The Life of the Rt Hon Sir Charles W. Dilke, vol 1 | Page 6

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places of Africa, he effected much directly; but indirectly, through his
help and guidance of others, he effected more; and in the recognition of
his services by those for whom he worked and those who worked with
him he received his reward.
Charles Wentworth Dilke was born into a family of English gentlefolk,

which after a considerable period of comparative obscurity had won
back prosperous days. The baronetcy to which he succeeded was recent,
the reward of his father's public services; but a long line of ancestors
linked him to a notable landed stock, the Dilkes of Maxstoke.
This family was divided against itself in the Civil Wars; and the brother
of the inheritor of Maxstoke, Fisher Dilke, from whom Sir Charles
descended, was a fanatical Puritan, and married into a great Puritan
house. His wife, Sybil Wentworth, was granddaughter to Peter
Wentworth, who led the Puritan party of Elizabeth's reign: she was
sister to Sir Peter Wentworth, a distinguished member of Cromwell's
Council of State. Property was inherited through her under condition
that the Dilke heirs to it should assume the Wentworth name; and in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Fisher Dilke's descendants were
Wentworth Dilke or Dilke Wentworth from time to time.
In George II.'s reign one Wentworth Dilke was clerk to the Board of
Green Cloth at Kew Palace: his only son, Wentworth Dilke Wentworth,
was secretary to the Earl of Litchfield of the first creation, and left an
only son, Charles Wentworth Dilke, who was a clerk in the Admiralty.
This Dilke was the first of five who successively have borne this
combination of names. [Footnote: For convenience a partial table of
descent is inserted, showing the five Dilkes who bore the same
combination of names.
CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE, b. 1742, d. 1826.
--------------------------------------------- | | Charles Wentworth Dilke =
Maria Dover William Dilke, b. 1796, b. 1789, d. 1864. | Walker. d.
1885. | | ------------------------------------------------------- | | Charles
Wentworth Dilke = M. Mary William Wentworth first Baronet, b. 1810,
Chatfield. Grant Dilke, killed in d. 1869. Crimea, b. 1826, d. 1854 | |
------------------------------------------------------------ | | Charles
Wentworth Dilke = (1) Katherine Ashton Dilke, second Baronet, | M. E.
Sheil. b. 1850, d. 1883. b. 1843, d. 1911. | (2) Emilia F. S. | Pattison. |
Charles Wentworth Dilke, present Baronet, b. 1874.]
The second of them, Charles Wentworth Dilke, his eldest son, and
grandfather to the subject of the memoir, was, like his father, a clerk in

the Admiralty; but early in life showed qualities which fitted him to
succeed in another sphere of work--qualities through which he
exercised a remarkable influence over the character and career of his
grandson. So potent was this influence in moulding the life which has
to be chronicled, that it is necessary to give some clear idea of the
person who exercised it.
Mr. Dilke--who shall be so called to distinguish him from his son
Wentworth Dilke, and from his grandson Charles Dilke--at an early
period added the pursuit of literature to his duties as a civil servant. By
1815, when he was only twenty-six, Gifford, the editor of the Quarterly
Review, already spoke highly of him; and between that date and 1830
he was contributing largely to the monthly and quarterly reviews. In
1830 he acquired a main share in the Athenaeum, a journal 'but just
born yet nevertheless dying,' and quickly raised it into the high position
of critical authority which it maintained, not only throughout his own
life, but throughout his grandson's. So careful was Mr. Dilke to
preserve its reputation for impartial judgment, that during the sixteen
years in which he had virtually entire control of the paper, he withdrew
altogether from general society "in order to avoid making literary
acquaintances which might either prove annoying to him, or be
supposed to compromise the independence of his journal." [Footnote:
From Papers of a Critic, a selection of Mr. Dilke's essays, edited, with
a memoir, by Sir Charles Dilke, See infra, p. 184.]
After 1846 the editorship of the Athenaeum was in other hands, but the
proprietor's vigilant interest in it never abated, and was transmitted to
his grandson, who continued to the end of his days not only to write for
it, but also to read the proofs every week, and repeatedly for brief
periods to act as editor.
When in 1846 Mr. Dilke curtailed his work on the Athenaeum, it was to
take up other duties. For three years he was manager of the recently
established Daily News, working in close fellowship with his friends
John Forster and Charles Dickens.
From the time when he gave up this task till his death in 1864 Mr.
Dilke's life had one all-engrossing preoccupation--the training of his

grandson Charles. But to the last, literary research employed him.