listed as farmer, butcher or cattle dealer, like most of our ancestors on the Hinton side.

Dicken had nine siblings and ten children - no tv available! His second son, John born in 1865 was my Grandfather.

Dicken died in Higher Wych on the 20th January 1920 aged 77 leaving £315/1s/6d  to his daughter Elizabeth.

There are pictures in existence of two of his brothers, John and Thomas taken in 1888, the year their father died. The photos were taken at JR Crosse Studio in Whitchurch with negative numbers ending in 26 and 31 suggesting that perhaps all the children had their pictures taken. Perhaps Dicken was among them?

We have all this detail, where and when he was born, how he lived and died and even copies of his signature. One of the things I really, really want now is a picture of my Great Grandad. When my sixth cousin Jenny visited from the United States the first thing she said was “now I know where my nose came from - it’s a Hinton nose!”

I have that nose, as did my dad, my grandad and lots of my sisters and cousins.

Did Dicken…?

Carol