Eva Dickinson |
Research by Liz Bickerstaffe
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Engravings donated: 18 March 1946
Sir Edwin Landseer (After), Engraver Thomas Landseer Stag and Deer, acc no 110, size 27 x 20 in (68.6 x 50.8 cm) Unlocated: Sir Edwin Landseer (After), Engraver Thomas Landseer, The Fatal Duel, acc no unknown, size unknown Sir Edwin Landseer (After), Engraver Thomas Landseer Night - Two Stags Battling it out at Midnight, acc no unknown, size unknown Sir Edwin Landseer (After), Engraver Thomas Landseer Morning - Two Dead Stags and a Fox, acc no unknown, size unknown Statues donated: 2 October 1936 Unknown Sculptor, Apollo and Venus (pair), acc nos 310 & 311 Like her elder sister, Miss Emma Walmsley, Mrs Eva Dickinson was a generous benefactor of the Lytham St Annes Art Collection. She was a resident of Burnley formuch of her life but had a long association with St Annes and enjoyed her last twenty years in the town.
Born in1886 in Habergham Eaves, Eva was the youngest daughter of Thirza Eva and George Walmsley JP, a magistrate and wealthy second generation cotton manufacturer in Burnley. (1) Eva was educated at Cheltenham Ladies College (2) and mixed in prominent social circles, with three of her five siblings marrying into other wealthy manufacturing families. Only Emma remained unmarried, whilst Eva’s younger brother, Captain Leonard Peel Walmsley, was temporarily blinded by a gas attack in WWI and died in a tragic road accident in Manchester, aged 34. His home at that time had been Tarleton on South Promenade, St Annes. (3) Four years older than Eva was Florence, or Florrie, who married Henry, or Harry Dickinson in June 1907. Harry was the eldest son of ex Alderman William Dickinson JP and former Mayor of Burnley. William had established two successful businesses in Burnley: Butterworth & Dickinson, iron and brass founders, machinists and loom makers, which operated from Globe Ironworks, Trafalgar Street and Saunders Bank Ironworks and secondly, Butterworth and Dickinson, cotton manufacturers based at Westgate Shed, Sandgate. (4) Brothers, Harry and John, worked their way up the business from textile machinists to directors, whilst their other brothers, Frank and Robert Cecil, focussed on the cotton manufacturing company. (5) So the marriage of Harry and Florrie, ‘the son and daughter of two Burnley families who for many years had been honourably associated with the commercial, public and social life of Burnley’, was a very fashionable event in the town. (6) They had children, led active lives and travelled extensively; Harry journeyed to Japan on business with his father in 1910 and sailed to India with Florrie in 1921. (7) Sadly, Florence died in December 1926, aged 45, at their home, Park Hill, Burnley. (8) Harry had been a close family friend of the Walmsleys even before his marriage to Florrie. He had been best man at the wedding of Eva’s elder brother, John Frank, in 1903, (9) and had been entrusted as an executor in the Wills of Eva’s siblings and of her father, George. (10) Park Hill had also been Eva’s home for many years (11), presumably living with Florrie’s family, so it was perhaps unsurprising that early in 1930, four years after Florrie’s untimely death, Eva and Harry married in the Fylde, aged 44 and 52 respectively. (12) During her time in Burnley Eva had been a member of the District Nursing Association and on the Victoria Hospital Ladies’ Committee. (13) When Eva moved to St Annes it is possible that she became involved with the St Annes Sick Aid and Nursing Society, of which her sister, Emma, was President from 1937-43. (14) Eva and Harry kept their home at Park Hill in Burnley and set up a second home at 23 Links Gate, where her father George had first lived when moving to St Annes in 1908. She was ideally placed to enjoy regular games of golf and was an active member of the Royal Lytham St Annes Golf Club for many years. (15) Eva’s widowed sister, Mabel Edge, also lived nearby on St Annes Road East. Harry became Chairman of Butterworth and Dickinson, textile machinery makers, and also of Lang Bridge Ltd of Accrington, manufacturers of machinery for several industries. (16) Like his father he was also a councillor in Burnley and he was appointed Chief Air Raid Precautions Warden for Kirkham between 1939-45. It was in appreciation of the kindness shown to Harry during this period that Eva donated several works of art to the borough. (17) Harry and Florrie had spent their honeymoon in Scotland, (18) but it is not known whether the paintings, reminiscent of the highlands, were from that time. Eva Dickinson died at home, after a short illness, on 6 June 1949, aged 64, and was followed in January 1950 by Harry, aged 72. (19) Eva left over £42,500 in her Will, the equivalent today (2015) of around £1.4 million. (20) |
REFERENCES
(1) 1891 Census, Ancestry (2) 1901 Census, Ancestry (3) Burnley Express, 23 April 1923 (4) Burnley Directory, 1896 (5) 1901 & 1911 Census, Ancestry (6) Burnley Express, 22 June 1907 (7) Burnley Express, 1910 UK Passenger Lists, Ancestry 1921 (8) National Probate Calendar, Ancestry (9) Burnley Express, 1903 (10) National Probate Calendar, Ancestry (11) Burnley Express, 11 June 1949 (12) England & Wales Marriage Index, Ancestry (13) Burnley Express, 11 June 1949 (14) Lytham St Annes Express, 19 October 1945 (15) Lytham St Annes Express, 17 June 1949 (16) Grace’s Guide of British Industrial History (17) Fylde Borough Council Minutes, March 1946 (18) Burnley Express, 22 June 1909 (they travelled by motor car and express train) (19) Lytham St Annes Express, 17 June 1949 & online Burnley cemetery records (20) National Probate Calendar, Ancestry & online Historic Inflation Calculator |
