It’s very likely that at some point when he was leaving or arriving at St Olaves, in the early 1870s, the Rev John Ingle would have noticed the three little girls who lived in a nearby Murchington farmhouse - the three Dicker sisters. Mary, the eldest was born in April 1862, Louisa was just eighteen months younger and born in November 1863 and the little one, Catherine, was born two years later in October 1865.

They are all recorded as living in Murchington in the 1871 census, and we might imagine them in the spring of 1871 skipping along the lane together, Mary aged nine, Louisa aged seven and Catherine aged five.

Perhaps they walked with their father, William Dicker, through Providence and Forder and along Deave Lane to the church in Throwleigh. Or more likely they got dressed up in their Sunday best and had a horse and cart, to take them along the narrow lanes to Church.

Sadly their mother Susan Litton Dicker (née Nickels) had died of consumption in January 1869, she was only 36 years old. William and Susan had married just seven years and one month earlier in Throwleigh Church, on Christmas Day 1861.

By using the enumerator’s records from the decennial population census we can get some fascinating glimpses into these girls’ lives. We know that in 1871 they lived not just with their father William (age 33) but also with their grandparents John Dicker (age 73 ) and Johanna Dicker (age 66), all born in the parish of Throwleigh. In addition there were two boys lodging with the family – Robert Cann (14) and Alfred Leamann (10) who helped with the farm.

It is tempting to imagine the girls walking down the hill and up again to the small school at Providence, which can be seen so clearly now from the lane that leads from Higher Murchington to Blackaton Brook and Blackaton House. However, this school was not built until 1877 so it is more likely that the three girls were taught in the school room, added to the Providence Chapel in 1869, or perhaps at one of the other small ‘dame schools’ operating in the area before the 1870 Education Act began the shift to universal elementary education. 

It is difficult to piece together the fragments of these three sisters’ childhoods, but we do know that their father married again in March 1872 (to Mary-Ann Clarke), and on the 1st May 1876 their new baby sister was born – Annie Dicker. By the time of the 1881 census William and Mary-Ann were still living in Murchington, but William’s father John had died in 1874. Louisa (17) and little Annie (4) were still with the couple, and they also had two farm lads (William and Arthur Perriman) living there. But by spring 1881, Mary was nearly 19 and working as a governess in Bury Barton near Crediton and Down St Mary. Fifteen year old Catherine Dicker also seems to have been living away, possibly at a boarding school (this would be consistent with her occupation recorded in 1891 and her older sister being employed as a governess – a responsible position that could not be secured without more formal education than provided at a local elementary school). By the time of the 1891 census Catherine Dicker is back living at home in Murchington (with her father and step-mother, her older sister Louisa and Annie). In 1891 Catherine is described as an Ex-Schoolmistress, while Louisa as a ‘farmer’s assistant’.

It is tempting to wonder whether the three Dicker daughters welcomed their new step-mother and whether they were pleased to have a little sister to play with. The Dickers were a well-established farming family with deep roots in the parish, but they would not have been so wealthy that the girls were exempt from helping out on the farm. It is likely they would have played a full part in important rituals like churning butter, and they might also have helped with milking, feeding and other daily chores of a Devon hill farm. They would have needed to learn such farming skills to ‘marry well’ in this remote community, but equally they would probably have escaped the hardest labours as the daughters of a well-to-do farmer. Perhaps they had enough free time to do well in their school work, and even to wander the Dartmoor lanes enjoying the wild flowers and the bird song.