Another Charles Ricketts

The name Charles Ricketts is not uncommon. In the nineteenth century for example there was an Assistant Surgeon Charles Ricketts who during the Crimean War wrote a letter to The Times, reporting that the Russians killed their prisoners, there was a Charles Ricketts, officer at the Royal Fusilliers who acted in a play at the regimental theatre at Aldershott, another Charles Ricketts was accused of stealing peas and half-a-sack of bran and a bucket and brush (he pleaded guilty), and yet another Charles Ricketts, a beerhouse keeper, sold beer at 'improper hours on Sunday'. Other men called Charles Ricketts were labourers, bakers, plasterers, captains, butcher's boys, inn keepers, land owners or brick layers. Some people with this name won prizes for 'the best yearling bull'.

Website Liverpool Geological Society

On 11 February 1868, Dr. Ricketts, F.G.S. was in the chair for the monthly meeting of the Liverpool Geological Society. He also read one of the papers: 'Remarks on the Upper Silurian Formation', and his full name was given in the Liverpool Albion (17 February 1868) as Charles Ricketts, M.D., F.G.S. He is one of a few people called Charles Ricketts who besides leaving traces in archives and newspapers, published articles and books listed in library catalogues and bibliographies. All his papers have geological themes, although he was trained and worked as a surgeon.

He was born in Titchfield in 1819, the son of Dr. John Alston Ricketts (1786-1852). At a young age, he developed an interest in geology and he kept his first fossil from the Hampshire Cliffs in his collection. He was educated at Bath, graduating in medicine, and in about 1845 moved to Lancaster, and later Birkenhead (near Liverpool) where he lived in Prince-street the greater part of his life and worked as a surgeon. In October 1861 his name figured in the list of 'gentlemen on whom the degree Doctor of Medicine has just been conferred' (Fife Herald, 17 October 1861).

In June 1851, he was married at Cartmel, Lancashire, to Eliza, 'daughter of the late Thomas Clarkson' of Brackenthwaite, near Lancaster (Hampshire Telegraph, 28 June 1851). In 1852 a daughter was born, in 1852 a son (who died the next year). 

In 1863 he became a member of the Liverpool Geological Society (that was established in 1859), and in 1868 he joined the Geological Society of London. He published a paper 'On some Erratics in the Boulder-clay of Cheshire, &c., and the Conditions of Climate they denote' in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London (1885). In 1873, he published Essays On Physical Geology (printed at the Courier steam printing works). Another publication was titled Remarks on the Country around the Wrekin. A Comparison of the Carboniferous Rocks of Coalbrook Dale, with Those of Other Districts (1876). More than twenty of his papers were published in the Proceedings of the Liverpool Geological Society. He was also a member of other societies, such as the Naturalists' Field Club. 

Obituary in Geological Magazine (May 1904)

He donated his collection to the University of Liverpool. In an obituary he was described as a careful observer and an 'indefatigable worker in the field'. His kind, unobtrusive and unselfish character endeared him to many, which was displayed by a gift he received as early as 1857: ‘On Tuesday evening last, a neat and handsome skeleton timepiece was presented to Charles Ricketts, Esq., surgeon, formerly house surgeon at the Dispensary in this town, by a few friends, as small token of their esteem, for his bland and gentlemanly demeanour to all, and particularly for urbane and charitable attention to the humbler classes of Birkenhead and its vicinity’ (Lancaster Guardian, 3 January 1857).

Around 1900 Charles Ricketts moved back to Hampshire where he died on 29 February 1904. He was buried in St. Peter's Church burial ground, Curdridge, where a monument mentions the names of his father and (presumably) a sister.