Charles Dickens
A man of
Great Expectations
From poor beginnings^ he became one ofthe
most prolific writers the world has ever seen.
Charles Dickens's comments on Victorian
society live on through his popular prose and
countless film and television adaptations
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BRITAIN 87
T
"^here is arguably no period in
British history that has had as
great an impact on the way we
live our lives today than the
Victorian era. The reign of Queen Victoria
saw an incredible shift in society unlike any
before or since. The Industrial Revolution,
which continued apace, gave us the first
anaesthetics, photography and widespread
street lighting, but was also the harbinger
of complex problems. With many thousands
of people living cheek by iowi in hastily and
poorly-built accommodation in towns and
cities, diseases such as cholera and typhoid,
spread rapidly. Working conditions were
brutal and life expectancy was low. We
continue to read about these problems today
thanks to the literature and journalism of
one man in particular, who was there to
record it first-hand: Charles Dickens.
Dickens's books have sold more than
200 million copies, he has never gone out
of print and his work has been adapted for
stage and screen more than 300 times. He
is perhaps better known than Shakespeare,
and as well as being known in London, he
was mobbed in Europe and North America,
which he visited regularly. He was able to
court the favour of everyone, from Queen
Victoria right down to the humble dockworken
He was the world's first true superstar.
The writer was born Charles John Huffam
Dickens on 7 February 1812, at 387 Mile
End Terrace, Landport, a suburb of
Portsmouth in Hampshire. This house is now
preserved as the Dickens Birthplace Museum,
and has been restored to the fashion of the
Georgian period in which the writer was
born. Among the poignant exhibits is the
couch upon which the author died in 1870.
Dickens's father, John, worked as a clerk in
the Royal Navy Pay Office. He was terrible
with money, and consequently the family was
itinerant. By the time Dickens was five, they
had moved via London to Chatham in Kent.
In 1818, Dickens and his elder sister Fanny
were sent to school, and Dickens enioyed
some stability, though it did not last long.
Mr Dickens returned the family to London
in 1822. Heavily in debt, Mr Dickens
became incarcerated at Marshalsea, a prison
for debtors, in 1824. The young Dickens was
promptly removed from his education and
sent to work for 12 hours a day in a bootblacking factory. The experience was a
CHRONOLOGY
Dickens at the
blacking factory
^' j ;
1817 The family moves to
Chatham, Kent
1824 Dickens takes
ajob at Warren's
Blacking Warehouse
while his family goes
to Marshalsea
debtors' prison
1812 7 February:
Charles John
Huffam Dickens
is born in
Portsmouth
1810
1815
1815 End of the
Napoleonic Wars
Emperor
Napoleon I
•f France
88 BRrTAIN
1820
1822 The family
returns to London, to
1818 Charles
and sister
Fanny sent to
school
Camden
1824 April:John
Dickens inherits and is
freed from
Marshalsea. Charles
returns to school
I w"j
1835 He meets
1829 Charles works as a
freelance court reporter
1836 2 April
Marries Catherine
Catherine
Hogarth,
daughter of
1827 Charles
£ l'en ing Chronicle
goes to work
for solicitors at
editor George
Hogarth
Grays Inn as an
office boy
1825
1837
20 June;
Queen
Victoria
comes to
the throne
iherine Hogarth
1830
1829 Robert Stephenson
builds the Rocket steam
locomotive engine
1834 Introduction
ofthe New Poor Law
removing out relief
1836-37
The Pickwicii
Papers is
1836
1830-3 Charles
works on newspapers.
Writes his first short
stories for the
AlontWy magazine
7 February:
Sketches by Boz,h\s
first collection is
published
published
in 20
instalments
Marsbalsea
debtor's prison in
mm Borough, London
w w w.b ri tai n -magazi ne .tom
complete shock to the boy, who also had to find
lodgings and fend for himself while the rest of
the family lived in the open prison. This was his
first true experience of the lower working classes
and their daily struggles, and the experience had
a profound effect on him. It soured relations
between Dickens and his father hut it also gave
him the impetus he would need to succeed.
Dickens returned to his education when
his father was released from Marshalsea, and
it was three years before the family required
him to take work again. Tbis time, however,
he found a job as a clerk for a solicitors' firm
at Gray's Inn but, deep down, he had designs
on a career as ii journalist.
underclass. He frequently went for long walks,
taking routes through the less salutirious
neighbourhoods. Dickens relayed what he saw
to his readers in the popular press, exposing
tbe widening gulf between society's rich and
Top left: London's The Strand as it would have been in poor. His upbringing, on the cusp of these
Dickensian times. Above: Born here in 1812, the
two worlds, enabled Dickens to understand
author's birthplace in Portsmouth is now a museum.
people from all walks of life.
Topright:A stained glass roundel of Dickens at his
Dickens spent much time following
London home, Doughty Street. The house also
contains a a young portrait of Dickens [above ngfit)
Parliament and its proceedings and tbe •
Cartoon from
Punch magazine
1841-44 The Old
Cariosity Siiop,
Barnaby Rudge,
A Christmai Carol
andMartin Chuzilewit
are published
In 1829, Dickens became a freelance courr
reporter after training himself in shorthand.
By 1833, he had been taken on by the
Morning Chronicle newspaper on a salary of
five guineas a week. At this rime, he also
began writing short stories for the Montbly
magazine, taking the pen name Boz,
Working on a newspaper gave Dickens the
chance to farther explore the lives of London's
of the Thames and
its victims
1848 A cholera
epidemic kills up
to 2,000 people
a week
1846 Repeal of
the Corn Laws
Booh iliustration of
Miss Havisham
1866-68 Dickens
continues to go on
grueling reading tours
1858 Separation and
bitter public divorce
from Catherine
1860 Great
Expeciatiot"is published
1870 June:
Dickens dies
following a stroke
1857 Dickensmeets the Ternans, a
family of actors, and forms an
attachment to 18-year-old Ellen Ternan
The Charge
of the Light
Brigade
1853 The outbreak ofthe
Crimean War, which Dickens
vehemently opposes
1865 9 June:
Dickens and Ellen
Ternan survive
the Staplehurst
rail crash
1870 June: Buried
in Poets' Corner at
Westminster Abbey
Meeting of the Anti-Cora LawLcague
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Illustration of the
Staplehurst Rail Crash
BRITAIN 89
introduction of the Poor Law Amendment
Act in 1834 was a particular affront to
Dickens's sensibilities, removing as it did a
parish's option to give poor people out relief
- money to sustain themselves at home
during difficult times. Instead, they were
compelled to live in workhouses, where
conditions were made deliberately severe to
deter people from seeking assistance.
The workhouse and other humiliating
institutions, such as Marshalsea, were often
parodied and mocked in Dickens's fiction. The
most famous example is in Oliver Twist,, where
the poor orphan dares to ask the workhouse
master for another helping of gruel.
The next few years saw dramatic changes
for Dickens. In 1835, he met Catherine
Hogarth, the daughter of ÍMening Chronicle
editor George Hogarth, and married her
a year later. An anthology of his stories.
Sketches hy Boz, was published the same
year, and led to his being commissioned
for a series of 20 fiction installments that
became The Pickwick Papers. While writing
this, he commenced Oliver Twist, which was
being published at the time his first child,
Mary, was born. Dickens was still only 25.
From his mid-twenties, Dickens entered a
particularly prolific period and displayed a
phenomenal energy. Between 1838 and 1852,
when Catherine bore Dickens ten children, he
wrote Nicholas Nicklehy, The Old Curiosity
Shop, Barnahy Rudge, A Christmas Carol,
Martin Chuzzlewit, Dombey and Son,
David Copperfield and Bleak House.
ww.hritain-rtug-ozinL-.uim
Although the young Dickens family was
upwardly mobile and moved to a town house
in Doughty Street, London, the author's
apparent wealth masked a private pain.
Much of his money was spent supporting his
mother and bailing his father and brothers
out of debt. Willam Dorrit, the forlorn and
financially ruined father in Little Dorrit, is a
bumbling wreck of a man: said to have been
based on Dickens's father. Dickens explored
the nature of his own demons from the time
he spent working in the blacking factory in
David Copperfield, which is said to be his
Top: Dickens delighted in the peace and tranquility
of Winterbourne on the Isle of Wight. Top right:
Charles with two of his daughters, Marnie and Katey
in 1866. Above right: The house in Broadstairs, Kent,
that inspired Bleak House. Above: A photograph of
Dickens at his writing desk by Watkins in 1861
most autobiographical work. Not all was
gloom though. When visiting the Isle of
Wight in 1849, he was shown over Winterbourne, a charming house on the south of
the island, which he rented. He delighted in
the peace and quiet he found there and made
it a rule that he be 'invisible' until 2pm each
day while he worked on David Copperfield
in one of the first floor rooms overlooking the
gardens and out to sea. He also entertained
many of his literary friends there, Thackeray,
Carlyle and Tennyson.
The house in Doughty Street became the
Dickens Museum in 1925, and is a treasure
trove of artifacts dedicated to the man and
his life. One poignant exhibit is a windowpane from the Marshalsea, which haunted
Dickens so. The prison was featured in
several of his books, notably Little Dorrit.
Dickens's knack for painting compelling
portraits of underclass life led him to make
acquaintance with other liberal minded
people. One such contact was Angela
Burdett-Coutts, heiress to the Coutts
banking dynasty, and the second-richest
woman in England after Queen Victoria.
She and Dickens worked together on various
philanthropic projects. Dickens was used to
visiting workhouses, ragged schools (where
pauper children had rudimentary schooling)
and hospitals in his line of work, so it was
not unusual when he became involved in
the founding of Urania Cottage, a home
dedicated to the salvation of young 'fallen
women'. Dickens and Miss Burdett-Coutts •
BRITAIN 91
found a house in Lime Grove, Shepherds
Bush and invited girls to live there while they
set about finding their feet.
Despite his interest in serious issues, Dickens
was charismatic, attractive and a renowned
dandy - a welcome fixture on the literary
social scene. His contemporary William
Makepeace Thackeray was heard ro quip,
"The beggar is as beautiful as a butterfly,
especially about the shirt-front". The Duke of
Devonshire found him "bewitching" and Lord
Redesdale said he would entrance even those
who could not admire him.
production of A Christmas Carol will
be released this winter, with Jim Garrey
providing the voice of Ebenezer Scrooge. This
year also marks the 25th anniversary of the
film version of A Christmas Carol, which was
filmed on location in Shrewsbury and starred
George G Scott and Edward Woodward. The
gravestone of Ebenezer Scrooge, which was
featured in the film, can still be seen today as
a lasting memory of filming in the town at St
Ghad's Ghurch. What other author can be
said to have blurred the lines between fiction
and realitv quite so effectivelv? ID
WHERETO EXPERIENCE
DICKENS'LIFE AND TIMES
Charles Dickens'
Birthplace Museum,
Portsmouth. See the
bedroom where the
writer was born and the
couch on which he died
in 1870. Tel: (023) 9282
7261; www.charksdickens
binhplace.co.uk
Charle5 Dickens
Museum, London.
The Dickens House
Museum, Broadstairs,
Kent. Home of Mary
Pearson Strong, on
whom Betsey Trotwood
in David Copperfield was
said to be based.
Tel: (01843) 861827;
www.broadstairs
dickensfestml.co.uk.
The Workhouse
Dickens wrote O'fi'er
(National Trust),
Nottinghamshire.
Preserved 19th-century
The last 14 years of Dickens's life were
characterised by the same frenetic pace of
living, despite serious heatth concerns which
he attempted to brush off. After a very
public divorce from Catherine in 1858, he
went to great pains to keep his affair with
18-year-old actress Ellen Teman under
wraps, while at the same time still writing
and going on physically exhausting public
speaking tours. He penned three more
complete serialised novels: A Tale of Two
Cities ( 1859), Great Expectations (1860-61),
and Our Mutual Friend (1S64-65).
Nkkkby here. It became a
museum in 1925. Tel:
(020) 7405 2127; www.
dicheni museum.coiv.
Museum of Science
and Industry,
Manchester. Possibly the
UK's best overview of
life during the Industrial
Revolution, including
machinery, travel,
society and medicine.
Tel: (0161) 832 2244;
www.mo5i.org.uk.
His insistence on going about life at full
throttle eventually took its toll on Dickens,
and he suffered a stroke in June 1870. He
died the following day, at his house at Gad's
Hill near Rochester, Kent, aged 58. He was
buried in Poets' Gomer at Westminster Abbey.
Testaments to Dickens's enduring appeal
continue to be made, with his work frequently
retold in film and television. A new animated
Ragged School
Museum, London.
Discover what life was
like for the thousands
of pauper children in
London's East End in the
1800s, and experience a
Victorian school lesson.
Tel: (020) 8980 6405,
www.raggedschool
rr]useum.org.iik.
92 BRITAIN
Twist and Nicholas
Top left: Dickens's A Christmas Carol, starring
George C Scott and Edward Woodward was filmed
in Shrewsbury in 1984. Top and above left: The
star-studded BBC adaptations of Bleak House and
Little Dorrit are now available to buy on DVD. Above:
National Trust restored workhouse in Southwell
workhouse with
dormitories.
Tel: (01636) 817260;
www.nationakrust.org.uk
Winterboume
Country House,
IsleofWight^lsleof
Wight. House where
Dickens stayed, now a
charming hotel. Tel:
(01983) 852535; www.
winterbournehouse.co.uk
The two-disc DVD
and accompanying book
Charles Dickens's
England (Guerilla Films,
£1799) is available to buy
now. Presented by actor
Derek Jacobi this
engaging documentary
takes viewers on a tour
of locations that inspired
the author. To buy visit:
www.guerilla -films.com.
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