John Dickinson

John Dickinson was born in 1755. He married Mary Friend in Alston, Cumberland in 1780. They were active members of the Garrigil Independent Chapel until he became moor master in Alston in 1790. His eldest son also became a moor master.
John Dickinson died in Alston in 1833.

Sarah Angus

Sarah Angus married Thomas Dickinson in 1814 at St Margaret's Durham. She was born about 1780. Her father Silas Angus was associated with the Brandon colliery at Red Barns.

She was still alive when her daughter arrived in Victoria in 1853.

Thomas Dickinson

Thomas was the eldest son of John Dickinson of Garrigil  in Cumberland.  He was born about 1782. The family moved to Alston in 1790 when his father became a moor master [lead mine agent]. Thomas also became a moor master at Alston.  He married Mary Elias in Alston in 1803. Their son William was born in 1808, but in 1812 his wife 'suddenly expired while on the road to Alston accompanied by her sister'. Thomas then married Sarah Angus at St Margaret's in Durham in 1814. He died at his home, Spency Croft, Alston in 1845, age 63, of chronic hepatitis, three days before his granddaughter Constance Scales was born there.

Sarah Angus Dickinson

Sarah Angus Dickinson was born at Alston in Cumberland in 1821. She lived at Spency Croft, a farm on the high moor above Alston. Her father Thomas Dickinson was a moor master [lead mine agent].

She met her husband, Alfred Scales, at Airedale College, the academy where her uncle Walter Scott was principal. She was age 24 when she married at the Independent Chapel at Alston in 1843.The witnesses were local minister Rev. Jonathan Harper, brother, Robert Simpson Scales, and siblings Hannah Dickenson and William Dickenson. The Minister was her father-in-law, Thomas Scales from Leeds.
In 1852, when Sarah and Alfred had five children, two daughters and three sons, they felt that they could not afford to educate them in England and decided to emigrate to gold-rush Victoria.
They had not gone far when the baby, aged 7 months, contracted typhoid and died. Constance, the eldest, aged 7, had assisted her mother in nursing the sick infant and also died. On reaching Cape Town, Sarah decided to leave the ship while Alfred continued on. During the year that she remained in South Africa the oldest son, aged 3, died and she only had two children

left when she reached Melbourne. After settling in Geelong, another five children were born, the four girls surviving.
Sarah wrote an account of the death of her children. She died at Surry Hills in Melbourne in 1884, aged 63.
 

Alfred Scales

Alfred Scales was the eldest son of Rev. Thomas Scales of Leeds. Like his father and maternal grandfather, he became an independent minister. He met his future wife, Sarah Angus Dickinson, while studying at college where her uncle Walter Scott was principal. The letters he wrote to her at this time have survived. They were married at Alston in 1843.

In 1852, with five children, and insufficient means to educate them as they hoped, they decided to emigrate to goldrush Victoria. Unfortunately, three of the children did not survive the journey. They settled in Geelong where five more children were born.