William Reginald Dibb Childhood in England and Canada

W.R. Dibb’s early childhood in England

William Reginald Dibb was the youngest son of Rev. Ashton Dibb. He was born in Chalk Farm, London on October 18^th, 1876, three days after his father died. When he was a few years old, he lived with his mother Mary Jane, his two teenage brothers, Ashton Wilberforce and Frederick Thomas, and Rev. John Davies’ son John Llewelyn, who is his cousin, together with a servant. His other brother Hugh McNeile was already sent to Trent College boarding school in Long Eaton, Derbyshire. Another temporary resident in this house at the time was his uncle Thomas Edward, who came over from India. This house was at 26 Gayton Road, Hampstead, London.

During his childhood William Reginald went to Schorn College boarding school in north Marston, Buckinghamshire. By that time, his mother moved to another house at 36 Connaught Road, Willesden, staying with her eldest child, Ashton Wilberforce, who was studying at King’s College, and later at Oxford. Mary Jane’s another son, Frederick Thomas, already left for Canada to take a course at Bishop’s college, Lennoxville, in Quebec.

William Reginald Dibb received his confirmation in Aylesbury, Oxford, in 1891. About a year after that, on July 2^nd, 1892, at the age of about sixteen, the young William left England to visit his elder brother, Rev. Frederick Thomas Dibb, who was by that time a missionary at Ernesttown, Ontario, Canada. He was on board a ship called the S.S. ‘Lake Superior’ in the saloon class.