Jane Dorothy Harvey was eldest daughter of Rev. Bridges Harvey, Rector of Doddinghurst, a village in south Essex. She went on to marry the influential London solicitor and industrialist Charles Ranken Vickerman, who in 1863 purchased Hean Castle, at Saundersfoot, Pembrokeshire. Her eldest son, Charles Henry Ranken Vickerman, became JP for Pembrokeshire and High Sheriff in 1917.