Mary “Mamie” Dickens (1838-1896)

Author. Mary, known as Mamie, was the eldest daughter of the ten children of noted author, Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine. She was named after her mother's sister, Mary Hogarth, who had died the year before her birth. She never married, although she is believed to have received a proposal of marriage, which she refused because her father disapproved of the suitor. This caused her to suffer from a prolonged bout of depression. After her parents’ separation, she remained with her father until his death. She did not see her mother again until her father had died which was well over a ten-year period. At this point, she went to live with her mother's youngest sister, Georgina. Mary was the author of a book of memoirs, "My Father as I Recall Him." The memorial to the ten Dickens children, located next to their mother's grave in Highgate Cemetery, North London, documents her burial site as “at Sevenoaks, aged 57." Her sister, Kate, is in the graveyard of St. Nicholas's Church at Sevenoaks, but there is no mention in the parish records Mary’s burial.

Bio by: Iain MacFarlaine