We mark the 150th Anniversary of the death of John Dinham, Founder of Mount Dinham and St Michael’s, with a traditional Requiem Mass.

A CHARITABLE CITIZEN.

(From the Exeter Times, July 3, 1864.)

THE funeral of John Dinham took place on Saturday last. There was no pageant for the vacant eye to gaze at – none of the mockery of woe – all was plain, there being not even a hearse or a mourning coach. The body, which had been brought from Dawlish on Tuesday, was placed in the Board Room of the Lodge, at the Free Cottages, Mount Dinham, The funeral was at twelve o’clock, when more than five hundred people formed a procession, the corpse being preceded by nearly three hundred citizens, headed by the Mayor of Exeter, members of the corporation, and a number of the clergy. It was followed by the mourners and men employed at the London Tea Company establishment, trustees, and members of institutions and societies. The entire space visible from the iron-bridge was covered with spectators as the funeral moved to the cemetery, where other mourning multitudes crowded the grounds. The good man was carried to the grave on the shoulders of his own servants, and buried in a vault where the remains of his second wife were interred about five years ago.

John Dinham was a local philanthropist who came from a poor background. His strong religious conviction led him to found Sunday Schools, help initiate the YMCA and support Dumb and Blind Institutions. He built forty two Free Cottages above Weir Cliff, in 1860, as retirement homes for the poor, in the area now known as Mount Dinham. He also opened the Rack Street Infant School, during 1858, in the West Quarter. John Dinham died in June 1864, leaving £21,000 to charitable causes.