DICKENS: FAITH AND HIS EARLY FICTION
Submitted by Keith William James Hooper to the University of Exeter as a
thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English, January 2009.
This thesis is available for library use on the understanding that it is
copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published
without proper acknowledgement.
I certify that all material in this thesis that is not my own work has been
identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved
for the award of a degree by this or any other university.
--------------------------------------------
i
ABSTRACT
This thesis, focusing on Dickens’ early work (‘Our Parish’ to The Old Curiosity
Shop), explorers the nature and fictional expression of the author’s faith, and the
historical ecclesiastical elements of his writing. Dickens passionately believed that the
Church was failing in its Christian responsibility to the poor. Contrary to contemporary
religious thought, he neither accepted that the appalling depravation endured by the poor
resulted from their personal sin, or that the imperative of spiritual redemption negated the
Church’s responsibility to ease their physical distress. He also realised that among his
predominately London-based middle-class readership there was genuine ignorance of the
reality of the suffering endured by the poor.
In his early fiction Dickens used a two stage approach to communicate his personal
beliefs about the poor. The first, as adopted in ‘Our Parish’ and the first seven chapters of
Oliver Twist, involved the graphic description of the suffering endured by the poor and
the exposure of the inadequacies of the parochial system upon which they depended.
Next, Dickens introduces his readers to a series of characters who embody his perception
of Christian charity. Mr Pickwick, Mr Brownlow and Charles Cheeryble (collectively
referred to in this thesis as ‘Charitable Angels’) are, contrary to parochial officials and
those who participate in charitable activity for their own selfish ends, shown to make a
difference in the lives of those they assist. Dickens hoped that his readers would be
inspired to emulate their actions.
Whilst Dickens’ ‘Charitable Angels’ related his beliefs about the poor, his ‘Female
Angels’, Rose Maylie, Madeline Bray and Nell Trent, were used to depict the Christ-like
qualities of self-sacrifice and atonement. Dickens possessed a very simple Christ-centred,
ii
practical faith, and his ‘Angels’ proved, within the context of the prevailing religious
climate, the ideal means of expressing these views to his readers. Beyond their primary
functions, Dickens also used his ‘Angels’ to promulgate his views on Divine Judgement,
Providence, Christian conviviality, and the Resurrection.
Dickens’ alternative, novelistic approach to communicating his beliefs demonstrates
both his remarkable mimetic powers and the contemporary nature of his views.
Importantly it also provides today’s readers with an historical appreciation of early
Victorian religious life at a national, parochial and individual level. It is hoped that the
content and adopted approach of this thesis will provide additional insight into this
important and somewhat neglected area of Dickens’ life and work.
iii
CONTENTS
Page Number
Introduction
1- 26
PART ONE DICKENS: VICTORIAN RELIGIOSITY AND HIS PERSONAL
FAITH
27
Chapter One Dickens’ Personal Faith
28 - 86
Chapter Two Dickens and the Religious Climate
Chapter Three ‘Our Parish’
87 - 153
154 - 197
PART TWO DICKENS’ ANGELS
198
Chapter Four Dickens’ Angels: An Introduction
199 - 230
Chapter Five Charitable Angels
231 - 280
Chapter Six Female Angels
281 - 336
Conclusion
337 - 354
Bibliography
355 - 374
iv
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure
Page Number
One: The Election for Beadle (Sketches by Boz)
177
Two: Our Pew at Church (David Copperfield)
216
Three: I am married (David Copperfield)
217
Four: The Little Church in the Park (Bleak House)
217
Five: Frontispiece (Master Humphrey’s Clock)
218
Six: Frontispiece (Dombey and Son)
220
Seven: Frontispiece (The Haunted Man)
221
Eight: Changes at Home (David Copperfield)
222
Nine: A Stranger calls to see me (David Copperfield)
225
Ten: Florence and Edith on the Staircase (Dombey and Son)
227
Eleven: Uriah persists in hovering near us at the Dinner-Party (David Copperfield) 228
Twelve: Shadow (Bleak House)
229
Thirteen: Oliver introduced to the respectable old gentleman (Oliver Twist)
253
Fourteen: Oliver recovering from Fever (Oliver Twist)
260
Fifteen: Frontispiece The Haunted Man
293
Sixteen: At Rest (The Old Curiosity Shop)
323
Seventeen: Tailpiece (The Old Curiosity Shop)
325
Eighteen: Child in her gentle Slumber (The Old Curiosity Shop)
332
Nineteen: Nell’s New Home (The Old Curiosity Shop)
333
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INTRODUCTION
The eminent Dickensian K. J. Fielding, writing over forty years ago, identified
religion as representing ‘the greatest gap (that may be filled) in our knowledge about
Dickens.’1 Thirteen years later, in 1976, Wilson and Dyer in a similar tone concluded:
‘for a very long time now the Christian aspect of Dickens’ work has been badly
neglected.’2 Despite the recent renewed interest in the topic of Victorian religiosity the
intervening period has seen relatively few books published on this important aspect of
Dickens’ life and work.3 This thesis, by detailing the historical religious content of
Dickens’ writing and examining the nature and fictional expression of his personal faith
will, it is hoped, contribute to the process of closing the gap referred to by Fielding.
Drawing on existing biographical sources, on Dickens personal writings and his
fictional autobiographical material, this thesis considers the nature of Dickens’ faith.
Having done so, the author’s use of his early fiction (‘Our Parish’ to The Old Curiosity
Shop) to express his personal beliefs is explored. In reconciling Dickens’ fictional
content with various noted ecclesiastical commentaries on the period this thesis also
establishes the historic religious aspect of the author’s work.
In examining the nature of Dickens’ faith this thesis identifies two aspects that he
sought to communicate to his readers: the responsibility of the Christian community to
1
Quoted in Dennis Walder, Dickens and Religion, London: George Allen & Unwin Publishers Ltd., 1981,
Preface.
2
Ibid., pp. 4, 5.
3
Norris Pope, Dickens and Charity, London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1978; Dennis Walder, Dickens and
Religion, London: George Allen & Unwin Publishers Ltd., 1981 (this work was republished by Routledge
in 2007); Andrew Sanders, Charles Dickens Resurrectionist, London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1982;
Janet Larson, Dickens and the Broken Scripture, Athens: The University of Georgia Press Ltd., 1985;
John Reed, Dickens and Thackeray: Punishment and Forgiveness, Athens: Ohio University Press, 1995;
Carolyn Oulton, Literature and Religion in Mid -Victorian England From Dickens to Eliot, Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan Ltd., 2003; Vincent Newey, The Scriptures of Charles Dickens, Aldershot: Ashgate
Publishing Ltd., 2004.
1
provide for the physical and spiritual needs of the poor and the necessity of individuals to
practically demonstrate Christ-like qualities. Whilst these represent the focus of Dickens’
fictional expression of his beliefs, this thesis will also examine other features of his
personal faith, most notably Divine Judgement, Providence and the Resurrection, and
how Dickens used them in his writings.
The biblical term poor, as used throughout this thesis, was significant in the early
Victorian period. The leading Churchman Dr. E. B Pusey, in Christianity Without the
Cross or Corruption of the Gospel of Christ, lamented what he saw to be the dilution of
the spiritual responsibility felt by Victorian society toward the poor. The biblical
imperative to care for the poor had, in part, been superseded by the civil operation of the
parish.4 The popularised use of the term workhouse, including within the Poor Law
Amendment Act of 1834, rather than poorhouse, and the increased usage of the phrase
pauper to denote those in receipt of parochial relief, provided further evidence, in terms
of language at least, of a societal shift away from traditional Christian duty toward the
poor. Whilst references to appropriate socio-economic terms, such as the labouring
classes, do appear in this work, the term ‘poor’ most accurately reflects the spiritual
dimension Dickens attached to the necessity of caring for those in need.
In The Idea of the Victorian Church, 5 Desmond Bowen describes how the Established
Church, confronted by the burgeoning growth of the urban poor, particularly in London,
and its own lack of resources, decided to adopt a policy whereby it would encourage the
middle-class element of their urban congregations to take personal responsibility for the
4
E. B. Pusey, Christianity Without the Cross or Corruption of the Gospel of Christ, Oxford: 1875,
pp. 27-28.
5
Desmond Bowen, The Idea of The Victorian Church, Montreal: McGill University Press, 1968.
2
poor in their parishes and beyond. This thesis argues that in his fiction, Dickens aimed to
create the same response in his predominantly urban middle class readership.
The prevailing social segregation of the period so evident across all areas of life,
particularly in the Church,6 meant that the vast majority of Dickens’ London-based
readers were woefully ignorant of the true plight of the poor, even within their own
neighbourhoods. Aware of this, Dickens recognised that in order to communicate his
beliefs regarding the poor he needed first to educate his readers about the appalling
conditions they endured. Dickens use of his fiction to achieve this purpose is described in
Dombey and Son:
Oh for a good spirit who would take the house-tops off, with a more potent
and benignant hand than the lame demon in the tale7, and show a Christian
people what dark shapes issue from amidst their homes, to swell the retinue
of the Destroying Angel as he moves forth among them! For only one night’s
view of the pale phantoms rising from the thick and sullen air where Vice and
Fever propagate together, raining the tremendous social retributions which
are ever pouring down, and ever coming thicker! Bright and blest the
morning that should rise on such a night: for men delayed no more by
stumbling-blocks of their own making, which are but specks of dust upon the
path between them and eternity, would then apply themselves, like creatures
6
Joseph Arch, in The Story of His Life, London: 1898, pp. 20, 21, 53, 54, recounts how the reluctance of
his poor parents to wait their turn to receive communion after wealthier members of the congregation,
resulted in the clergyman cutting off their family allowance of soap and coal. In Chapter Three of this
thesis the issue of social segregation in the Church is addressed.
7
Dickens, with regards to the deprived ‘Five Points’ area of New York, makes an earlier reference to
this lame demon ‘pulling roofs off private houses’ in American Notes , Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1997, p. 88. The book was first published in 1846.
3
of one common origin, owing one duty to the Father of one family, and
tending to one common end, to make the world a better place! 8
This thesis argues that Dickens adopted a two-stage fictional approach regarding the
poor. The first, specifically designed to educate his readers of the plight of the poor,
involved Dickens performing the role of critical commentator. Dickens adopted the
reportorial style he developed during his time working as a journalist 9 because this
approach enabled him to document with remarkable clarity the conditions endured by the
poor. In addition to learning about the realities of poverty, his readers were forced to
consider how society and the Church were failing in their Christian responsibilities to the
poor.
The second approach involved Dickens’ creation of ‘angelic’ characters that would
embody the principles of Christian charity, which he described as being the ‘great
cardinal virtue.’10 Dickens uses a series of characters I have called ‘Charitable Angels’
(Mr Pickwick, Mr Brownlow and Charles Cheeryble) to demonstrate how the
intervention of benevolent individuals could transform the lives of those in need: they
represent the only means through which the poor could be helped. Dickens’ ‘Charitable
Angels’ also contribute to the process of educating his readers. For example Mr Pickwick
is exposed to the harsh realities of life within the Fleet Debtors’ prison and to the poverty
of Whitechapel, one of the poorest areas of London; 11 Mr Brownlow, at the Police
8
Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 648. The book was first
published in 1848.
9
Dickens began his journalistic career when, at the age of nineteen, he joined the staff of his uncle’s
newspaper The Mirror of Parliament. A year later, in 1832, he took on a joint role at the True Sun. In
August 1834 he began work at The Chronicle. He remained there for just over two years.
10
Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
11
Charles Dickens, Pickwick Papers, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, Chapters XL–XLII, XLIV,
4
Magistrates’ Court presided over by Mr Fang, experiences at first hand the cruelty the
poor endure at the hands of the justice system; and Charles Cheeryble’s personal
awareness of poverty and its effects stems from both his relationship with Madeline Bray
and the Nickleby family; and his familiarity with the difficulties confronting those
associated with his business.
The effectiveness of Dickens’ two-stage approach, and the recognition it received
from his contemporaries, is in part reflected in the tributes he received following his
death. His Westminster Abbey epitaph reads: ‘He was a sympathizer with the poor, the
suffering, and the oppressed.’ Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Dean of Westminster, in his
sermon on the ‘Rich Man and Lazarus’,12 the Sunday following Dickens’ funeral,
commended the author for being the advocate of the unseen poor and for removing the
veil that separated the middle-classes and the rich from the poor.13
But, in addition, I also argue that Dickens created a series of ‘Female Angels’ (Rose
Maylie, Madeline Bray and Nell Trent) to represent the Christ-like qualities of selfsacrifice, selflessness and atonement. In writing to his good friend the Reverend David
Macrae, Dickens clearly signalled his approach of using specific characters to express the
values he most closely associated with Christ: ‘With a deep sense of my great
responsibility always upon me when I exercise my art, one of my most constant and most
earnest endeavours has been to exhibit in all my good people some faint reflections of the
teachings of our great Master.’14 Commenting on the effectiveness of Dickens’ use of
‘Angels’ to express his personal views, Louis Cazamian has observed that it was not his
XLV, XLVII, and p. 301.
Luke Chapter XVI, verses xi- xxxi.
13
New York Times, July 2, 1870, p. 5.
14
David Macrae, Amongst the Darkies and Other Papers, Glasgow: John S. Marr, 1876, p.127.
12
5
general theories, or his criticisms of specific abuses that made the strongest impression on
his readers, but rather it was the words, deeds, and fortunes of his characters.15
Dickens’ religious conviction followed that of seventeenth-century philosopher John
Locke, who noted that Christianity was best observed in people’s lives. In describing the
Reverend Stephen Hughes, Dickens writes: ‘So cheerful of spirit and guiltless of
affectation, as true practical Christianity ever is! I read more of the New Testament in the
fresh frank face going up the village beside me, in five minutes, than I have read in
anathematising discourses (albeit put to press with enormous flourishing of trumpets), in
all my life. I heard more of the Sacred Book in the cordial voice that had nothing to say
about its owner, than in all the would-be celestial pairs of bellows that have ever blown
conceit at me.’16
Dickens, in identifying Mr Pickwick, Mr Brownlow, Charles Cheeryble, Rose Maylie,
Madeline Bray and Nell Trent as ‘Angels’, created a hierarchy of individuals through
whom he could communicate his personal beliefs. The associative symbolism of the term
also served to define, in the minds of his readers, their specific religious roles within the
narrative. Dickens’ contemporaries, in understanding the primary roles of biblical
‘Angels’ to be that of messengers and agents, readily appreciated their purpose within
Dickens’ fiction.
In their charitable actions and roles as agents of social justice, Mr Pickwick, Mr
Brownlow and Charles Cheeryble, communicate Dickens’ biblical perspective of how the
15
Louis Cazamian, The Social Novel in England, 1830-1850, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1973,
p. 148.
16
Charles Dickens, The Uncommercial Traveller and Reprinted Pieces, Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1996, pp. 6, 7.
6
poor should be treated.17 Mr Brownlow and Charles Cheeryble (with regards to Oliver
and the Nickleby family respectively) mirror the biblical ‘Angelic’ role of ‘Guardian
Angels’.18 Both these ‘Charitable Angels’ are also, through their dealings with the
principal villains in their respective novels, associated with the enduring and important
divine ‘Angelic’ purpose of Judgement.19
Dickens’ three ‘Charitable Angels’ further represent the Biblical ‘Angelic’ quality of
light.20 Mr Pickwick’s conviviality and general good humouredness are reflected through
his association with the sun. Mr Brownlow and Charles Cheeryble are symbolically
represented as being light, in contrast to the darkness of the evil characters they oppose.
All three bring the light of God’s presence into the lives of those they help. The
association of ‘Angels’ with the biblical account of the Resurrection is depicted by
Dickens’ characterisation of Nell Trent. Dickens’ representation of the self-sacrifice and
atonement of his three ‘Female Angels’ coincides with the Gospel references of the
‘Angel’s’ presence with the suffering Christ in the garden of Gethsemane, and the
‘Angel’s’ announcement to Joseph that Jesus would save his people from their sins.21
17
For example, kindly treatment of the poor is encouraged in Exodus Chapters XXIII verse 25, and XXIII
verse 11; Leviticus Chapters XIX verse 10, XXIII verse 22, and XXV verse 25; Deuteronomy Chapter
XV verse 7; Isaiah Chapter LVIII verse 7; Galatians Chapter II verse 10. The call for social justice for
the poor can be found in Exodus Chapters XXII verse 25, XXIII verse 23; Deuteronomy XXIV verse
12; Job Chapter XXIV verse 9; Psalms Chapters XII verse 5, XIV verse 6, LXXXII verse 3; James
Chapter II verse 3.
18
Psalms Chapters XXXIV verse 7, XCI verse 11; and Matthew Chapter XVIII verse 10 all refer to the
role of guardian angels.
19
For examples of the angelic role in Divine Judgement see II Samuel Chapters XIV verse 20 and XXIV
verse 17; II Kings Chapter verse 35; Matthew Chapters XIII verses 39, 49 and Chapter XVI verse 27;
and Revelation Chapters VII and VIII.
20
For the connection between ‘Angels’ and light see Matthew Chapter XXVIII verse 3; Luke Chapters II
verse 9 and XXIV verse 24.
21
Luke Chapter XXII verse 43 and Matthew Chapter I verse 21.
7
But this thesis not only focuses on Dickens’ critical commentary of the church and his
use of ‘Angels’ it also highlights the historical aspect of his early fictional work. Dickens
realised that it was necessary to express his personal beliefs regarding the poor within a
socially realistic context. For example, in ‘Our Parish’, (see Chapter Three) Dickens’
carefully constructed setting provides the modern reader with an accurate representation
of an early 1830s pre-Poor Law Amendment suburban London parish.
Robert Hanna, writing with reference to The Life of Our Lord, 22 noted that prior to its
publication in 1934 only three books on Dickens and religion had appeared in the sixtyfour period following the author’s death.23 C. H McKenzie’s The Religious Sentiments of
Charles Dickens, published in 1884, was the first book to examine the subject. Mckenzie
provides an excellent overview of specific aspects of Christian doctrine contained in
Dickens’ work, including Judgement and the Resurrection, and gives invaluable insight
into his representation of religious hypocrisy and false religious practice. However, his
work neglects to explore the connection between Dickens’ fiction and his personal
beliefs. The author also fails to consider Dickens’ writing within the context of the
contemporary religious climate.
The second book, Reverend William Procter’s Christian Teaching in the Novels of
Charles Dickens, was first published in 1930. Divided into two parts and arranged under
numerous headings, including ‘The Omniscience of God’, ‘The Love of God’, ‘Allusions
to the Exercise and Efficacy of Prayer’ and ‘Christmas’, the work, although by no means
exhaustive, contained a wealth of biblical quotations and allusions. In common with
Robert Hanna, ‘The Life of Our Lord: New Notes of Explication’, Dickensian, 1999, Vol. 95, No. 449,
pp. 197-198.
23
C. H. McKenzie, The Religious Sentiments of Charles Dickens: Collected From His Writings, London:
Walter Scott, 1884; William Kent, Dickens and Religion, London: Watts & Co.,1930; Reverend William
Procter, Christian Teaching in the Novels of Charles Dickens, London: H.R. Allenson Ltd., 1930.
22
8
McKenzie, Procter also omitted to contextualise Dickens’ religious material or relate it to
his personal beliefs. Whilst referentially useful, the book lacks an explanation of the
methods which Dickens used to communicate his religious content, or his reasons for
doing so.
William Kent’s Dickens and Religion (also published in 1930) is peculiar in that it
denies the religious dimension of Dickens’ work whilst seeking to label him as a
humanist. There is some justification for Kent’s position. Dickens was passionately
concerned about the well-being of his fellow man. His support of and interest in issues
such as the education of the poor, sanitation and medical provision for the needy
members of society, and his personal charity, demonstrated such a humanistic approach.
Kent, however, neglects to recognize that it was Dickens’ personal Christian beliefs
which motivated his humanitarian activities. Kent also fails to take into account other
aspects of Dickens’ fictional religious content. This might well be because Kent did not
have access to Dickens’ extraordinary text The Life of Our Lord or to his letters.
The next work to appear on the subject, Norris Pope’s Dickens and Charity, which
focused exclusively on the manifestation of Evangelical influence within Victorian
society and Dickens’ response to it, did not appear until over forty years later, in 1976.24
In dealing with topics such as the Ragged School Movement, the influence of the
Sabbatarians, and the activities of the Overseas Missionary Societies, Pope was the first
critic to link Dickens’ critical comment with his personal convictions regarding the poor.
Pope was also the first to recognize Dickens’ ability to represent the ecclesiastical issues
of the age to both his contemporary and future readership.
24
Norris Pope, Dickens and Charity, London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1976.
9
Dennis Walder’s Dickens and Religion (first published in1981 and re-published in its
original form in 2007), adopts a more sophisticated thematic approach. 25 Walder
cleverly marries specific aspects of Dickens’ religious representations with specific
novels: ‘Mr Pickwick and the Fall ’; ‘Oliver Twist and Charity’; ‘Death and The Old
Curiosity Shop’; ‘Dickens and the False Religious Cry’ [Barnaby Rudge]; ‘Dickens and
the Change of Heart’, [Martin Chuzzlewit and Dombey and Son]; ‘The Social Gospel’,
[David Copperfield and Bleak House]. In his final chapter, ‘Dickens and Religion’,
Walder concludes that Little Dorrit represents Dickens’ most serious attempt to find a
religious answer to life’s painful mysteries.’26 In my view, the significance of this work
rests in Walder’s consideration of how Dickens creatively sought to portray his religious
representations.
In terms of the content of his chapters on Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist and The Old
Curiosity Shop Walder’s book comes closest to the early fictional focus of this thesis.
Indeed, within these early chapters the author, in certain instances, clearly signposts some
of the areas that are developed in this thesis. In the opening chapter, ‘Mr Pickwick and
the Fall’, Walder connects Pickwick with benevolence; interprets Dickens’ representation
of ‘Stiggins’ as an attack on certain forms of evangelicalism; and draws on W. H Auden’s
‘Fall of Man’ allegory of Pickwick.27 Within this context Walder equates Dingley Dell
with Eden. However, although Walder acknowledges Mr Pickwick’s benevolence he fails
to link this to the character’s ‘angelic’ status. Dickens’ use of Pickwick’s conviviality and
Republished by Routledge, the second edition of Walder’s book, with its original 1980 Preface, is
identical to the first.
26
Walder, Preface.
27
Within this allegory Auden does not suggest that Mr Pickwick has fallen into sin but rather falls from an
innocent child into an innocent adult.
25
10
his association with light to expose false religiosity; and his ‘charitable angelic’
connection with Mr Brownlow and Charles Cheeryble are also overlooked.
Walder’s chapter, ‘Oliver Twist and Charity’, whilst exploring several charitable
aspects including societal views of the poor and the Poor Law Amendment Act, both
neglects Mr Brownlow’s ‘angelic’ status and his association with Dickens’ two other
‘Charitable Angels’. No reference is made to Brownlow’s role as the principal agent of
divine judgement within the novel. More importantly Rose Maylie, the first of Dickens’
‘Female Angels’, is, in the main, ignored. In his chapter, ‘Death and The Old Curiosity
Shop’, Walder discusses the influences of romanticism on Dickens’ representation of
death; Dickens’ allegorical use of Pilgrim’s Progress; the impact of Mary Hogarth’s death
upon the author and Dickens’ representation of Dissent based on the Little Bethel chapel
frequented by Mrs Nubbbles. Once again Walder fails to both recognize Nell’s ‘angelic’
status and to fully appreciate her association with Dickens’ general belief in the
resurrection. He also completely disregards Dickens’ conviction that children in death
become ‘angels’.
Two other important works on this subject are Andrew Sanders, Charles Dickens
Resurrectionist (1982), and Janet Larson, Dickens and the Broken Scripture (1985).28 In
both, however, Dickens’ early fictional work, the focus of this thesis, is subservient to the
author’s later work. Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby do not feature
in Sanders’ book, though he does examine The Old Curiosity Shop. His main focus of
attention is Dickens’ later works: Dombey and Son, Bleak House, Our Mutual Friend and
The Mystery of Edwin Drood. In Larson’s work this emphasis on Dickens’ mature novels
28
Andrew Sanders, Charles Dickens Resurrectionist, London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1982; Janet
Larson, Dickens and The Broken Scripture, Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1985.
11
at the expense of his earlier work is even more marked. The only representative of
Dickens’ first four novels is to be found in Chapter Two, ‘Early Biblical Boz: The Case
of Oliver Twist’. The remaining four chapters focus on Dombey and Son, Bleak House29,
Little Dorrit and Our Mutual Friend. The relative page allocation afforded to each novel
further emphasizes the importance placed upon Dickens’ later work by Larson: Oliver
Twist occupies twenty-five pages, Bleak House fifty-one and Little Dorrit ninety-eight.
What is interesting about Sanders’ work is his focus on Dickens’ fictional
representation of death and the resurrection. He importantly discusses Dickens’ personal
experiences of bereavement and how these, along with his beliefs, shaped his treatment
of these two issues. However, in his chapter on The Old Curiosity Shop, Sanders neglects
to connect Nell Trent with Dickens’ views on the resurrection of children as angels, or to
acknowledge her angelic status.
Larson, in common with Sanders, concentrates on one specific aspect of Dickens’
fictional religious content: his use of biblical allusion. In her impressive survey of the
subject, Larson identifies several approaches employed by Dickens to connect fiction and
religion: reference and direct quotation; echo and adaptation of biblical text; sub-textual
allusion and adapted quotation. In addition to connecting particular novels with books of
the bible (Bleak House with Job and Esther; Little Dorrit and Ecclesiastes, Matthew’s
Gospel and Revelation) Larson also extends her remit in relation to Oliver Twist to
include Pilgrim’s Progress. One of the key aspects of Larson’s work is her exploration of
the influence of Thomas Carlyle on Dickens’ religious perspective.30
Chapter Four of Larson’s work, ‘Biblical Reading in the Later Dickens: The Book of Job According to
Bleak House’, was reproduced in the Dickens Studies Annual (Volume 13, pp. 35-83) a year prior to the
book’s publication.
30
Larson on page 238 describes Dickens as being ‘a disciple of Carlyle.’ Sartor Resartus, Latter Day
29
12
Larson’s examination of Dickens use of the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Oliver
Twist has been important in my thinking about this novel. However, whereas I conclude
that Mr Brownlow is the Good Samaritan, Larson allocates this role to Nancy and Fagin.
She does not consider either, Dickens’ allegorical use of the parable to represent the
failings of the parochial and legal system in their dealings with Oliver. It must also be
added that the specific nature of Larson’s book precludes any recognition or discussion of
the novel’s two ‘Angels’: Mr Brownlow and Rose Maylie.
The last decade has seen a revival of interest in the subject. Particularly important has
been John Reed’s Dickens and Thackeray: Punishment and Forgiveness (1995), Carolyn
Oulton’s Literature and Religion in Mid-Victorian England from Dickens to Eliot (2003)
and Vincent Newey’s The Scriptures of Charles Dickens (2004).31 Reed’s book examines
Dickens’ and Thackeray’s narrative representations of issues surrounding contemporary
attitudes to punishment and forgiveness. In the opening part of the book Reed
contextualises his examination of Dickens and Thackeray by emphasizing the influence
of religion in shaping Victorian perceptions and responses to these two areas. The second
half of this important work contains a book by book analysis of Dickens’ work in which,
broadly speaking, Reed explores Dickens fictional approach of balancing the punishment
of evil with the operation of mercy and forgiveness. He devotes the rest of the book to
examine the same themes in Thackeray’s work.
Reed’s examination of Dickens’ early work is of particular relevance to this thesis.
Given the prescribed framework of his work it is surprising that Reed has failed to
31
Papers and Past Papers are seen by the author as being of particular relevance.
John Reed, Dickens and Thackeray: Punishment and Forgiveness, Athens: Ohio University Press, 1995;
Carolyn Oulton, Literature and Religion in Mid-Victorian England from Dickens to Eliot, Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2003; Vincent Newey, The Scriptures of Charles Dickens: Novels of Ideology,
Novels of Self, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2004.
13
recognise, in both Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby, the role that Dickens’
‘Angels’(Mr Brownlow and Charles Cheeryble) play in bringing about the Divine
Judgement of various villainous characters. Further, both Mr Brownlow and Charles
Cheeryble exemplify Dickens’ balance between mercy and punishment that Reed seeks
to depict elsewhere in his book. In his chapter on Oliver Twist the significance of Mr
Brownlow’s clash with Fang - Divine Judgement versus the corrupt judgement of an
innocent - is completely overlooked by Reed. With reference to Mr Pickwick’s dealings
with Alfred Jingle, Job Trotter and Mrs Bardell Dickens’ representation of the operation
of Christian forgiveness, grace and mercy is also absent. 32
Carolyn Oulton’s Literature and Religion in Mid-Victorian England from Dickens to
Eliot is, despite her reference to George Eliot in the title, primarily concerned with
Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, and their fictional response to Evangelicalism.
Concluding that the complexity of the response of both writers had not been previously
recognised, Oulton seeks to specify the ways in which both Dickens and Collins sought
to liberalise orthodox doctrine as put forward by evangelicals.33 Her Chapters ‘The
Redeployment of Doctrine - Treatment of Original Sin, Infant Depravity and
Providentialism’ and ‘Subverting Judgement: the Case for Redemption through
Sanctification of the Sinner’ exemplify this approach.
Chapters Two and Five, ‘A Man’s Resolution and a Woman’s Patience: Fighting the
Battle of Life’, and ‘Pet Prisoners and Honest Paupers: Philanthropic Dealings with
Poverty and Criminality’, are skilfully used by Oulton as a framework in which to discuss
‘Manly Christianity’. Described as the means through which Dickens resolved the
For an excellent review of Reed’s book see Deborah Thomas, Dickens Quarterly, Vol. XIII, No.4,
December 1996, pp. 229-231.
33
Oulton, pp.2, 51.
32
14
inconsistencies of his theological position,34 Oulton uses this term as a platform upon
which to discuss Dickens’ fictional representations of personal Christian qualities such as
forgiveness and self denial. She also suggests that Dickens advocacy of social reform was
a function of ‘Manly Christianity’.35
In contrast to this thesis, which concentrates on Dickens’ early fiction, Oulton focuses
on his work produced in the 1850s and 1860s. This emphasis is reflected in the fact that
there are only six references in total to Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby
and The Old Curiosity Shop in the entire book. In contrast, Bleak House, Little Dorrit and
David Copperfield are referred to on no less than seventy-two occasions.
In its attempt to interpret Dickens’ fiction from a liberal humanistic perspective,
Vincent Newey’s, The Scriptures of Charles Dickens, echoes William Kent’s 1930s
work, Dickens and Religion. In adopting an approach in which literature is viewed as
being ‘the provider of a new canon, a substitute Bible,’36 Newey primarily interprets
Dickens’ fiction as representing a form of secular scripture. Revealed religion is
displaced by the religion of humanity. Of the six chapters only one, Chapter Three,
‘Oliver Twist Hegemony and the Transgressive Imagination’, focuses on a novel featured
in this thesis.37 The remaining chapters cover Christmas Carol (Chapter Two), David
Copperfield (Chapter Four), Great Expectations (Chapter Five) and Our Mutual Friend
(Chapter Six).
34
Ibid., p. 51.
For an excellent review of Oulton’s work see Mark Knight, Journal of Victorian Culture, Vol. 8 No. 2 ,
October 2003, pp. 334 - 338.
36
Newey, The Scriptures of Charles Dickens, p. 3.
37
The remaining chapters cover Christmas Carol (Chapter Two), David Copperfield (Chapter Four), Great
Expectations (Chapter Five) and Our Mutual Friend (Chapter Six).
35
15
Newey’s discussion of Oliver Twist begins with an examination of the first seven
chapters of the novel which detail the appalling conditions endured by Oliver and others
at the hands of the parish administration. In common with Kent, he suggests that
Dickens’ criticism of the treatment of the poor was prompted by humanistic concern
rather than religious conviction. Mr Brownlow, rather than being represented as agent of
Christian charity, is portrayed as being an emblem of middle-class virtue. Newey also
suggests that his kindness is a product of an impulsive desire to do good as opposed to a
predetermined strategy designed by Dickens to depict Christian charity. The chapter,
whilst referring to Pilgrim’s Progress, makes no reference to Dickens’ allegorical use of
the Parable of the Good Samaritan.
In addition to these key works aspects of the religious content of Dickens’ fiction have
also featured in more general works on the Victorians and religion. For example, Michael
Wheeler’s Death and the Future Life in Victorian Literature and Theology (1990),
features a section on Dickens’ representation of baptism and the resurrection in Our
Mutual Friend.38 More recently in The Old Enemies: Catholic and Protestant in
Nineteenth Century English Culture (2006), Wheeler examines ‘Jacobite claims and
London mobs’ in the context of Barnaby Rudge.39
In Dickens Refigured: Bodies, Desires and Other Histories, the editor, John Schad,
uses Dickens’ description of a subterranean church beneath Parma Cathedral (Pictures
From Italy) as a metaphor for the state of the Victorian Church.40 In the same book,
38
Michael Wheeler, Death and the Future Life in Victorian Literature and Theology, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1990.
39
Michael Wheeler, The Old Enemies: Catholic and Protestant in Nineteenth Century English Culture,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 111, 113, 120.
40
John Schad (ed.), ‘Dickens’ Cryptic Church’ in Dickens Refigured: Bodies, Desires and other Histories,
Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996, pp. 5, 6.
16
Richard Dellamora makes a reference to Fagin’s connection with the devil and Agnes
Wickfield’s ‘angelic’ credentials.41 Finally, John Lucas explores the relationship between
the poor and the church within the context of Dickens’ work.42
Mark Knight and Emma Mason’s Nineteenth Century Religion and Literature (2006)
also contains some relevant material that has been helpful in my examination of the topic.
Chapter Four, ‘Evangelicalism: Bronte to Eliot’ and Chapter Five, ‘Secularization:
Dickens to Hardy’, are of particular interest. In Chapter Four Bleak House, and John
Hillis Miller’s 1971 Introduction to the novel, 43 are used by the authors to discuss
Dickens’ fictional representation of Evangelicalism.44 Chapter Five contains an
interesting discussion on the dual secular and religious content of Dickens’ fiction within
the context of Christmas Carol.45 The authors also use the novel with reference to a brief
discussion of the ‘Social Gospel’. In Chapter One, ‘Dissent: Wesley to Blake’, Dickens’
attendance at Little Portland Street Unitarian chapel following the death of his friend
Reverend Edward Taggart is noted.46 There is also in Chapter One a brief note on
Dickens’ negative perception of Ritualism.47
Chapter Seven of Biblical Religion and the Novel 1700-2000,48 edited by Mark
Knight and Thomas Woodman, explores the issue of prayer in connection with the early
lead novels of All the Year Round. Focusing on Edward Bulwer Lytton’s A Strange
Richard Dellamora, ‘Pure Oliver; or, Representation without agency’, in Schad’s Dickens Refigured, pp.
56, 68.
42
John Lucas, ‘Past and present: Bleak House and A Child’s History of England’, in Shad’s Dickens
Refigured, pp. 145 -152.
43
Charles Dickens, Bleak House, Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics, 1971.
44
Mark Knight and Emma Mason, Nineteenth Century Religion and Literature, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2006, pp. 122, 124, 125, 135, 136.
45
Ibid., pp. 153, 154.
46
Ibid., p. 71.
47
Ibid., p. 113.
48
Mark Knight and Thomas Woodman (eds.), Biblical Religion and the Novel 1700-2000, Aldershot:
Ashgate Publishing, 2006.
41
17
Story, Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White, Charles Lever’s A Day’s Ride and Dickens’
Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations Knight challenges the position of modern
critics who draw ‘hard and fast distinctions between sacred and secular material’ in the
nineteenth century.49 In detailing the religious content relating to prayer within the
allegedly secular All theYear Round, the author effectively illustrates the unsustainability
of a critical position which insists upon ‘a strong boundary between sacred and secular
reading.’50 Following on from a discussion regarding the Crunchers in the Tale of Two
Cities Knight uses two articles from the periodical, ‘The Jamaica Revivals’ and ‘Hysteria
and Devotion’ to consider the critical representation of religious enthusiasm.51
In the various Dickens journals, religion in general has featured very little. In a
fourteen-year period of the Dickens Quarterly (1992-2006) just six articles of note have
appeared.52 The Dickensian (1972-2005) has only twelve.53 Prior to 1972, I have only
49
Ibid., p. 80.
Ibid., p. 81.
51
Various unpublished theses have also addressed the subject of Dickens and religion. These include: Rev.
C.E. V. Bowkett’s, ‘The place of religion in some of the major novels of Charles Dickens’, MA thesis,
Durham University, 1967; G. S. Larson, ‘Religion in the novels of Charles Dickens’, PhD thesis,
Massachusetts, 1969; P. A. Thompson’s, ‘Imagination and Religious Vision in Dickens’ Novels’, PhD
thesis, Sheffield University, 1986; Alfred William Grieshaber’s, ‘Religious Connectivity in the Works of
Charles Dickens’, PhD thesis, Syracuse University, 1991and Chris Ellen Towers’, ‘Dickens’ Angel
Women’, MA thesis, University of Texas El Paso, 1991.
52
Michael Schiefelbein, ‘Little Nell, Catholicism, and Dickens’ Investigation of Death’, Dickens Quarterly,
Vol. IX, No. 3, September 1992, pp. 115-125; John Cunningham, ‘The Figure of the Wedding Feast in
Great Expectations’, Dickens Quarterly, Vol. X, No. 2, June 1993, pp. 86-91; K. J Fielding, ‘Dickens
and Science’, Dickens Quarterly, Vol. XIII, No. 4, December 1996, pp. 200-215; Robert Heaman,
‘Hebraism and Hellenism in Our Mutual Friend’, Dickens Quarterly, Vol. XXI, No. 1, March 2004,
pp. 3-10; Gareth Cordery, ‘A Special Relationship: Stiggins in England and America, (Part One)’,
Dickens Quarterly, Vol. XXII, No. 3, September 2005, pp. 135-152; Gareth Cordery, ‘A Special
Relationship: Stiggins in England and America, (Part Two)’, Dickens Quarterly, Vol. XXII, No. 4,
December 2005, pp. 224-241.
53
Duncan Carter and Laurence Mazzeno, ‘Dickens’ Account of the Shakers and West Point: Rhetoric or
Reality ?’, Dickensian, Vol. 72, No.380, 1976, pp. 130-139; Harvey Sucksmith, ‘Dickens among the PreRaphaelites: Mr. Merdle and Holman Hunt’s “The Light of The World”’, Dickensian, Vol. 72, No.
380, 1976, pp. 158-163; Dennis Walder, ‘Dickens and the Reverend David Macrae’, Dickensian, Vol.
81, No. 405, 1985, pp. 45-51; Diane Jolly, ‘The Nature of Esther’, Dickensian, Vol. 86, No. 420, 1990,
pp. 29-40; David Parker, ‘Our Pew at Church’, Dickensian, Vol. 88, No. 426, 1992, pp. 41-42; Valerie
Gager, ‘‘Our Pew at Church’: Another Interpretation by Way of Shakespeare’, Dickensian, Vol. 89, No.
429, 1993, pp. 25-31; Rodney Edgecombe, ‘The Veiled Prophet’ in Our Mutual Friend’, Dickensian,
50
18
discovered four relevant Dickensian articles.54 Whilst within the first twenty-six volumes
of the Dickens Studies Annual (1970-2006) I have only been able to trace thirteen pieces
which generally relate to the subject under discussion in this thesis.55 Although material
from some of these thirty-five articles has occasionally been referred to, these journal
articles do not directly relate to the central themes discussed in this thesis.
The religious aspect of Dickens’ work has also been largely overlooked within the
pages of various Victorian journals. Indeed, specific articles on the author in general have
proved few and far between. Of the thirteen I have examined, Victorian Review
(1999-Vol. 34, 2008), Past and Present (1996-Vol. 198, 2008), Nineteenth Century
Contexts (1996-Vol. 29, 2007), Victorians Institute Journal (1996-Vol. 35, 2007),
Victorian Studies (1999-Vol. 50, 2007), Victorian Periodical Review (2005-Vol. 41,
2008) and Nineteenth Century Studies (1996-Vol. 21, 2006) contain no articles
Vol. 92, No. 440, 1996, pp. 208-209; Ron Lampard, ‘The New Church in Hard Times’, Dickensian, Vol.
93, No. 442, 1997, pp. 109-115; Robert Hanna, ‘The Life of Our Lord: New Notes of Explication’,
Dickensian, Vol. 95, No. 449, 1999, pp. 197-205; Carolyn Oulton, A Vindication of Religion: Wilkie
Collins, Charles Dickens, and The Frozen Deep’, Dickensian,Vol. 97, No. 454, 2001, pp. 154-158; Alan
Fischler, ‘The Descent of Darwinism: W. S. Gilbert and the Evolution of Great Expectations’
Dickensian, Vol. 98, No. 457, 2002, pp. 101-112; Rodney Edgecombe, ‘Dickens and Addison: A
Possible Source for Mrs Jellyby’, Dickensian, Vol. 98, No. 458, 2002, pp. 153-155.
54
J. Ley, ‘Some Hymns and Songs of Childhood’, Dickensian, Vol. 27, 1931, pp. 121-126; J. Ley, ‘Early
Propaganda’, Dickensian, Vol. 32, 1936, pp. 272-274; N. Peyrouton, ‘The Life of Our Lord: Some Notes
of Explication’, Dickensian, Vol. 59, 1963, pp. 102-112; F. Johnson, ‘Dickens and the Tagarts’,
Dickensian, Vol. 21, July 1925, 157-158.
55
Robert Patten, ‘Dickens Time and Again’, Dickens Studies Annual, Vol. 2, 1972, pp. 163-196; Albert
Hutter, ‘The Novelist as Resurrectionist: Dickens and the Dilemma of Death’, Dickens Studies Annual ,
Vol. 12, 1983, pp. 1-39; Janet Larson, ‘Biblical Reading in the later Dickens: The Book of Job
According to Bleak House’, Dickens Studies Annual , Vol. 13, 1984, pp. 35-83; Susan Thurin, ‘The
Seven Deadly Sins in Great Expectations’, Dickens Studies Annual, Vol. 15, 1986, pp. 201-220; John
Frazee, ‘Dickens and Unitarianism’, Dickens Studies Annual, Vol. 18, 1989, pp. 119-143; Marilyn
Georgas, ‘Little Nell and the Art of Holy Dying: Dickens and Jeremy Taylor’, Dickens Studies Annual ,
Vol. 20, 1991, pp. 35-36; Jonathan Grossman, ‘The Absent Jew in Dickens: Narrators in Oliver Twist ,
Our Mutual Friend , and A Christmas Carol’, Dickens Studies Annual ,Vol. 24, 1996, pp. 37-59;
Kenneth Sroka, ‘A Tale of Two Gospels: Dickens and John’, Dickens Studies Annual ,Vol. 27, 1998,
pp. 145-169; Robert Garnett, ‘Dickens, the Virgin, and the Dredger’s Daughter’, Dickens Studies
Annual, Vol. 28, 1999, pp. 45-64; David Ward, ‘Distorted Religion: Dickens, Dissent, and Bleak House’,
Dickens Studies Annual,Vol. 29, 2000, pp. 195-233; Mark Hennelly, ‘“Like or No Like”: Figuring the
Scapegoat in A Tale of Two Cities”’, Dickens Studies Annual, Vol. 30, 2001, pp. 217-242; Mark Knight,
‘Little Dorrit and Providence’, Dickens Studies Annual,Vol. 32, 2002, pp. 179-193; Gary Colledge, ‘The
Life of Our Lord Revisited’, Dickens Studies Annual, Vol. 36, 2005.
19
specifically about Dickens. Although the remaining six, Nineteenth Century Literature
(1995-Vol. 62, 2008), Victorian Literature and Culture (1999-Vol. 36, 2008), Journal of
Victorian Culture (2000-Spring, 2008), Notes and Queries (1998-Vol. 55, 2008),
Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century (2005-Issue 6, 2008) and
Victorians Institute Journal (1996-Vol. 35, 2007) do contain twenty-one Dickens articles
56
none of these relate to the religious aspect of his life and work.
A careful search of five more general literary journals, Cambridge Quarterly (1990-
2008), Literature and Theology (1987-2008), Essays in Criticism, (1997-2008), Studies in
English Literature (1999-2008) and Review of English Studies (1998-2008), reveals ten
further Dickensian articles. Of these only ‘Why the Good Samaritan was a Bad
Jonathan Grossman, ‘Representing Pickwick in the Novel and the Law Courts’, Nineteenth Century
Literature, Vol. 52, September 1997, pp. 171-197; Jenny Bourne Taylor, ‘Received a Blank Child: John
Brownlow, Charles Dickens and the London Foundling Hospital Archives and Fictions’, Nineteenth
Century Literature, Vol. 56, No. 3, December 2001, pp. 293-363; Lauren Goodland, ‘Is there a Pastor in
The House?: Sanitary reform professionalism and Philanthropy in Dickens’ Mid-Century Fiction’,
Victorian Literature and Culture, Vol. 31, No. 2, September 2003, pp. 525 – 553; Frederick Karl, ‘Recent
Dickens Studies’, Victorian Literature and Culture, Vol. 31, No. 2, September 2003, pp. 593-611; Laura
Schattschneider, ‘Mr Brownlow’s interest in Oliver Twist’, Journal of Victorian Culture, Vol. 6, No. 1,
April 2001, pp. 46-60; Jill Durey, ‘Marrying One’s Ward and Bleak House’, Notes and Queries, Vol. 55,
No. 1, March 2008, pp. 39-41; Rodney Stenning Edgecombe, ‘Cousin Feenix’s Garbled Allusions in
Dombey and Son,’ Notes and Queries, Vol. 55, No. 1, March 2008, pp. 41-43; Rodney Stenning
Edgecombe, ‘Hood, Dickens, Auden Churchyard Revels’, Notes and Queries Vol. 55, No. 1, March
2008, p. 43; Oliver Tearle, ‘Blake’s London in Tale of Two Cities’, Notes and Queries, Vol. 53, No. 3,
September 2006, pp. 335-336; Francis O’ Gorman, ‘Dickens and Yeat’s The Municipal Gallery’, Notes
and Queries, Vol. 53, No. 3, September 2006, pp. 355-56; Rodney Stenning Edgecombe, ‘An Allusion to
Goldsmith’s Traveller in Little Dorrit, Notes and Queries, Vol. 51, No. 2, 2004, pp. 159-160; Francis
Gorman, ‘Dickens’ Reading of Ruskin’, Notes and Queries, Vol. 51, No. 2, 2004, p. 160; Nicola
Bradbury, ‘Dickens’ Villains: Revels, Melodrama, Character, Popular Culture’, Notes and Queries, Vol.
50, No. 1, 2003, pp. 135-136; Nicola Bradbury, ‘Dickens Redressed: The Art of Bleak House and Hard
Times’, Notes and Queries, Vol. 50, No. 1, 2003, pp. 135-136; Deborah Wynne, ‘Dickens’ changing
responses to hereditary insanity in Household Words and All the Year Round’, Notes and Queries, Vol.
46, No. 1, 1999, pp. 52-53; Katherine Inglis, ‘Becoming Automatous: Automata in The Old Curiosity
Shop and Our Mutual Friend’, Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century, Issue 6, April
2008; Nicola Brown, ‘Crying over Little Nell’, Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century,
Issue 4, April 2007; Emma Mason, ‘Feeling Dickensian Feeling’, Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long
Nineteenth Century, Issue 4, April 2007; Sally Ledger, ‘Don’t be so melodramatic: Dickens and the
affective mode’, Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century, Issue 4, April 2007; Heather
Tilley, ‘Sentiment and Vision in Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol and The Cricket on the Hearth’,
Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century, Issue 4, April 2007; Ronald Harvey, ‘The
Duologue of Truth and Art in Oliver Twist, Victorians Institute Journal, Vol. 26, 1998.
56
20
Economist: Dickens’ Parable for Hard Times’ (Jennifer Gribble, Literature and Theology,
Vol.18, No.4, December 2004, pp. 427- 441) and ‘Great Expectations: A ReaderOriented Approach to Johanna Christology and Eschatology’ (Adele Reinhartz, Literature
and Theology, Vol. 3, No.1, 1989, pp. 61-76) - both dealing with novels beyond the timescale of this work - deal directly with the subject of religion.57
Despite making a valuable contribution to the study of Dickens and religion, these
works fail to address the areas detailed in this thesis. Dickens’ early fiction, in particular
‘Our Parish’, has, with the exception of Walder, been relatively neglected. Little, or no
attempt has been made to detail Dickens’ childhood religious experiences, or to fully
reconcile his fictional expressions of belief with his personal religious convictions. The
historicity of elements of his religious material has also been largely overlooked. There is
no mention of Dickens’ use of ‘Charitable Angels’ to both express his personal beliefs
about the poor, or to promote his views on Divine Judgement and the importance of
conviviality in connection with the author’s perception of genuine Christianity. The
importance Dickens placed on the treatment of the poor as an indicator of true religion is
also neglected.
Additionally the writers fail to identify Dickens’ use of ‘Female Angels’ to personify
the Christ-like qualities of selflessness, self-sacrifice and atonement. The earlier authors
57
The other eight Dickensian articles are Malcolm Pittock, ‘Taking Dickens to Task: Hard Times Once
More’, Cambridge Quarterly, Vol. 27, 1998, pp. 107-128; Brian Creadle, ‘Work in Our Mutual Friend’,
Essays in Criticism, Vol. 51, No. 3, 2001, pp.308-329; Matthew Bevis, ‘Dickens in Public’, Essays in
Criticism, Vol. 51, No.3, 2001, pp. 330 -352; Julia Saville, ‘Eccentricity as Englishness in David
Copperfield’, Studies in English Literature, Vol. 42, No. 4, 2002, pp. 781-797; Peter Stokes, ‘Bentham,
Dickens and the Uses of the Workhouse’, Studies in English Literature, Vol. 41, Autumn 2001, pp. 711727; Susan Ferguson, ‘Dickens’ Public Readings and the Victorian Author’, Studies in English
Literature, Vol. 41, No. 4, Autumn 2001, pp. 729-749; Elizabeth Gitter, ‘The Blind Daughter in
Charles Dickens’ Cricket on the Hearth’, Studies in English Literature, Vol. 39, No. 4, Autumn 1999,
pp. 675-689; Paul Schlicke, ‘Other Dickens: Pickwick to Chuzzlewit’, Review of English Studies, Vol.
52, No. 207, 2001, pp. 462-463.
21
have also generally failed to contextualise Dickens’ religious content or appreciate the
intricate nature of the material. For example, Pope, who focuses on Dickens and the
Evangelicals, fails to discuss Dickens’ first Evangelical clergyman, who appears in ‘Our
Parish’; and Kent, in commenting on Dickens’ clergy, 58 fails to mention three separate
positive representations of Established Church clergymen that appear in Dickens’
fiction.59
This thesis is divided into two parts. The first, entitled ‘Dickens: Victorian Religiosity
and his Personal Faith’, explores the nature of the author’s beliefs, their subsequent
expression within his early work and the historicity of his religious content. Much of
Dickens’ religious material is to be found in the background of his work forming part of
the realistic, familiar setting for his various narratives. The submerged, incidental nature
of this content has necessitated a very careful examination of Dickens’ writings to draw
out aspects of his ecclesiastical commentary of the period. Beyond this, Dickens uses
church and chapel settings, and characters within them, to expose religious hypocrisy and
falsehood. Dickens also adopts a critical and satirical approach to contemporary religious
issues, such as the imposition of Sabbath Day legislation, to communicate his own beliefs
to his readership. Through drawing on material from these three approaches it will be
shown how the religious content of Dickens’s early fiction can be used to provide the
modern reader with an accurate, realistic historical record of the religiosity of the period.
The first of the three chapters in Part One, ‘Dickens’ Personal Faith’, draws upon
Dickens’ religious experiences of his childhood and youth, his denominational
58
59
Kent, p. 18.
Kent, although mentioning Frank Milvey, Our Mutual Friend, omits any reference to the village
clergyman in Sunday Under Three Heads; the Dingle Dell clergyman in Pickwick Papers and the
Reverend Stephen Roose Hughes and his brother in ‘The Shipwreck’, Uncommercial Traveller.
22
affiliations, the content of Life of Our Lord and his personal writings to determine
Dickens’ beliefs. Following Forster, 60 this chapter demonstrates that such was the
relationship between Dickens’ inner life and his fictional work that inferences about his
personal beliefs can also be directly drawn from his writing. I will also argue that there is
a sense that Dickens himself used his fictional work as means of self-assessing and
formulating his own beliefs. The chapter concludes with an example of how Dickens’
views shaped his fictional representation of factors relating to the treatment of the poor.
The second chapter of Part One, ‘Dickens and the Religious Climate’, draws on extant
ecclesiastical commentaries of the period to establish the historicity of the author’s
fictional representations of the national religious landscape. The works consulted to
achieve this purpose include: S. C. Carpenter’s Church and People, 1789-1889, Desmond
Bowen’s The Idea of the Victorian Church: A Study of the Church of England, 18331889, Owen Chadwick’s authoritative two part work, The Victorian Church, Chris
Brooks and Andrew Saint’s The Victorian Church: Architecture and Society, John
Wolffe’s Religion in Victorian Britain and Frances Knight’s The Nineteenth Century
Church and English Society (these last three works were all published in the 1990s).61
Grayson Carter’s Anglican Evangelicals Protestant Secessions from The Via Media, K.
Snell and P. Ell’s Rival Jerusalem’s: The Geography of Victorian Religion, and Timothy
Larsen’s two books, Contested Christianity: The Political and Social Contexts of
60
61
John Forster, The Life of Charles Dickens, (ed.), J.W.T. Ley, London: Cecil Palmer, 1928, p. 816.
S. C. Carpenter, Church and People, 1789-1889, London: S.P.C.K, 1933; Desmond Bowen, The Idea of
the Victorian Church: A Study of the Church of England, 1833-1889, Montreal: McGill University Press,
1968; Owen Chadwick, The Victorian Church, 1829-1859, (Part One), London: A&C Black Ltd., 1971;
Owen Chadwick, The Victorian Church, 1860-1901, (Part Two), London: A&C Black Ltd., 1970; Chris
Brooks and Andrew Saint, The Victorian Church: Architecture and Society, Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1995; John Wolffe, (ed.), Religion in Victorian Britain, Volume V, Culture and
Empire, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997; Frances Knight, The Nineteenth Century
Church and Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
23
Victorian Theology and Crisis of Doubt: Honest Faith in Nineteenth Century England,
are representative of the most recent books consulted. 62
In addition a careful search of a selection of suitable journals, History Workshop
Journal (1996-2008), Journal of Religious History (2001-2008), The English Historical
Review (1998-2008), Journal of British Studies (1996-2008), Journal of Ecclesiastical
History (1998-2008), The Historical Journal (1997-2008) and Church History (19962002), has been undertaken to identify relevant articles.
Beginning with an assessment of the religiosity of the period, the chapter continues by
examining Dickens’ representation of religious plurality and the expressions of Victorian
Christianity: the Established Church, Dissent and Roman Catholicism. Throughout this
thesis the contemporary term, Established Church, as used by Dickens in Hard Times,63
will be used to represent the Church of England. This is because, as Chadwick observes,
it was not until the late 1840s that the term Anglican was in general use; whilst Knight
describes the term as ‘slippery’ on the basis that in the nineteenth century it was not
widely used by the laity, and was also perceived as having ‘High Church’ connotations.64
With reference to Dissent, this synonymous term for Nonconformity appears throughout
this thesis on the basis of its exclusive use by Dickens.65 The chapter concludes by
62
Grayson Carter, Anglican Evangelicals Protestant Secessions from The Via Media, 1800-1850, Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2001; K. Snell and P. Ell, Rival Jerusalems: The Geography of Victorian
Religion, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000; Timothy Larsen, Contested Christianity: The
Political and Social Contexts of Victorian Theology, Waco: Baylor University Press, 2004; Timothy
Larsen, Crisis of Doubt: Honest Faith in Nineteenth Century England, Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2006.
63
Charles Dickens, Sketches by Boz and Hard Times, London: Hazell, Watson & Viney Ltd., N.D. p. 632.
64
Knight, note 1, pp. 1,2.
65
For example, Dickens, The Uncommercial Traveller, pp. 398, 656. Ian Sellars quoted in Anne Hogan
and Andrew Bradstock (eds.), Women of Faith in Victorian Culture: Reassessing the Angel in the House,
Basingstoke: Macmillan Press Ltd.,1998, p. 145, suggests that by the mid-Nineteenth Century the term
Nonconformity specifically applied to Evangelical Dissent ( Baptists and Congregationalists),
Methodism and its offshoots.
24
considering the Christianization of the urban poor and Dickens’ coverage of the Papal
Aggression controversy.
The concluding chapter of Part One, ‘Our Parish’, both epitomizes the content of this
thesis, and bridges its two parts. The chapter examines how Dickens, through his
meticulous historical construction of an early 1830s pre-Poor Law Amendment sub-urban
London parish, represents the parochial neglect and abuse of the poor. Depicting the
failure of the civil function of the parish to humanely alleviate the suffering of the poor
through their administration of the Poor Law, Dickens turns his readers attention to the
selfish exploitation the poor suffer at the hands of members of the parish church
congregation.
Having established the failure of the parochial system on a civil and spiritual level,
Dickens contrastingly uses two characters, ‘The Curate’ and ‘The Old Lady’, to
demonstrate to his readers how he believed the suffering of the poor could be eased. The
second of these characters, ‘The Old Lady’, Dickens’ original ‘Angel’, serves as a link
between ‘Our Parish’ and Part Two of this thesis on ‘Angels’. ‘A Lady At One House’
and ‘William’ introduce Dickens’ vision of the ‘Female Angel’, and the Christ-like
qualities of self-sacrifice, selflessness and atonement they represent.
Part Two of this thesis, ‘Dickens’ Angels’, examines how Dickens used this select
group of characters to communicate specific aspects of his personal beliefs to his readers.
The opening chapter of Part Two serves as an overview of the ‘Angelic’ content of
Dickens’ fictional work. The varying types of ‘Angels’ used by Dickens are considered,
as are their specific roles within his fiction. ‘Charitable Angels’, the second chapter of
Part Two, explores Dickens’ use of Samuel Pickwick, Mr Brownlow and Charles
25
Cheeryble to primarily express his personal convictions regarding the poor. They act as
role models through their embodiment of Dickens’ principles of genuine charity. The
chapter also describes how they communicated additional aspects of Dickens’ beliefs.
Samuel Pickwick (the ‘Angel of Light’) is used to depict Dickens’ connection between
conviviality, good humouredness and genuine Christianity. Mr Brownlow (the ‘Angel of
Judgement’) represents Dickens’ views on divine judgement and providence. Finally
Charles Cheeryble (the ‘Watching Angel’) is also connected with Divine Judgement.
The final chapter of this thesis, ‘Female Angels’, details Dickens’ use of Rose Maylie,
Madeline Bray and Nell Trent to embody the Christ-like qualities of self-sacrifice,
selflessness and atonement. Whereas the ‘Charitable Angels’, with the possible exception
of Mr Pickwick, experience little or no personal loss or pain in the performance of their
‘Angelic’ duty, Dickens’ ‘Female Angels’ endure physical, mental, emotional and
spiritual anguish. Rose Maylie nearly dies, and is willing to refuse the man she loves to
prevent his loss of face; Madeline Bray is willing to marry a grotesque, villainous miser
to save her undeserving father; and Nell Trent sacrifices herself in her attempts to redeem
her grandfather. The chapter begins by considering the connection between Dickens’ use
of these female characters and the Victorian ‘Angel in the House’ motif. Following this, a
detailed analysis of each ‘Angel’ is undertaken. In relation to Nell Trent, her link with
Dickens’ views on the Resurrection is also discussed.
26
PART ONE
DICKENS: VICTORIAN RELIGIOSITY AND HIS PERSONAL FAITH
27
CHAPTER ONE: DICKENS’ PERSONAL FAITH
This chapter, using a three-staged approach, seeks to construct a meaningful
description of Dickens’ Christian beliefs. Focusing on his personal life, it details the
religious experiences and influences of the author’s childhood and youth; investigates
Dickens’ representation of Christianity to his own children; and explores his adult
denominational affiliations. The chapter concludes by using Dickens’ representation of
issues surrounding the poor as an example of how, throughout his writing career, he used
his fiction to express his personal beliefs.
With the exception of William Kent’s Dickens and Religion the religious experiences
of Dickens’ childhood and youth have been mostly overlooked by those who have written
on the subject.1 This is a surprising omission considering the established pervasiveness of
Dickens’ fictional childhood/youth recollections. Michael Allen refers to the ‘profound
effect that his childhood had on both his life and works.’2 In American Notes (1846)
Dickens provides an important example of this ‘profound effect’: ‘I recollect when I was
a very young child having a fancy that the reflection of the moon in water was a path to
Heaven, trodden by the spirits of good people on their way to God; and this old feeling
often came over me again, when I watched it on a tranquil night at sea.’3
Commenting on Dickens’ frequent habit of drawing upon his childhood recollections
for his fictional work, Humphry House has observed that: ‘There is no need to emphasize
any more that he used the years of his youth with a persistence and confident exactness
unequalled by any other writer whose youth was not, like Proust’s, his one chosen
1
Chapter One of William Kent, Dickens and Religion, London: Watts & Co., 1930.
Michael Allen, Charles Dickens’ Childhood, London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1988, Inside Front Cover.
3
Charles Dickens, American Notes and Pictures From Italy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997,
p. 226.
2
28
subject.’4 Forster notes that the accuracy and pervasiveness of these recollections were, in
part, due to Dickens’ ‘remarkable faculty for remembering childhood experiences in great
detail [...].’5 He also suggests that, in terms of perceptiveness, understanding and
intuition, Dickens’ interpretation of his childhood experiences were, at the time,
remarkably accurate, enabling Dickens to assimilate them successfully into his writing.6
This ability to draw on images and impressions from his childhood was, according to
Stone, attributable to Dickens’ remarkable memory, which he describes as possessing the
qualities of a sensitive photographic plate.7 In David Copperfield Dickens, through his
semi-autobiographical narrator, David, comments both on the longevity of the human
memory and the observational powers of children: ‘I think the memory of most of us can
go farther back into such times than many of us suppose; just as I believe the power of
observation in numbers of very young children to be quite wonderful for its closeness and
accuracy.’8
The five year period that Dickens spent in Chatham provided a rich source of fictional
and religious biographical material.9 As a ten year old living in Chatham, Forster writes,
Dickens had an ‘intuitive understanding of the character and weakness of the grown-up
people around him.’ He further observes, ‘that my experience of him led me to put
implicit faith in the assertion he unwaryingly himself made, that he had never seen any
cause to correct or change what in his boyhood was his own secret impression of
anybody.’10 These last two points, which relate to Dickens’ childhood perceptions, are of
4
Humphry House, The Dickens World, London: Oxford University Press, 1942, p. 21.
Duane Devries, Dickens’ Apprentice Years, London: The Harvest Press Ltd., 1976, Note 36, p. 10.
6
John Forster, The Life of Charles Dickens, London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1927, Vol. I. pp. 12–13.
7
Harry Stone, Dickens and the Invisible World, London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1980, p. 40.
8
Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 13.
9
Stone, pp. 56, 59, also notes the creative importance of the time Dickens spent in Chatham.
10
Ibid.
5
29
particular importance with reference to his fictional depiction of his personal beliefs
through his characterizations of people he encountered in his youth.
As this chapter will demonstrate Kent is wrong in arguing that Dickens was singularly
detached from religious influence during his formative years.11 Drawing for the first time
upon a combination of established biographical sources and autobiographical material
from both the author’s fictional work and private writings, this chapter begins by
describing the young Dickens’ contact with the Established Church and Dissent.12
Following on from this, consideration will be given to the religious influences
experienced by Dickens within his home and school environment. There will also be a
description of two people from Dickens’ childhood, Mary Ellen Newnham and Elizabeth
Roylance, who coloured young Dickens’ perception of what constituted genuine
Christianity.
Dickens’ childhood experience of the Established Church and Dissent
Dickens most conspicuous childhood contact with the Established Church occurred
during the five-year period that he lived in Chatham. In 1817, following his father’s
transfer from Sheerness to the large naval dockyard in the town, the five-year-old
Dickens moved with his family to 2 Ordnance Terrace, Middle Borough, Chatham. 13 He
was to live at this address until he was nine. In 1821, due to financial constraints, the
family were forced to leave their pleasant surroundings and move down the hill to 18 St.
11
Kent, pp. 9-10.
The primary biographical sources used in this chapter are: Robert Langton, The Childhood and Youth of
Charles Dickens, London: Hutchinson & Co., 1912; Forster; Christopher Hibbert, The Making of
Charles Dickens, London: Longmans Green & Co. Ltd., 1967; Edgar Johnson, Charles Dickens: His
Tragedy and Triumph, London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1986 and Allen.
13
Allen, unlike the other biographers consulted in this section, notes that John Dickens was not
transferred directly from Somerset House in London to Chatham, but spent a brief time, with his family,
based in Sheerness. They lived next to Sheerness theatre (pp. 36-38).
12
30
Mary’s Place. A year later, Dickens, now a ten-year-old, was forced to return to London.
Thirteen years later, Dickens’ childhood memories relating to this period of his life
provided the inspiration and much of the detail for ‘Our Parish’, the opening section of
Sketches by Boz. ‘Gordon Place’, a ‘neat row of houses in the most airy and pleasant part
of the parish’14 (home to several key ‘Our Parish’ characters: ‘the four Miss. Willises’,
‘the leader of the official party’, ‘The Half-Pay Captain’, ‘Mr. Dawson’, the surgeon,
‘The Old Lady’ and the narrator) was, for example, based on Dickens’ recollection of
Ordnance Terrace. Also, two of the ‘Gordon Place’ characters, ‘The Half-Pay Captain’
and ‘The Old Lady’ (Dickens’ original ‘Angel’), are drawn directly from Dickens’
Ordnance Terrace neighbours Duncan Calder and Mary Ellen Newnham. Hibbert further
suggests that the two children who lived next-door to the Dickens’ family in Ordnance
Terrace, Lucy and George Stroughill, contributed to the author’s characterizations of
‘Golden Lucy’, in the Christmas Story, ‘The Wreck of the Golden Mary’, and James
Steerforth in David Copperfield. 15
The young Dickens was a reasonably frequent visitor to St. Mary’s parish church,16
especially during the four years he lived at Ordnance Terrace. The physical
similarities between the author’s ‘Our Parish’ church and St. Mary’s are indicative of this
point. For example, St. Mary’s was rebuilt and enlarged between 1776 and 1788, this
included, in common with the church in ‘Our Parish’, the enlargement of the gallery.
Monuments similar to that belonging to Tomkins were also present at St. Mary’s. 17
Johnson and Hibbert both describe Dickens’ parents as having a denominational
14
Charles Dickens, Sketches by Boz, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 9.
Hibbert, p. 272, n. 6.
16
Dickens, Sketches, p. 4.
17
Ibid., p.7.
15
31
allegiance to the Established Church.18 Though they were far from being staunch
supporters of the Church, Kent does cite an incident in which Dickens’ father
defended the Established Church against someone who had been insisting, somewhat
obtrusively, on Dissenting superiorities.19 Allen also reveals a further interesting
connection between Dickens’ father, John Dickens, and the Established Church,
when he describes, how, following the Chatham Fire ( 3 March 1820), he was selected
to sit on a vestry committee to administer relief to those who had suffered loss.20 Fanny,
Dickens’ older sister, also provides evidence of the author’s childhood church attendance
when she comments that, in common with her brother, she was ‘brought up in the
Established Church and attended divine worship.’21
In Chapter II of ‘Our Parish’ Dickens provides an autobiographical reference to his
childhood attendance at St. Mary’s. With reference to ‘The Old Lady’s’ weekly
attendance at the church he writes how, on leaving, ‘she walks home with the family next
door but one, and talks about the sermon all the way, invariably opening the conversation
by asking the youngest boy where the text was.’22 Dickens, who lived two doors away
from Mary Ellen Newnham (‘The Old Lady’) in Ordnance Terrace, was that boy. In
addition, three of the eight recorded instances when the young Dickens attended church
for family baptisms, marriages and funerals took place at St. Mary’s. 23 These occasions
Johnson, ‘The Dickens family were Church of England’ (p. 23); Hibbert, ‘John and Elizabeth Dickens
had both been brought up in the Church of England.’ (pp. 30-31).
19
Ibid., p. 11.
20
Allen, p. 60.
21
Kent, pp. 10-11.
22
Dickens, Sketches, p. 11.
23
Baptisms: Alfred Allen Dickens, 22 April 1814, St. Mary’s Church, Kingston, Portsmouth; Letitia
Mary Dickens, 1816, St. Mary-Le-Bone; Harriet Ellen Dickens, September 1819, St. Mary’s
Chatham; Alfred Lamert Dickens, 3 April, 1822, St. Mary’s Chatham.
Marriages: William Dickens, (Charles Dickens’ uncle) to Miss Sarah Latham at St. George’s Square,
London, 28 December 1815; Mary Allen (Charles Dickens’ Maternal Aunt) to Doctor Lamert
18
32
were the infant baptism of his younger sister Harriet, which took place in Sept 1819, and
his brother Alfred in April 1822. The third occasion was the marriage of Dickens’ Aunt
Fanny, Mary Allen, to Thomas Lamert in December 1821.
David Copperfield, the ‘poignant story of Dickens’ boyhood,’ 24 also contains
referential material to the author’s childhood Established Church attendance. In Chapter
Two, a lengthy paragraph describes the young David enduring a monotonous service at
Blunderstone parish church.25 The description is complemented by a ‘Phiz’ illustration
entitled ‘Our Pew at Church’. Two chapters later there is a second reference to the young
David attending a Sunday service at the parish church.26 In Chapter IX the orphaned boy
attends his mother’s funeral.27
Beyond attending services at St. Mary’s, Chatham, the young Dickens had another
notable connection with his local parish church. In April 1821, the Dickens family, due to
financial constraints, reluctantly left their home in Ordnance Terrace. Moving down the
hill, they set up home in a less expensive property, 18 St. Mary’s Place. As a result, the
nine-year-old Dickens was afforded a view of St. Mary’s, and the surrounding
churchyard from his new attic bedroom window.28 The semi-autobiographical boy David
Copperfield has the same view from his bedroom window.29
With reference to Dickens’ general Established Church attendance during his
childhood, Allen’s observation that, up to the age of sixteen, Dickens moved house on no
at St. Mary’s Chatham, 11 December 1821.
Funerals: Alfred Allen Dickens, September 1814, parish church of Widley, five miles north of
Southsea; Harriet Ellen Dickens, 1822, local parish church for Bayham Street, Camden
Town.
24
Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, London: Hazell, Watson & Viney Ltd., N.D. Editor’s Note.
25
Dickens, Copperfield, (Oxford University Press), p. 15.
26
Ibid., p. 52.
27
Ibid., pp. 130, 131.
28
Johnson, p. 21.
29
Dickens, Copperfield, (Oxford University Press), p. 14.
33
fewer than fifteen occasions,30 would suggest that he attended numerous services in a
variety of London churches. In fact, during this sixteen-year period, the only time we can
be sure that the young Dickens did not attend church was between February and May
1824, when his father was imprisoned in the Marshalsea Debtors’ Prison. Forster and
Johnson both confirm that during this time the twelve year old Dickens, with his sister,
Fanny, spent Sundays at the prison.31 Although at this time criminal prisons contained
their own chapels no such facility existed in debtors’ prisons.
Forster and Langton provide further references to Dickens’ childhood church
experiences. Forster, in relating to Dickens’ unhappy period at Warren’s Blacking
Warehouse, refers to St. Martin’s parish church.32 Langton refers to an autobiographical
account in The Uncommercial Traveller piece ‘Medicine Men of Civilization’, in which
the young Dickens attends the funeral of ‘Sally Flander’s’ husband. 33 The final reference
to Dickens’ childhood involvement with the Established Church is to be found in his
1852 Household Words article, ‘Lying Awake’. In the article, he makes an allusion to an
early memory connected to the ‘first church’ he attended.34
As was the case with the Established Church, Dickens’ childhood encounter with
Dissent whilst living in Chatham proved significant. In fact Dickens supposed antipathy
toward Dissent whilst living at 18 St. Mary’s Place is all but fictional. As will be shown,
the boredom and trial that he may have endured as a result of his attendance at a Baptist
Although this number varies between various biographies – Forster, ten occasions, Johnson, twelve
times, Hibbert, eleven times, and Langton, nine times – the thoroughness of Allen’s work suggests to
me that his figure is the most reliable.
31
Forster, p. 24; Johnson, pp. 36, 37.
32
Forster, pp. 24, 25. Dickens was twelve year’s old at the time.
33
Langton, p. 229; Charles Dickens, The Uncommercial Traveller and Reprinted Pieces, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1996, pp. 283-285.
34
Dickens, ‘Lying Awake’, Household Words, 30 October, 1852, Vol. 6. p.146. The church to which
Dickens was referring, if we take the term ‘my first church’ literally, would be either the parish
church at Widley, five miles north of Southsea, or St. Mary’s, Kingston Road, Portsmouth.
30
34
chapel were more than offset by his relationship with the family of the minister.
The family’s move to 18 St. Mary’s Place in April 1821 not only afforded the nineyear-old Dickens a view of St. Mary’s parish church, but resulted in him living next-door
to a Dissenting chapel. Forster identifies this chapel as being the Baptist Providence
Chapel.35 While Langton and Allen agree with Forster on this point,36 Hibbert believes
there was also another Baptist chapel: ‘Next door to the house in St. Mary’s Place was
the Providence Baptist Chapel; and not far away was the Zion Baptist Chapel.’37 Johnson
is the only biographer who fails to mention the Baptist Providence Chapel referring
instead to just the Zion Baptist Chapel.38
Biographers have identified the Baptist clergyman as being the Reverend William
Giles. Interestingly, with regards to Hibbert and Johnson’s allusion to Zion Baptist
Chapel, Humphreys concludes that it was here, not in the Providence Chapel, where the
Reverend Giles mainly resided. 39 It may well have been that Giles operated a joint
pastorate over both chapels.
Dickens as a nine-and ten-year-old attended Providence Chapel on a semi-regular
basis during his time at St. Mary’s Place. Johnson observes of his parents: ‘They had no
objection, however, to hearing their neighbour occasionally preach.’40 Hibbert suggests
an increased frequency of visits: ‘being on friendly terms with Mr Giles they quite often
attended the Nonconformist Chapel, instead of the Anglican services at St. Mary’s taking
their children with them.’41 Although there are no direct references as to the specific
35
Forster, Vol. I, p. 4.
Allen, p. 62; Langton, p. 42.
37
Hibbert, p. 30.
38
Johnson, p. 23.
39
Arthur Humphreys, Charles Dickens and His First Schoolmaster, Manchester: 1926, p. 4.
40
Johnson, p. 23.
41
Hibbert, p. 31.
36
35
Baptist affiliation of the chapel, it is probable that it was ‘Particular Baptist’. Chadwick
describes them as being ‘leaders of the [Victorian] Baptist denomination in terms of
numbers and learning.’42 Snell and Ell, commenting on their geographical distribution at
the time of the 1851 Census of Religious Worship, note that their areas of numerical
strength included the counties that made up London.43
Towards the end of the eighteenth century, influenced by the Evangelical Revivial, the
denomination had, in part, adopted a more moderate position. Those churches which
adhered to traditional strict Calvinistic teaching where known as the ‘closed
communion’; whilst those who had modified their doctrinal position, and, by definition,
appeared less extreme, where identified as belonging to the ‘open communion.’ It is
unlikely that the extreme Calvinistic views of the closed communion would prove
conducive to the lukewarm Christianity of Dickens’ parents. In contrast, the moderate
Calvinism of the ‘open communion’ may well have proved more palatable.
Hibbert, Johnson, Connell, Blount and Adrian44 all suggest that Dickens’ fictional
antipathy towards Dissent stems from his attending services at Providence Chapel.
They argue that the trials endured by the young Dickens at this chapel form the
autobiographical basis for the opening section of ‘City of London Churches’.45 In this
Uncommercial Traveller piece Dickens describes how, as a child, he had ‘been carried
off highly charged with saponaceous electricity, to be steamed like a potato in the
unventilated breath of the powerful Boanerges Boiler and his congregation, until what
42
Owen Chadwick, The Victorian Church, (Part One), London: A & C Black Ltd., 1971, p. 413.
K. Snell and P. Ell, Rival Jerusalems: The Geography of Victorian Religion, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2000, pp.106,107.
44
Hibbert, p. 31; Johnson, p. 23; J. M. Connell, ‘The Religion of Charles Dickens’, Hibbert Journal, Vol.
XXXVI, 1937-8, pp. 227, 228; Trevor Blount, ‘The Chadbands and Dickens’ View of Dissenters’,
Modern Language Quarterly, Vol. XXV, September 1964, p. 296; Arthur H. Adrian, ‘Dickens and the
Brick-and- Mortar Sects’, Nineteenth Century Fiction, December 1955, Note 4, p. 189.
45
Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, pp. 83, 84.
43
36
small mind I had, was quite steamed out of me.’ 46 Yet the passage in question contains
no direct reference to Dissent. Also, there is no indication given to the denominational
affiliation of the preacher. Although Dickens may have been describing a Dissenting
meeting, he could equally have been referring to a service at an Established Church
proprietary chapel of the type described in Chapter Three of this thesis. Moreover, critics
fail to argue that Dickens’ autobiographical account of young David Copperfield
enduring a morning service at Blunderstone parish church led to his antipathy toward the
Established Church.47
Hibbert concludes his argument about Dickens’ attendance at Providence Baptist
Chapel and his negative fictional portrayal of Dissent by stating that Dickens ‘detested
these services, and ever afterwards when he was to write a scene showing children in
church or Chapel it was nearly always with a hint that it would have been better if they
had not been made to go.’48 He further adds that ‘he was left with a permanent distaste
for Nonconformism.’49 Johnson, in a similar vein, claims that ‘these experiences laid the
foundations for his lifelong hatred of nonconformity and religious affiliation.’50
If these critics are correct, it would be reasonable to expect that Dickens’ negative
fictional representation of Dissent would focus specifically on the Baptist denomination.
However, this is not the case. Not only is there just one minor reference to the Baptist
denomination in all Dickens’ novels,51 but the author’s most notorious Dissenting
46
Ibid., p. 83.
Dickens, Copperfield, (Oxford University Press), p. 15.
48
Hibbert, p. 31.
49
Ibid.
50
Johnson, p. 23.
51
Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 804. In this obscure
reference the muddled Mrs. Miff, a pew-opener, accuses Baptists of being connected with the science of
political economy.
47
37
clergymen, Stiggins (Pickwick Papers)52 and Melchisdech Howler (Dombey and Son),53
are both connected with Methodism. By contrast, the denominational identities of the
‘reverend gentleman’, who presided at the Little Bethel Chapel attended by Kit’s mother
in The Old Curiosity Shop,54 and the Reverend Chadband (Bleak House) 55 are not
specified. Further, toward the end of Chapter III of American Notes, Dickens, in
describing a service he attended at a chapel in Boston, provides a positive description of a
Dissenting clergyman, Mr Taylor.56 Also, Dickens’ older sister Fanny, judging by her
decision to join her husband in directing the music at Rusholme Chapel, Manchester, was
not put off Dissent by her childhood visits to the chapel.
Those who have sought to connect Dickens’ negative fictional representation of
Dissent with his childhood experiences at Providence Chapel have completely
overlooked Dickens’ positive relationship with the family of the Baptist minister.
According to Langton, Johnson, Kent and Allen, the nine-and ten-year-old Dickens, and
his sister, Fanny, were taught by William Giles, the eldest son of the Baptist clergyman. 57
Giles, around twenty-three years old at the time, was himself an ordained Baptist
minister.58 A pupil of St. Aldate’s School in Oxford, he went on to become a master
there. Although, due to religious tests he was debarred from residence at any college, he
did attend certain Oxford University courses.59 According to both Allen and DeVries,
52
Charles Dickens, Pickwick Papers, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 297.
Dickens, Dombey, p. 207. Dickens by using the term ‘Ranter’ identifies Howler as being a Primitive
Methodist.
54
Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop, London: Hazell, Watson & Viney Ltd., p. 247.
55
Charles Dickens, Bleak House, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 260.
56
Dickens, American Notes, p. 57.
57
Langton, pp. 55 – 56; Johnson, p. 23; Kent, p. 10; Allen, p. 65.
58
Humphreys, p. 6.
59
Ibid., p. 8.
53
38
Giles was well known ‘as a cultivated reader and elocutionist.’ 60 Both also agree on the
positive effect that he had on Dickens.61
There existed a mutual admiration between master and pupil. As Langton points out,
Giles ‘seems to have been much struck with the bright appearance and unusual
intelligence of his little pupil and giving him every encouragement in his power, even to
making a companion of him on an evening.’62 Allen adds that: ‘Charles always
remembered his schoolmaster with affection responding no doubt to the teacher’s
recognition of his abilities.’ 63 Forster, on the subject of the relationship between master
and pupil, also provides an anecdotal quote direct from Dickens: ‘“On the night before
we came away” he told me, “My good master came flitting in among the packing-cases to
give me Goldsmith’s, ‘Bee’ as a keepsake. Which I kept for his sake, and its own, a long
time afterwards.”’ 64 This was not the only gift that Dickens was to receive from his
‘good master’. Some fourteen years later Langton and Forster both record that Dickens
received from Giles a silver snuff-box, inscribed with the words ‘to the Inimitable Boz.’65
William was not the only member of the Baptist minister’s family with whom the
young Dickens was connected. Reverend Giles had two other sons, John and Samuel,
and, according to Humphreys, Dickens often played with them, especially the youngest,
Samuel, whom he describes as being ‘Dickens’ daily companion.’66 Such was the
strength of their childhood friendship, that when, in 1843, Dickens visited Manchester to
60
Allen, p. 66; DeVries, p. 7, n. 22.
Ibid.,
62
Langton, pp. 56-57.
63
Allen, p. 66.
64
Forster, Vol. I, p. 10.
65
Langton, p. 144; Forster, p. 10.
66
Humphreys, p. 20.
61
39
preside at a fund-raising event, he spent an evening at Samuel Giles’ home.67 With
regards to his childhood relationship with John, Dickens recalled a time: ‘when they were
no strangers to each other, when they rambled together through the same Kentish fields,
and mingled in the same sports.’ 68
Dickens’ relationship with the Giles’ family was further strengthened when in June
1822 his father was recalled to London by the Navy Pay Office. Allen, Langton and
Hibbert all record that whilst his family moved to 16 Bayham Street, Camden Town, the
ten-year-old Dickens remained with the Giles family in Chatham.69 Hibbert suggests that
this was to allow Dickens to finish the school term.70 The precise duration of his stay is
unclear. Whereas the daughter of the Reverend Giles describes it as ‘some little time’;
71
a more studied approximation by Allen puts the period of Dickens’ stay at around three
months, from June to September.72 It surely therefore must be the case that even if
attending Providence Chapel was a negative experience for the young Dickens, his
positive association with the Giles family would have, at the very least, compensated for
it. As will be argued in the conclusion of the Dissenting section of Chapter Two,
Dickens’ negative portrayal of clergyman such as Stiggins is an attack on false religion
rather than on Dissent.
The only other reference to young Dickens attending a Dissenting meeting appears in
the biographical works of Forster and Hibbert.73 According to Forster, who directly
quotes the words of Dickens’ Wellington House Academy school-friend, Henry Danson,
67
Ibid., p. 14.
K. J. Fielding, The Speeches of Charles Dickens, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960, pp. 50-51.
69
Allen, pp. 68-69; Langton, p. 63; Hibbert, p. 37.
70
Hibbert, p. 37.
71
Langton, p. 63.
72
Allen, p. 68-69.
73
Forster, p. 42; Hibbert, p. 93.
68
40
the fifteen-year-old Dickens attended a service at Seymour Street Chapel. Hibbert
believes this to be Somers Chapel in Seymour Street, but they both appear to be one and
the same.74 Hibbert also suggests that his attendance was not an isolated occurrence.75
Finally, Allen suggests that Dickens’ uncle, William Dickens, was connected with
Dissent.76
Dickens’ childhood religious experiences within the home and school environment
Although, as has been shown, Dickens’ parents attended church or chapel on Sundays,
Hibbert and Johnson argue that they were less than fervent in their Christian faith.77 Kent
goes further and suggests that they were religiously apathetic.78 Fanny Dickens’
anecdotal excerpt regarding the Laodicean attitudes of her parents toward personal
religious observance at home appears to confirm these views. 79 On the occasion of their
visit to her home in Manchester, Fanny encouraged her husband not to ‘“omit family
prayer morning and evening during their stay with us. They have never been used to it,
but that should not prevent us from continuing our usual habits.”’ 80
This representation of parental religious apathy appears, in the short term at least, to
be contradicted by Walder. In his introduction to Dickens and Religion, the author
speculatively points to Dickens’ mother having gone through ‘a stage of evangelical
74
Hibbert, p. 93.
Ibid.
76
Allen’s conclusion is based on the fact that in his will William Dickens bequeathed a sum of money to
Robert Street Chapel in London (pp. 36-38).
77
Hibbert, ‘Although John and Elizabeth Dickens had both been brought up in the Church of England they
were not in the least conscientious in their Anglican observance’ (pp. 30-31); Johnson, ‘The Dickens
family were Church of England, though not at all devout or interested in matters of doctrine’ (p. 23).
78
Kent, p. 10.
79
The anecdote originally appeared in ‘Memories of the Past’, an essay written in 1833 by the Reverend
James Griffin, the Dissenting clergyman of Rusholme Chapel, Manchester, where Fanny and her
husband, Henry Burnett, were responsible for the music.
80
Kent, pp. 10, 11.
75
41
fervour.’81 This supposed fervency on the part of his mother is then linked by Walder to
Dickens’ previously discussed piece, ‘City of London Churches’, in which Dickens
writes of being dragged by a female hand as child to hear a powerful preacher.82 Whilst
Oulton surmises that Dickens was ‘influenced by evangelical tenets at the outset of his
career’ she categorically states that the author ‘was not brought up in an evangelical
household.’83 This, along with the available biographical information previously
discussed, would suggest that if, which is by no means certain, Elizabeth Dickens did
experience a period of religious fervency it proved to be of a short term, temporary
nature.
Despite the suggested religious indifference of his parents, DeVries does record that
Dickens ‘remembered his mother telling stories from the Bible.’84 It is also likely that the
detailed knowledge of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer, which is evident
throughout Dickens’ fictional work, owed itself in part to the teaching he received in his
childhood. In David Copperfield, the autobiographical child David records how ‘one
Sunday night my mother reads to Peggotty and me in there (the best parlour) how
Lazarus was raised up from the dead. And I am so frightened that they were afterwards
obliged to take me out of bed, and show me the quiet churchyard out of the bedroom
window, with the dead all lying in their graves at rest, below the solemn moon.’85 It is
perhaps important to highlight that the view afforded to David in this excerpt was the
same as the young Dickens had from his bedroom in St. Mary’s Place. As a young child
81
Dennis Walder, Dickens and Religion, London: George Allen & Unwin Publishers Ltd., 1981, p.7. The
author’s comments are based on Percy Fitzgerald’s observation in The Life of Charles Dickens as
Revealed in His Writings, London: Chatto and Windus, 1905, Vol. I, pp. 59-60.
82
Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, p. 83.
83
Carolyn Oulton, Literature and Religion in Mid-Victorian England from Dickens to Eliot, Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan Ltd., 2003, p. 31.
84
Devries, p. 9.
85
Dickens, Copperfield, (Oxford University Press), p. 14.
42
Dickens, whether at Rome Lane school or at home, was ‘taught to say his prayers.’86 In
Chapter IV of David Copperfield young David is also depicted saying evening prayers at
home. As a twelve-year-old, Dickens, in recounting to Forster his bitter disappointment
on the occasion of his sister Fanny receiving her prize from the Academy of Music, refers
to his having ‘prayed when I went to bed that night.’87 Dickens was to continue the
practice of personal prayer throughout his adult life.
At home, Allen refers to Mary Weller, Dickens’ young nurse maid - thirteen years old
when she was first employed by the family whilst they were living in Ordnance Terrace regularly singing the ‘Evening Hymn’ to Dickens.88 Other biographers verify this point,89
with Langton quoting directly from a letter written by Dickens from his home in Gad's
Hill, dated 24 September 1857 : ‘I feel much as I used to do when I was a small child a
few miles off ( in Chatham ) and somebody hummed the ‘Evening Hymn’ to me.’
Langton concludes: ‘There is little reason to doubt that this singer of the ‘Evening Hymn’
survived in the person of Mrs Gibson (Mary Weller’s married name), for on asking her
plainly without preparation “Did you ever sing the ‘Evening Hymn’ to the children?” she
replied, after a little reflection, “Yes, many a time.”’ 90 The hymn referred to is probably
that written by Dr. William Fuller, one time Lord Bishop of London:
Now, now that the sun hath veil’d his light
and bid the world goodnight;
To the soft bed my body I dispose,
86
Fielding, p. 323.
Forster, p. 31.
88
Allen, p. 43.
89
Johnson, p. 17; Devries, p. 9.
90
Langton, pp. 26, 27.
87
43
But where shall my soul repose?
Dear, dear God, even in thy arms,
and can there be any so sweet security!
Then to thy rest, O my soul!
And singing, praise the mercy
That prolongs thy days.
Hallelujah!
Dickens may well have been drawing on his childhood memories of the hymn when, in
‘Greenwich Fair’ (Sketches By Boz), he wrote that ‘the voices of the boys singing their
evening hymn are borne gently on the air.’91
Mary Weller also features in a family anecdote which demonstrates that the young
Dickens had an imparted knowledge of religious truth. ‘Once when Charles was a tiny
boy, and the family were down at Chatham, the nurse had a great deal of trouble in
inducing him to follow her when out for his daily walk. When they returned home Mrs
Dickens said to her, “Well, how have the children behaved?” “Very nicely indeed ma’am
- all but Master Charley.” “What has he done?” “Why ma’am he will insist in always
going the same road every day.” “Charley, Charley, how is this?” “Why, mamma,”
answered the urchin, “does not the Bible say we must walk in the same path all the days
of our life?”’ 92
DeVries also refers to an early childhood family memory included in his All the Year
Round piece, ‘New Year’s Day’: ‘The group of family and friends seated in a row along
91
92
Dickens, Sketches, p.114.
Pippincott’s Magazine, Vol. XIII, June 1874, pp. 772 - 74. This comment would appear to be a loose
reference to Proverbs Chapter XXII verse 6.
44
the wall in the room downstairs were, as he recalled, very like my first idea of the good
people in Heaven, as I derived it from a wretched picture in a Prayer Book.’93 Devries
also mentions that Dickens, like the ‘little boy’ in ‘The Wreck of the Golden Mary’, had,
as a child, a ‘Noah’s ark;’94 a point that Dickens himself confirms in ‘A Christmas
Tree’.95
Dickens’ childhood religious experiences connected with his education are most
closely associated with his first school in Rome Lane, Chatham. As Langton points out,
Dickens drew upon his memories as a six-and-seven-year old attending the school for his
fictional representation of Mrs Pipchin’s educational establishment in Dombey and Son.96
Dickens confirmed the autobiographical connection in a letter to Forster dated 4
November 1846: ‘I hope you will like Mrs Pipchin’s establishment [...] It is from the life,
and I was there.’97 In interpreting Paul Dombey’s experiences as being representative of
Dickens’ (as Hibbert correctly points out both were six when they started their respective
schools) 98 it can be reasonably concluded that Dickens, whilst at Rome Lane School,
prayed and read, or listened to the Bible being read, on a daily basis. 99
Paul Dombey’s education continued at Blimber’s Establishment, which, in view of the
autobiographical connection, would relate to Dickens’ time at William Giles’ school in
Chatham. At Blimber’s, Paul is described as having ‘much to think of, in association with
a print’ representing Christ.100 There is also a reference to a pupil who has been asked to
repeat the first chapter of Ephesians from memory - the same Epistle that Arthur
93
Devries, p. 10. The extract referred to appeared in All the Year Round, January 1, 1859, p. 98.
Ibid.
95
Charles Dickens, Christmas Stories, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 7, 137.
96
Langton, p. 184.
97
Ibid.
98
Hibbert p. 11.
99
Dickens, Dombey, p. 102.
100
Ibid., p. 194.
94
45
Clennam (Little Dorrit) read as a child on a ‘horrible tract’. 101 This would seem to
suggest that whilst at Mr Giles’, as was the case at Rome Lane, Dickens, along with other
pupils, was encouraged to both read and recite Scripture.
Kent, with further reference to Dombey and Son, suggests that the childhood religious
experiences of ‘Rob the Grinder’ may also have some autobiographical significance.102
Certainly there is a resonance between Dickens’ description of himself as a twelve-yearold, ‘I small Cain that I was’,103 and James Carker’s allusion to Rob as being a ‘young
Cain’.104 Dickens describes how Rob’s ‘reverence for the inspired writings, under the
admirable system of the Grinder’s School, had been developed by a perpetual bruising of
his intellectual shins against all the proper names of all the tribes of Judah, and by the
monotonous repetition of hard verses, especially by way of punishment.’105
There is also a reference to Rob as a six-year-old being paraded three times in Church
on a Sunday, and having to sit up ‘very high with a great organ buzzing against his
drowsy head like an exceeding busy bee.’106 This church could well be St. Mary’s
Chatham, which also serves as a model for the church featured in ‘Our Parish’.107 The
description of Rob’s Sunday experience bears a strong resemblance to Arthur Clennam’s
autobiographical boyhood reminiscence of being ‘marched to chapel by a picquet of
teachers’ three times every Sunday.108 It is difficult to attach these supposed
autobiographic references to what is known of Dickens’ childhood. Certainly both
schools attended by Dickens in Chatham were day schools, which would preclude
101
Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 29.
Kent, pp. 11,12.
103
Forster, pp. 12,13.
104
Dickens, Dombey, p. 304.
105
Ibid., p. 543.
106
Ibid.
107
Dickens, Sketches, p. 4.
108
Dickens, Dorrit, p. 29.
102
46
Dickens being in their care on Sundays. It could possibly be an exaggerated account of
his attendance at some Sunday school or a childhood observation of children from either
a parish or charity school attending Established Church services.
Individuals who influenced Dickens’ childhood religious perceptions
Two adults from Dickens’ childhood, Mary Ellen Newnham, Dickens’ first ‘Angel’,
and Elizabeth Roylance, influenced the young author’s perception of what constituted
genuine Christianity. Such was the impression that these individuals made upon the
young Dickens that they were to appear in his work. Although only representative of a
potentially large body of individuals, they wonderfully illustrate how Dickens used his
childhood observations of those adults around him to construct his own personal
Christian ideology.
Characterized as ‘The Old Lady’ in ‘Our Parish’, Mary Ellen Newnham embodied
Dickens’ perception of genuine Christianity. His fictional depiction, which is examined
in detail in Chapter Three of this thesis, clearly demonstrates how, as a child, Dickens
recognized certain Christian qualities in his near neighbour. Living at number 4 Ordnance
Terrace, she showed considerable kindness to Dickens’ two sisters Fanny and Leitia,
whom she frequently entertained. Dickens also noted her daily habit of listening to the
Bible being read to her by her maid Sarah. Regularly attending services at St. Mary’s, her
charitable attitude toward the poor and elderly within the parish, whom she also
entertained in her home, was apparent in the reverential response she received on entering
the church on a Sunday. 109
Whilst Dickens’ childhood memories of Mary Ellen Newnham are positively
109
Dickens, Sketches, pp. 9 -11.
47
represented, his recollections of Elizabeth Roylance are used in connection with his
fictional depiction of false religion. In defence of Roylance, a friend of the Dickens
family, it should be noted, that, in contrast to Mary Ellen Newnham, the twelve-year-old
Dickens found himself lodging with her at Little College Street, Camden Town, at one of
the darkest times of his young life. In February 1824 Dickens’ father was imprisoned for
debt. Instead of living with his family in the debtors’ prison, the young Dickens found
himself alone at Mrs Roylance’s. During his father’s three months imprisonment, his
hopes of receiving an education seemingly shattered, the unhappy Dickens was forced to
work at Warren’s Blacking Warehouse. Upon leaving the prison in May the whole
Dickens family stayed on at Little College Street until September.
In his excellent biography of Dickens’ childhood, Allen connects Elizabeth Roylance
with Mrs Pipchin,110 a ‘bitter, ill-favoured old lady, who always made a point of being
particularly cross on Sunday nights.’111 This Dombey and Son character, along with
Dickens’ other negative female characters (the eldest Miss Willis ‘Our Parish’, Mrs.
Weller (Pickwick Papers), Miggs and Martha Varden (Barnaby Rudge), Mrs. Pipchin and
Mrs. Macstinger (Dombey and Son), Miss. Murdstone (David Copperfield) and Miss.
Barbary (Bleak House)), were used by Dickens to connect bad temper and austerity with
false religion, and as counterpoints to his positive Christian characters.
Quoting from Dickens directly, Forster confirms Roylance’s link with Mrs. Pipchin: “I
(small Cain that I was, except that I had never done harm to anyone ) was handed over as
a lodger to a reduced old lady, long known to our family, in Little College Street,
Camden Town, who took children in to board, and had once done so at Brighton, [the
110
111
Allen, p. 22.
Dickens, Dombey, pp. 99, 102.
48
location of Mrs. Pipchin's establishment] and who, with a few alterations and
embellishments unconsciously began to sit for Mrs. Pipchin in Dombey, when she took
me in.”112 The relationship is further verified with reference to the author’s working notes
for Dombey and Son. 113
Hibbert and Johnson, with reference to the autobiographical nature of Mrs Pipchin,
further suggest that she is also connected with Dickens’ first teacher who ran a dameschool upstairs over a dyer’s shop in Rome Lane, Chatham.114 As already mentioned
Dickens would have been five or six years old at the time. Both biographers were no
doubt influenced by the similarity between Mrs. Pipchin’s character description115 and
Dickens’ comment about his Rome Lane teacher as recorded in Fielding’s The Speeches
of Charles Dickens.116
Dickens’ personal faith as represented to his children
Whereas Dickens’ parents may well have demonstrated indifference toward Christian
observance within their home, Dickens, along with his sister, Fanny,117 certainly did not.
Dickens actively encouraged the practice of personal devotions and sought to educate his
children about his own personal beliefs. He confided to Forster that he ‘entreated them all
to guide themselves by this Book [the New Testament] putting aside the interpretations
112
Forster, p. 23; Hibbert, on p. 64, quotes Forster directly on this reference to Mrs Pipchin being based on
Mrs Roylance.
113
Harry Stone, (ed.), Dickens’ Working Notes For His Novels, London: The University of Chicago Press,
1987, p. 63.
114
Hibbert, p. 11; Johnson, p. 18.
115
She was ‘a bitter ill-favoured, ill-conditioned old lady, of a stooping figure, with a mottled face, like
bad marble ,a hook nose, and a hard grey eye, that looked as if it might have been hammered out on an
anvil without sustaining any injury.’ Dickens, Dombey, pp. 99, 603.
116
Fielding, p. 323.
117
In contrast to her confessing that in her childhood she had attended church without any serious idea of
religion, (Kent, pp. 10-11), her adult life testified to her having a passionate, personal faith.
49
and inventions of Man.’118 He further added that his children ‘had never at home been
harassed about religious observances, or mere formalities. I have always been anxious not
to weary my children with such things, before they are old enough to form opinions
respecting them.’119
In a letter to his nineteen-year-old son Henry, Dickens confirms this point: ‘You know
that you have never been hampered with religious forms of restraint, and that with mere
unmeaning forms I have no sympathy.’120 Dickens’ conviction regarding this point was
demonstrated when, at the end of 1843, he voiced in the Edinburgh Review his criticism
of the forced teaching of the Established Church catechism and formularies within the
Ragged School Movement.121 According to Forster it was this issue that lead to the
author leaving the Established Church and attending Little Portland Street Unitarian
Chapel.122
Dickens, in teaching his children, reveals his own personal frustrations with those
whom he perceived were seeking to complicate what he believed to be an essentially
simple faith. In two separate letters to his Swiss friend William De Cerjat, dated 25
October1864 and 26 August1868,123 Dickens expressed his exasperation with those
representatives of Christianity who engaged in petty doctrinal disputes which deflected
the Church from its mission of physically and spiritually ministering to the poor. Dickens
118
Forster, p. 819.
Ibid.
120
Georgina Hogarth and Mamie Dickens, (eds.), The Letters of Charles Dickens, London: Macmillan and
Co., 1893, pp. 698, 699.
121
J. M. Connell, ‘The Religion of Charles Dickens’, Hibbert Journal, Vol. XXXVI, 1937-38, p. 225.
Dickens, in a personal letter to Samuel Starey, dated 24 September of the same year, voiced his concerns
about a female visitor to the Saffron Hill Ragged School questioning the pupils about the Lamb of
God. He concludes that he would not suffer anyone to put such questions to his own children; Walter
Dexter, Thomas Hatton, Arthur Waugh and Hugh Walpole (eds.), The Letters of Charles Dickens,
Bloomsbury: The Nonesuch Press, 1938, Vol. I, p. 541.
122
Dexter, pp. 225, 226.
123
Hogarth and Dickens, pp. 561, 697.
119
50
believed in practical Christianity: in faith which resulted in works. He had no time for
those who sought to interpret doctrine to appropriate their particular party position. His
representation of the ‘Puseyites’,124 discussed shortly, is an excellent example of this.
In writing to two of his sons, Edward and Henry, on the occasion of their leaving
home in 1868, Dickens reveals his personal practise of daily prayer: a practice that he
actively encouraged all his children to emulate. In both these letters Dickens impresses
upon his sons the importance of privately praying morning and night.125 In another letter,
written in the same year to his youngest son Walter, he reiterates his fatherly advice
whilst confirming his own commitment to prayer: ‘never abandon the wholesome
practice of saying your own prayers night and morning. I have never abandoned it
myself.’ 126
Dickens not only instilled in his children the importance of daily prayer. In his desire
to ensure that they had a clear understanding, even at a very young age, of the essential
Christ-centred message of the Gospel,127 Dickens wrote for them a ‘Children’s New
Testament’,128 which he entitled The Life of Our Lord. It was written at some point
between 1846 and 1849. Forster describes it as being ‘an abstract, in plain language, for
the use of his children, of the narrative of the four Gospels.’129 Such was Dickens’
124
The term Puseyite denotes an adherent of the Oxford Movement, an active and influential party within
the Established Church, who sought to re-establish historic Catholic thinking and practice. The
popularized name was derived from the surname of one of the leading individuals of the movement, Dr
E. B. Pusey.
125
In both letters Dickens includes the line ‘As your brothers have gone way, one by one, I have written to
each such words as I am now writing to you.’ Dickens and Hogarth, pp. 699, 706.
126
Kent, pp. 32-33.
127
Janet Larson, in Dickens and the Broken Scripture, Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1985, p.10,
describes the short narrative as representing ‘Dickens’ effort to recapture the essence of Christianity.’
128
This term appears on the front of the copy that Dickens gave to his close friend Mark Lemon.
129
Forster, p. 400.
51
insistence that the book be kept for the exclusive use of his own children that it was not
until 1934 that it was published and made available to the wider public.
Contemporaneous with his Christmas Books, and written in a child-like style, this
simple Gospel narrative, undoctrinanian in nature, ‘accomplishes with perfect economy,
with most sensitive and delicate taste, its purpose’130 of clearly communicating, with true
sentiment, the story of Jesus’ life to his select little audience. Peyrouton describes The
Life of Our Lord as ‘an interpolation which, although written for his children, omits
nothing essential of the author’s adult view.’131 Whilst the reviewer in the New York
Times (15 May, 1934) suggested that Dickens was ‘Never so completely in earnest as
when he filled these pages [...] He wrote as men only wrote when they believe they are
discharging a supreme obligation.’132
Dickens’ purpose in writing The Life of Our Lord is clearly described in its opening
passage:
MY DEAR CHILDREN, I am very anxious that you should know something
about the History of Jesus Christ. For everybody ought to know about Him.
No one ever lived, who was so good, so kind, so gentle, and so sorry for all
people who did wrong, or were in anyway ill or miserable, as he was. And as
he is now in Heaven, where we hope to go, and all to meet each other after
we are dead, and there be happy always together, you never can think what a
good place Heaven is, without knowing who he was and what he did. 133
N.Peyrouton, ‘The Life of Our Lord: Some Notes of Explication,’ Dickensian, LIX, May 1963, p. 106.
Ibid., p. 103.
132
Quoted in Peyrouton, pp. 106, 107.
133
Charles Dickens, The Life Of Our Lord, Ware: Wordsworth Editions Ltd., 1995, pp. 11, 13.
130
131
52
His children knew the contents of Life of Our Lord exceptionally well, due to their
‘having it repeated to them, long before they could read, and as soon as they could
speak.’134 In a letter to his youngest son Edward, dated Christmas Day 1868, Dickens
reminds him of the book, and of his purpose in writing it : ‘I put a New Testament among
your books, for the very same reasons, and with the same hopes that made an easy
account of it for you, when you were a little child; because it is the best book that ever
was or will be known in the world, and because it teaches you the best lessons by which
any human creature who tries to be truthful and faithful to duty can possibly be
guided.’135
In choosing, through The Life of Our Lord, to focus his children’s attention on the
events of Christ’s life, Dickens signalled his own personal exclusive reliance upon the
teachings of the New Testament. Indeed, as Collins notes in Dickens and Education,
others have suggested that Dickens had an even narrower Biblical perspective.136 The
earnest fatherly advice that Dickens passed on to each of his sons when they left home for
the first time clearly depicts both the value that Dickens placed upon studying the New
Testament and his desire to apply its principles to his own life. As he wrote to his
eighteen-year-old son Henry (15 October 1868):
As your brothers have gone away one by one, I have written to each of them
what I am now going to write to you [...] I most strongly and affectionately
impress upon you the priceless value of the New Testament, and the study of
134
M & M. Hardwick, The Charles Dickens Encyclopedia, London: Futura Publications, 1976, p. 61.
Hogarth and Dickens, p. 706.
136
Philip Collins, in Dickens and Education, London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1965, p.54 refers to other
authors describing Dickens as being ‘A New Testament Christian’, ‘A Four Gospel Christian’, or even
just a ‘Sermon on the Mount Christian.’
135
53
that book as the one unfailing guide in life. Deeply respecting it, and bowing
down before the character of our Saviour, as separated from the vain
constructions and inventions of men, you cannot go very wrong, and will
always preserve at heart a true spirit of veneration and humility.137
Dickens’ reverence for the New Testament and his belief in its efficacy is clearly
expressed in his letter to the Reverend R.H. Davies: ‘There cannot be many men, I
believe, who have a more humble veneration for the New Testament or a more profound
of its all-sufficiency, than I have.’138 George Dolby, Dickens’ reading manager and
friend, refers to Dickens having a great reverence for the Gospels and the New
Testament. It was the book of all others he read most and which he took as his ‘one
unfailing guide in his life.’139 At the conclusion of his will, dated 12 May 1869, the
author urges his children to adopt his personal position regarding the New Testament:
‘my dear children humbly to try to guide themselves by the teaching of the New
Testament in its broad spirit, and to put no faith in any man’s narrow construction of its
letter here or there.’ 140
Dickens’ enthusiastic veneration for the New Testament did not extend to the Old
Testament. In two separate works, Janet Larson’s Dickens and The Broken Scripture and
John Reed’s Dickens and Thackeray: Punishment and Forgiveness, it is suggested that
Dickens used his Little Dorrit characterisations of Mrs Clennam (representative of the
137
Hogarth and Dickens, pp. 698, 699.
Walter Dexter, Thomas Hatton, Arthur Waugh and Hugh Walpole, (eds.), The Letters of Charles
Dickens, (Nonesuch Edition), London: Nonesuch Press, Vol. II, 1938, p. 818. Letter dated 24
December, 1856.
139
Andrew Sanders, Charles Dickens Resurrectionist, London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1982, p. 75.
140
Forster, p. 422.
138
54
Old Testament) and Amy Dorrit (representative of the New Testament) to depict his view
of the relative merit of the two Testaments.141
Indeed, Dickens viewed contemporary attempts to reconcile the two Testaments as
contrary to his own beliefs and as such sought to jettison the Old Testament. An excerpt
from a letter to Frank Stone dated 13 December 1858 epitomizes Dickens’ approach:
‘Half the misery and hypocrisy of the Christian world arises (as I take it) from a stubborn
determination to refuse the New Testament as a sufficient guide in itself, and to force the
Old Testament into alliance with it.’142 Six years later, in a letter to his Swiss friend,
William De Cerjat, he reiterates this point: ‘The Master of the New Testament is put out
of sight, and the rage and fury [was] almost always turning on the letter of obscure parts
of the Old Testament which itself has been the subject of accommodation, adaptation,
varying interpretation without end.’ 143
In a letter written to the same correspondent a year before, Dickens, in identifying
with the writers of Essays and Reviews,144 further expresses his personal reservations
about the Old Testament:
141
Larson, p. 202; John Reed, Dickens and Thackeray: Punishment and Forgiveness, Athens: Ohio
University Press.1995, pp. 247, 248.
142
Hogarth and Dickens, pp. 472, 473.
143
Ibid., p. 575. The letter is dated 25 October, 1864.
144
Essays and Reviews, published in 1860/1861, of which Dickens possessed a copy, attracted a great deal
of controversy. The book, a collection of essays on biblical Higher Criticism, designed to encourage
free and open discussion of Biblical questions, identified the gap that existed between traditional
Christian doctrine and the real beliefs of educated men. In so doing it called for a process of
reconciliation to be initiated between Christianity and the modern mind. It also urged for a broader
investigation of God’s truth beyond that traditionally accepted within the Bible. For an excellent
explanation of the contents and repercussions of Essays and Reviews see Owen Chadwick, The
Victorian Church (Part Two),London: A and C Black Ltd., 1970, pp. 75-77 and Part Four of Michaela
Giebelhausen’s Painting the Bible: Representation and Belief in Mid-Victorian Britain, Aldershot:
Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2006.
55
The position of the writers of “Essays and Reviews” is, that certain parts of
the Old Testament have done their intended function in the education of the
world as it was; but that mankind, like the individual man, is designed by the
Almighty to have an infancy and a maturity, and that as it advances, the
machinery of its education must advance too. For example: inasmuch as ever
since there was a sun there was vapour, there must have been a rainbow under
certain conditions, so surely it would be better now to recognise that
indisputable fact. Similarly, Joshua might command the sun to stand still,
under the impression that it moved round the earth; but he could not possibly
have inverted the relations of the earth and the sun, whatever his impressions
were. Again, it is contended that the science of geology is quite as much a
revelation to man, as books of an immense age and of (at the best) doubtful
origin, sad that your consideration of the latter must reasonably be influenced
by the former. As I understand the importance of timely suggestions such as
these, it is, that the church should not gradually shock and lose the more
thoughtful and logical human minds; but should be so gently and
considerately yielding as to retain them, and through them, hundreds of
thousands. This seems to me, as I understand the temper and tendency of the
time, whether good or evil, to be a very wise and necessary position.145
145
Hogarth and Dickens, p. 561. The letter is dated 24 May, 1863.
56
Interestingly, although Dickens, as previously mentioned, recommended the New
Testament in glowing terms to his departing sons, Edward and Henry,146 his letters
contain no mention of the Old Testament.
Dickens’ adult denominational affiliations
Throughout his adult life the only loose denominational affiliations Dickens formed
related to the Established Church147 and to Unitarianism. Dickens, as demonstrated in his
portrayal of his positive ficional Christian characters, viewed formalised expressions of
religion, such as attending church or chapel services, as being subservient to personal,
practical expressions of faith. Nonetheless, the choices that the author made as to where
to worship do reveal important aspects of his individual beliefs. It is also worth noting
that Dickens’ church and chapel allegiances were strongly influenced by the calibre of
the residing clergyman. The compatibility of the minister’s beliefs with his own was of
particular importance to the author. His attendance at Edward Tagart’s Unitarian Chapel
is an excellent example of this.
According to Forster, Dickens’ denominational affiliation lay firmly within the
Established Church. ‘But on essential points he never had any sympathy so strong as with
the leading doctrine and discipline of the Church of England; to these, as time went on,
he found himself able to accommodate all minor differences; and the unswerving faith in
Writing to Henry, Dickens states: ‘I most strongly and affectionately impress upon you the priceless
value of the New Testament and the study of that as the one unfailing guide in life’; and, to Edward he
wrote: ‘It is the best book that ever was or will be known in the world.’ Hogarth and Dickens, pp. 699,
706.
147
The Established Church was a contemporary term, used throughout Dickens’ lifetime, to denote the
Church of England. The leading ecclesiastical historian Owen Chadwick describes how the term
‘Anglican’ did not come into use until the 1840s.
146
57
Christianity itself.’148 There appears, in terms of Dickens’ church attendance, ample
evidence to support Forster’s claim.
In 1837, a year after Sketches by Boz first appeared, Dickens and his wife rented a
pew at the Foundling Hospital Chapel.149 Although the couple only retained their pew
until 1839, a letter to the Reverend Harness dated 19 May 1854, reveals that after this
date the author still occasionally attended the Established Church services at the
chapel.150 On taking up residence at Gad’s Hill in 1859 until his death in1870, Dickens
attended the parish church at St. Mary’s Higham and, following its construction, St.
John’s at Mid-Higham. Dickens was also on friendly terms with several Established
Church clergymen.151 In addition, each of Dickens’ ten children were baptized in
accordance with the received sacramental teaching of the Established Church. In his
writings, for example, ‘Our English Watering- Place’ (Reprinted Pieces)152 and ‘City of
London Churches’ (The Uncommercial Traveller), Dickens also refers to his attendance
at numerous church services.
Forster’s statement, however, is misleading in that it fails to recognize that Dickens’
affiliation was not to the Established Church as a whole, but specifically to the Broad
Church movement within it. Oulton, in the opening chapter of her work, suggests that
Dickens’ religious thought can be most conveniently defined in terms of Broad Church
Christianity.153 Differentiated from the other contemporary church parties - ‘High
Forster’s view is quoted by Connell, p. 226.
Dickens referred to his positive impression of the chapel in his Household Words article ‘Received a
Blank Child’. Published 19 March 1853 the piece commends the preaching for being ‘unconventional,
but sensible, eloquent and earnest [...] above all free from any ism not forgetting schism.’
150
Hogarth and Dickens, p. 333.
151
These include Reverend William Harness, Reverend Brookfield, Reverend James White, Reverend
Sydney Smith and Reverend Chauncy Hare Townsend, to whom Great Expectations was dedicated.
152
The short piece is based on Broadstairs, where for many years the Dickens family spent their holidays.
153
Oulton, p. 51.
148
149
58
Church’ and ‘Low Church’ (Evangelical) from whom, as an analogy, the Broad Church
name was originally coined - the movement, with their liberality, tolerance and deemphasis of doctrine fitted in well with Dickens’ personal beliefs. Interestingly, Frazee
suggests that there existed a theological convergence between the Broad Church
movement and the Unitarians with whom Dickens was also to associate.154
In closely identifying his own personal religious beliefs with the Broad Church
sentiments of the prominent early Victorian Churchman Thomas Arnold, Dickens
confirmed his affinity with this Established Church movement. Writing to Forster,
regarding extracts he had read from A.P. Stanley’s The Life of Thomas Arnold, Dickens
passionately observed: ‘I respect and reverence his memory beyond all expression. I must
have that book. Every sentence that you quote from it is the text-book of my faith.’155
In addition, ‘Our Parish’ contains a fictional clue to Dickens’ Broad Church
affiliation. On one occasion Dickens makes a specific reference to a ‘Communion
Service’, and, in two instances, refers to a ‘Communion Table’.156 His choice of these
two descriptive terms is revealing. Despite the Evangelical influence within the parish
church, the associative phrase ‘Lord’s Supper’ or ‘Lord’s Table’ is not used. Conversely,
the High Church terms, ‘Eucharist’ and ‘altar’ are also omitted. Instead Dickens, in
keeping with his own preference, chooses to include the two Broad Church alternatives.
Whilst sympathetic to the Broad Church, Dickens made clear his antipathy to the other
Established Church parties of the period. With reference to the High Church,157 Dickens,
in a letter to his close friend Douglas Jerrold, wrote: ‘I am writing a little history of
John Frazee, ‘Dickens and Unitarianism’, Dickens Studies Annual, 1989, Vol. 18, pp. 137-138.
House, p. 93.
156
Dickens, Sketches, p. 3, ‘Communion Service’, and ‘Communion Table’, pp. 7, 16.
157
The term High Church, first used in 1687, denotes the element of the Established Church that
emphasises the priestly, liturgical, ceremonial and traditional Catholic elements of worship.
154
155
59
England for my boy, [Charles, his oldest son] which I will send you when it is printed for
him, though your boys are too old to profit by it. It is curious that I have tried to impress
upon him the exact spirit of your paper. [This is a reference to an historical article which
Jerrold wrote for the Illuminated Magazine]. For I don’t know what I should do if he
were to get hold of any conservative or High Church notions; and the best way of
guarding against any such horrible history result, is, I take it, to wring the parrots’ necks
in his very cradle.’158
Dickens’ less than favourable opinion of the influential Puseyites,159 whom he
connected with the High Church, is clearly expressed on two separate occasions in his
fictional work. In Chapter XXVII of Dombey and Son Dickens cleverly uses the visit of
Mr Dombey’s party to Warwick Castle to satirize the Puseyite conviction that the
renaissance of the Established Church depended upon a return to the parochial worship
and sacerdotal practices of the Middle Ages.160 The author’s choice of Mrs Skewton and
James Carker to promote the merits of adopting Middle Age practices clearly signalled to
Dickens’ ecclesiastically literate readers his negative view of Puseyism. Dickens’ most
significant satirical attack, however, appears in his Household Words piece ‘A Crisis In
The Affairs of Mr John Bull as Related By Mrs Bull to the Children’,161 which originally
appeared on the 23 November 1850. This will be considered in detail in the final section
of the next chapter of this thesis. Finally, in a letter to his American friend, C. Felton,
158
Hogarth and Dickens, pp. 90, 91. The letter is dated 3 May 1843.
This popularised term for the Oxford Movement, a group of individuals including John Newman, John
Keble and Hurrell Froude, who sought, through a series of ‘Tracts’ , to return the Established Church
to its pre-Reformation Catholic roots, is derived from the name of another influential member of the
Movement, Dr. E. B. Pusey. For an excellent description of the Oxford Movement see Chadwick,
(Part One), pp. 167-210.
160
Dickens, Dombey, p. 384. Sanders offers an alternative interpretation of this passage, suggesting
that it is ‘a satirical barb aimed at the Young Englandism’ of the 1840s (p. 121).
161
Charles Dickens, Miscellaneous Papers, London: Hazell, Watson & Viney Ltd., N.D. pp. 180-185.
159
60
Dickens, in explaining his reasons for joining the Unitarians, writes openly of his disgust
for the ‘Established Church and its Puseyisms.’162
The Evangelicals, with their involvement in Overseas Missionary Societies, were also
targeted by Dickens. As will be shown in the following section, the author considered
that the predominantly foreign emphasis of the Evangelicals’ missionary activity
compromised the Church’s domestic ministry to the poor. Exeter Hall, built in 1831 in
The Strand, was to become synonymous with the Evangelical Overseas Missionary
Societies that regularly met there. In his 1847 Preface to the first Cheap Edition of The
Pickwick Papers Dickens clearly associates Exeter Hall with false religion:
Lest there should be any well-intentioned persons who do not perceive the
difference between religion and the cant of religion, piety and the pretence of
piety, a humble reverence for the great truths of Scripture and an audacious
and offensive obtrusion of its letter and not its spirit in the commonest
dissensions and meanest affairs of life, to the extraordinary confusion of
ignorant minds, let them understand that it is always the latter, and never the
former, which is satirized here. Further, that the latter is here satirized as
being, according to all experience, inconsistent with the former, impossible of
union with it, and one of the most evil and mischievous falsehoods existent in
society – whether it establish its head-quarters, for the time being in Exeter
Hall, [my emphasis] or Ebenezer Chapel, or both. 163
162
163
Frazee, p. 135.
Dickens, Pickwick, pp. xii, xiii.
61
Prior to this, Dickens negatively alluded to Exeter Hall both in Sketches by Boz and
Nicholas Nickleby.164 In The Examiner (August 1848) Dickens wrote: ‘It might be laid
down as a very good general rule of social and political guidance that whatever Exeter
Hall champions is the thing by no means to be done.’165 In the same year the author
anonymously submitted a review of Captain Allen and T.R.H Thomson’s 1841 River
Niger African Expedition to the same publication. Pope described this article as being
‘Dickens’ most important and angry pronouncement on Exeter Hall and Evangelical
overseas interests.’166 The next section of this chapter, which details the importance
Dickens placed on caring for the poor, further examines the author’s negative
representation of Evangelical Overseas Missionary Societies.
For five years, between 1842 and 1847, Dickens regularly attended the Little Portland
Street Unitarian Chapel near to his home.167 For a short time before this he also went to
the Reverend Thomas Madge’s Essex Street Unitarian Chapel. Forster, as previously
mentioned, cites Dickens’ dissatisfaction with the forced teaching of the catechism and
formularies to children within the Ragged School Movement as the reason for Dickens
secession to Unitarianism. In a letter to a friend, Dickens clearly connects this move with
his disillusionment with the Established Church and indicates that his decision, far from
being sudden, had been premeditated: ‘I have carried into effect an old idea of mine and
joined the Unitarians.’168
164
Dickens, Sketches, p. 39 refers to a speaker from Exeter Hall who is employed by one of the rival
groups of ladies to boost the popularity of their distribution society. Dickens, Nickleby, p. 43,
contains an unfavourable physiognomical observation about Exeter Hall devotees.
165
The Examiner, 19 August 1848, p. 531.
166
Norris Pope, Dickens and Charity, London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1978, p. 99.
167
Mark Knight and Emma Mason, Nineteenth Century and Literature, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2006, p. 71, note that from 1859 onwards, Dickens, on occasion, revisited the chapel to hear the
leading Unitarian James Martineau (p. 71).
168
Frazee, p. 135. The letter was to his American friend C.C. Felton.
62
Dickens’ decision was in part influenced by his trip to America, which was
undertaken in the same year he began attending Little Portland Street Chapel. Within the
first month of his arrival he became personally acquainted with the leading Bostonian
Unitarian, Dr William Ellery Channing. Prior to this, Dickens had already read a portion
of Channing’s work. His glowing description of Channing in American Notes testifies to
the high esteem Dickens felt for the man:
I mention the name of this distinguished and accomplished man ( with whom
I soon afterwards had the pleasure of becoming personally acquainted), that I
may have the gratification of recording my humble tribute of admiration and
respect for his high abilities and character; and for the bold philanthropy with
which he has ever opposed himself to that most hideous blot and foul
disgrace-Slavery.169
Dickens’ very first visit to Little Portland Chapel was to hear a memorial sermon
preached by the minister, Edward Tagart, on behalf of Channing. He was so impressed
that he continued to attend. Tagart and Dickens were to remain close friends until the
minister’s death in 1858.
Interestingly, despite Dickens’ personal involvement with the Unitarians, there is only
a single reference to the denomination in his books. This appears in ‘The Boarding-House
Chapter the Second’, Sketches By Boz, when Mrs Bloss, a tenant of Mrs Tibbs’
169
Dickens, American Notes, pp. 25, 26.
63
boarding-house describes herself as being ‘a shocking Unitarian.’ 170 The sketch
originally appeared in August 1834, several years prior to Dickens’ recorded involvement
with Unitarianism.
Dickens’ opposition to the doctrine of Original Sin
Dickens found in the ‘Old School’ Unitarianism 171 of Little Portland Street Chapel
much that appealed to his own personal beliefs. At the very least the time spent at the
chapel confirmed, if not influenced, Dickens’ opposition to the contemporary Evangelical
teaching relating to Original Sin and the innate depravity of man.172 His perspective on
both determined his fictional approach of urging his readers to take responsibility for the
physical and spiritual well-being of the poor. Indeed, as Walder has observed, Dickens
saw the operation of charity as evidence of original virtue.173
Frazee reconciles Dickens’ beliefs on Original Sin with the ‘Old School’ Unitarian
position as expressed by his friend, and minister at Little Portland Street Chapel, Edward
Tagart.174 In his 1833 work, The Rise and Progress of Unitarian Christianity, Tagart
argued that:
Whilst, by other professing Christians, the nature of men is viewed as wholly
sinful and inclined to evil, and therefore deserving God’s wrath and
damnation, to us it appears that the nature of man, though imperfect, is, on the
170
Dickens, Sketches, p. 292.
The ‘Old School’ Unitarians held beliefs that were congruent with ideology of Joseph Priestly; whereas
the doctrinal position of the ‘New School’, which superseded it, was shaped by individuals such as
James Martineau.
172
See Kent for Dickens’ opposition to these doctrines (p. 30).
173
Walder, p. 59.
174
Frazee, p. 130.
171
64
whole good, and designed for good – that sin can only consist in actual
transgression; and we reject, as unscriptural and irrational, the imputation of
Adam’s guilt to his posterity.175
Similar views were offered by Channing, who, in his ‘Unitarian Christianity’ sermon,
specifically argued against ‘the orthodox doctrine of innate depravity’:
Now we object to the systems of religion which prevail among us […]
According to [Orthodoxy’s] old and genuine form, it teaches that God brings
us into life wholly depraved, so that under the innocent features of our
childhood is hidden a nature averse to all good and propense to all evil, a
nature which exposes us to God’s displeasure and wrath, even before we have
acquired power to understand our duties or to reflect upon our actions....
Now, according to the plainest principles of morality, we maintain that a
natural constitution of the mind, unfailingly disposing it to evil, and to evil
alone, would absolve it from guilt; that to give existence under this condition
would argue unspeakable cruelty, and that to punish the sin of this unhappily
constituted child with endless ruin would be a wrong unparalleled by the most
merciless despotism.176
Three years before Dickens first attended Little Portland Street Chapel he echoed
Channing’s sentiments in a letter to the children’s author Mrs Godfrey:
175
176
Edward Tagart, The Rise and Progress of Unitarian Christianity, London: 1833, p.11.
Quoted in Frazee, p. 130.
65
I think it is monstrous to hold the source of inconceivable mercy and
goodness perpetually up to them [children] as an avenging and wrathful God
who - making them in His wisdom children before they are men and women is to punish them awfully for every little venial offence which is almost a
necessary part of that stage of life. I object decidedly to endeavouring to
impress them with a fear of death, before they can be rationally supposed to
become accountable creatures, and so great a horror do I feel at the thought of
imbuing with strict doctrines those who have just reflection enough to know
that if God be as rigid and just as they are told He is, their fathers and mothers
and three fourths of their relations and friends must be doomed to Eternal
Perdition, and if I were left to choose between two evils I would rather that
my children acquired their first principles of religion from a contemplation of
nature and all the goodness and beneficence of the Great Being who created
it, than I would suffer them in such strict construction ever to open a Bible or
a Prayer Book, or enter a place of worship.177
Throughout his fictional work, including that which predates his attendance at Little
Portland Street Chapel, Dickens demonstrated his compatibility with Tagart’s views.
According to Elisabeth Jay ‘few novelists were so absolute in their dismissal of the
doctrine of Original Sin.’178 In Chapter XXII of the Pickwick Papers Tony Weller attends
a Friday evening meeting arranged by his wife at the Methodist chapel. During his
sermon ‘the shepherd’ pauses and, with reference to Mr Weller, addresses the
177
Madeline House and Graham Storey, (eds.), The Letters of Charles Dickens, Oxford: The Clarendon
Press, 1965, Vol. I, p. 568.
178
Elisabeth Jay, The Religion of the Heart, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979, pp. 55, 56.
66
congregation: ‘“Where is the sinner? where is the mis’rable sinner?”’ Presently he repeats
the words, adding that Mr Weller is ‘a wessel of wrath.’ Mr Weller senior responds with
physical violence leaving the shepherd prostrate under the table.179 Though humorously
done, Dickens here pours scorn on the Evangelical, Dissenting cant of dismissing God’s
creatures as sinners.
Another example is Oliver Twist, whose incorruptible nature is maintained throughout
the novel, despite Fagin and Monks’ insidiousness. He is the very antithesis of the
doctrine of Original Sin. In Nicholas Nickleby Dickens equally suggests that people, far
from being born into Original Sin, have ‘the faint image of Eden stamped upon them in
childhood.’180 Dickens’ ‘Female Angels’ are also imbued with Christ-like qualities. The
goodness they possess is inherent, part of their natural character. It would, for example,
be inconceivable for Dickens’ readers to perceive that Florence Dombey, introduced at
the beginning of the narrative as a six-year-old child, was possessive of a depraved,
corruptible nature. There are other examples. Reed for instance, uses Dickens’
characterisation of Nancy and Nell Trent to reflect upon the author’s opposition to
Original Sin and depravity.181 With reference to David Copperfield and ‘George
Silverman’s Explanation’, Oulton notes that ‘Dickens was particularly incensed by the
doctrine of infant depravity.’182
In ‘Two Views of a Cheap Theatre’ (The Uncommercial Traveller), Dickens questions
the veracity of the term ‘fellow-sinners’, which is used by a speaker in relation to the
members of a congregation who attend a special theatre service:
179
Dickens, Pickwick, pp. 298, 299.
Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 57.
181
Reed, pp. 78, 109.
182
Oulton, p. 98.
180
67
Is it necessary or advisable to address such an audience continually as
“fellow-sinners”? Is it not enough to be fellow-creatures, born yesterday,
suffering and striving today, dying to-morrow? By our common humanity,
my brothers and sisters, by our common laughter and our common tears, by
our common aspiration to reach something better than ourselves, by our
common tendency to believe in something good, and to invest whatever we
love or whatever we lose with some qualities that are superior to our own
failings and weakness as we know them in our own poor hearts – by these,
Hear me! – Surely, it is enough to be fellow-creatures. Surely, it includes the
other designation, and some touching meanings over and above.183
Dickens’ opposition to Original Sin was reflected in his inferring ‘Angelic’
status upon children.184 In his The Uncommercial Traveller piece, ‘A Small Star in
the East’, Dickens, on visiting ‘The East London Children’s Hospital’ describes the
baby who inspired him to write the sketch as being ‘pretty as any of Raphael’s
angels 185 [my emphasis].’ In a letter written to his friend William Bradbury, dated
3 March 1839, Dickens refers to children as being ‘half angels’186 [my emphasis].
In a poem that following his death was found in his desk, Dickens expresses a
similar sentiment:
183
Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, p. 36.
Sanders notes that ‘Dickens readily associated children and child-like states with heavenly innocence
and angelic metamorphis’ (p. 67).
185
Ibid., p. 327.
186
House and Storey, p. 515.
184
68
Oh, there’s nothing on earth half so holy,
As the innocent heart of a child
They are angels [my emphasis] of God in disguise187
The subject of Dickens’ beliefs regarding children and ‘Angels’ are further discussed in
the final chapter of this thesis with reference to Nell Trent.
Dickens and the Poor: The fictionalisation of his personal beliefs
This section begins by exploring Dickens’ own childhood experiences of financial
hardship; his Christian belief in the necessity to care for the poor and his own personal
charitable activity. Dickens’ unorthodox views on the causes of immorality and spiritual
neglect among the urban poor and his opposition to the social hierarchy are also
examined. The section ends with a discussion of how Dickens used his fictional
representation of two contemporary religious issues (the neglect of the urban poor by
Missionary Societies and Sabbath Day legislation) to express his beliefs about the poor.
In his formative years Dickens was well acquainted with financial hardship and the
despair it brought. This undoubtedly contributed to the predilection he showed
throughout his adult life to those in need. As a nine-year-old, his move down the hill from
Ordnance Terrace to the less pleasant surroundings of St. Mary’s Place in Chatham,
symbolized a change for the worse in the family’s financial affairs.
Two years later, in 1823, having moved to Bayham Street, Camden Town, Dickens
found conditions not only cramped but, due to financial restraints, was prevented from
187
Reverend William Procter, Christian Teaching in the Novels of Charles Dickens, London: H.R.
Allenson Ltd., 1930, pp. 55-57.
69
continuing his education. He would not attend school again until the following year.
Whilst at this address Dickens also became aware of his father’s increasingly precarious
financial position.188 In 1824, having moved again to Gower Street North, the elevenyear-old was forced to sell and pawn his own books. Two days after his twelfth birthday
Dickens, to supplement the family’s failing finances, was forced to commence work at
Warren’s Blacking Warehouse in the Strand. Eleven days later his father was arrested for
debt. Although lasting only around three months until his father’s release, the time at the
warehouse was one of the darkest periods of Dickens’ young life. Although things were
to improve, Dickens’ education at Wellington House Academy prematurely ended when,
at the age of fifteen, he was withdrawn from the school when his family was evicted from
their home due to non-payment of rates. This marked the end of Dickens’ formal
education. He commenced work as a solicitor’s clerk almost immediately.
Dickens’ attitude to the poor was not, however, just a product of his childhood
experiences, it was also an expression of his personal belief in Christ’s concern for the
poor. This belief, and Dickens’ conviction of the responsibility of Christians to care for
the physical and spiritual needs of the poor, was clearly explained to his own children. In
the opening paragraph of Chapter Three of The Life of Our Lord, which wonderfully
epitomizes his personal and fictional approach to the poor, Dickens writes:
That there might be some good men to go about with Him, teaching the
people, Jesus Christ chose Twelve poor men to be his companions. These
188
Johnson makes reference to the eleven-year-old Dickens being aware of a financial undertaking,
‘The Deed’, which his father was forced to undertake with his creditors (p. 29).
70
twelve are called The apostles or Disciples, and he chose them from among
Poor Men, in order that the Poor [Dickens capitalised the word poor on both
occasions] might know - always after that; in all years to come - that Heaven
was made for them as well as for the rich, and that God makes no difference
between those who wear good clothes and those who go barefoot and in rags.
The most miserable, the most ugly, deformed, wretched creatures that live,
will be bright Angels [my emphasis] in Heaven if they are good here on earth.
Never forget this, when you are grown up. Never be proud or unkind, my
dears, to any poor man, woman, or child. If they are bad, think that they
would have been better, if they had had kind friends, and good homes, and
had been better taught. So, always try to make them better by kind persuading
words; and always try to teach them and relieve them if you can. And when
people speak ill of the Poor and Miserable, think how Jesus Christ went
among them and taught them, and thought them worthy of his care. And
always pity them yourselves, and think as well of them as you can.189
Dickens’ personal charitable activities, no doubt observed by his children,
demonstrated the genuineness of these sentiments. In 1847, when Dickens’ eldest child
Charles was ten years old, Dickens took it upon himself to support the abandoned
children and blind wife of his brother Augustus. Thirteen years later in 1860, when the
youngest of his nine surviving children, Edward, was eight years old, Dickens, on the
death of his younger brother Alfred, provided for his widow and five children. Also, in
189
Dickens, Life of Our Lord, pp. 27-28.
71
addition to subsidising his parents purchase of their cottage in Alphington (near Exeter),
Dickens financially supported his father until his death in 1851.
Beyond his immediate family he participated in fund raising activities for his fellow
writer John Poole, and acted as trustee to provide the writer and his family with a
pension. He also contributed to the ‘Gentleman Theatrical Fund’. Over half his public
speaking engagements were conducted on behalf of charitable organisations and
educational initiatives aimed at educating the labouring classes and the poor. Newey,
with reference to Johnny’s death in Our Mutual Friend, notes Dickens’ fund raising
endeavours on behalf of the Great Ormond Street Hospital;190 and in The Uncommercial
Traveller, ‘Some Recollections of Mortality’, Dickens includes an apparently
autobiographical account of helping a friendless orphan girl accused of murdering her
baby.191
Dickens’ rejection of the doctrines of Original Sin and the depravity of man, and his
practical approach to Christianity, further enabled the author to make significant
contributions to the cause of the poor. Whilst Oulton infers that it was from the1850s
onwards that Dickens used his fiction to promote his Christian beliefs about the poor,192 I
argue here that it was, in fact, a feature of his whole writing career. Contrary to
contemporary Evangelical thought that connected poverty with personal sin, Dickens
believed that the immorality and spiritual neglect of the urban poor was a reaction to the
appalling living conditions they endured.
190
Vincent Newey, The Scriptures of Charles Dickens: Novels of the Self, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing
Ltd., 2004, p. 285. Dickens, in association with Henry Morley, wrote a leading article in Household
Words to mark the opening of the hospital (‘Drooping Buds’, Number 5, 3 April 1852, pp. 45-48).
191
Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, pp. 194 –198.
192
Oulton, p. 88.
72
The Evangelical Bishop of Chester, John Bird Sumner, who was later appointed
Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote in an address to his diocesan clergy that ‘the real cause
of nine parts in ten of the misery which abounds in the world is sin.’193 Another
prominent Evangelical of the period, Reverend Thomas Gisbourne, in his ironically
entitled work, Friendly Observations Addressed to the Manufacturing Population of
Great Britain, observed: ‘The late and present distress of the manufacturing population of
Great Britain must be deemed, in the case of the multitudes, in a very considerable
degree, attributable to themselves.’194
In the closing words of ‘Gin-Shops’ (Sketches by Boz) Dickens manifests his
disagreement with such a position, and leaves his readers in no doubt as to the cause of
this social evil.
Gin-drinking is a great vice in England, but wretchedness and dirt are a
greater; and until you improve the homes of the poor or persuade a halffamished wretch not to seek relief in the temporary oblivion of his own
misery, with the pittance which, divided among his family, would furnish a
morsel of bread for each, gin-shops will increase in number and splendour. If
Temperance Societies would suggest an antidote against hunger, filth, and
foul air, or could establish dispensaries for the gratuitous distribution of
John Bird Sumner, ‘Three Charges Delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Chester in the Years
of 1829, 1832 and 1835’, (1835), Vol. I, p. 32.
194
Reverend Thomas Gisborne, Friendly Observations Addressed to the Manufacturing Population of
Great Britain, Third Edition, 1827, p. 15. However, Oulton suggests that by 1852, as a result of
bodies such as the London City Mission, large numbers of Evangelicals adopted Dickens’ view of the
impact of living conditions upon the moral and spiritual state of the poor. Lord Shaftesbury was one of
the leading advocates of this new Evangelical position (p.182).
193
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bottles of Lethe-water, gin-palaces would be numbered among the things that
were.195
In ‘The Drunkard’s Children’, Dickens, in attacking his good friend George
Cruikshank’s work of the same title,196 restated his belief that drunkenness was
symptomatic of the appalling lifestyles and living conditions suffered by the poor, and
could not be considered in isolation.197
Dickens also found the position of those within the Church who suggested that the
existing social hierarchy was divinely inspired to be contrary to his beliefs. Newey
provides an excellent example of contemporary Christian thinking on the subject by
referring to the preaching of Reverend William Sewell, headmaster of St. Peter’s College,
Radley.198 In the course of his sermons to his pupils Sewell proclaimed that the ‘divisions
of man’ were ordained by God, and that He had struck a line ‘between those who are
gentlemen and those who are not.’199 The supposed divine nature of the social hierarchy
is also alluded to by Larson; 200 whilst Ell and Snell include a quotation from Thompson’s
Lark Rise to Candleford in which the writer describes the rector’s ‘favourite subject as
being the supreme right of the social order as it then existed.’201
The leading Evangelical William Wilberforce, for example, advised the poor that
‘their lowly path had been allotted to them by the hand of God, that it was their part to
195
Dickens, Sketches, p. 187.
Cruikshank’s, ‘The Drunkard’s Children’, is a sequel to his eight-plate work ‘The Bottle’, which was
also criticised by Dickens in his Miscellaneous Papers piece, ‘Fraud on Fairies’ (pp. 201-206).
197
Ibid., pp. 159-161.
198
Newey, p. 210.
199
Ibid. Newey also describes how, in 1854, Dickens demonstrated his disapproval of Sewell by returning a
volume of the sermons personally sent to him by the clergyman.
200
Larson refers to Queen Victoria’s chaplin, the Reverend Henry Melvill, insisting upon poverty as being
a divine appointment (note 25, p. 331).
201
Ell and Snell, p. 333.
196
74
faithfully discharge their duties and contentedly to bear its inconveniences.’ He goes on
to conclude that the situation in which they find themselves is better than they deserve
and they should be content with it.202 The view that God places all men in their relative
social position and in that they should be satisfied is also present in Miss Humphrey’s
(Mrs. C.F Alexander’s) children’s hymn ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’, which
appeared in her 1846 publication of Hymns for Little Children.
The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them, high or lowly,
And ordered their estate.203
Dickens rightly perceived that acceptance of such a position compromised the
Churches’ response to the poor. If the poverty of individuals is a function of God’s
providential will should steps be taken to ease their condition? Dickens, in his 1844
Christmas story The Chimes, mercilessly exposes what he perceives to be the injustice of
the traditional social hierarchical system. In the second quarter of the book Sir and Lady
Bowley discuss the outrageous crime of the unemployed countryman Will Fern, who has
had the audacity to come to London in the hope of finding a job and improving himself.
At the end of the conversation Lady Bowley responds to Alderman Cute’s204 comment
202
William Wilberforce, Practical View of Christianity, 1834, p. 301.
C.F. Alexander, Hymns for Little Children, London: W. Walker, 1900, pp. 27-28.
204
Sally Ledger, Dickens and the Popular Radical Imagination, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2007, p. 126, suggests that Dickens’ characterisation of Alderman Cute was based on Sir Peter Laurie, a
well-known Middlesex magistrate.
203
75
‘that he is determined to put this sort of thing down’ by explaining the method she used
to enforce the strictures of the social hierarchy within her own rural community:
“Last winter, when I introduced pinking and eyelet holing among men and
boys in the village, as a nice evening employment, [I] had the lines
O let us love our occupations,
Bless the squire and his relations,
Live upon our daily rations,
And always know our proper stations.
set to music on the new system, for them to sing the while.”205
In a letter to his distinguished actor friend W.C. Macready, Dickens makes a further
personal observation of what he perceives to be the evil of seeking to maintain the
existing social hierarchy at the expense of the poor.206
As a direct consequence of the Evangelical emphasis on personal sin, the
improvement of the desperate physical conditions endured by the poor was seen as
subservient to the spiritual redemptive imperative. Dickens, with his personal belief in
practical Christianity, took the opposite view. In the opening paragraph of Chapter Three
of The Life of Our Lord, he informs his children that if the poor ‘had kind friends’, ‘good
205
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol and A Tale of Two Cities, London: Hazell, Watson and Viney Ltd.,
N. D. p. 444. Dickens, in ‘ Snoring for the Million’ (Examiner 1842), again satirically refers to the
contemporary practice of teaching the poor to sing.
206
Hogarth and Dickens, p. 379.
76
homes and had been better taught’ their moral and spiritual condition would be
transformed.207 In his Preface to the first Cheap Edition of Oliver Twist 208(March 1850)
Dickens concludes ‘that nothing effectual can be done for the elevation of the poor in
England, until their dwelling-places can be made decent and wholesome.’209
A year later, in a speech to support the work of the Metropolitan Sanitary Association,
he reiterated his belief 210 that the improvement of the physical environment of the poor
was a prerequisite to changing their moral, spiritual condition: ‘Even Education and
Religion can do nothing where they are most needed until the way is paved for their
ministrations by Cleanliness and Decency.’211 He then went on to read the following
passage from ‘Nobody’s Story’ to describe the futility he perceived in the approach of
those who sought to bring about the spiritual redemption of the poor whilst neglecting
their physical needs:
What avails it to send a Missionary to me, a miserable man or woman living
in a foetid Court where every sense bestowed upon me for my delight
becomes a torment, and every minute of my life is a new mire added to the
heap under which I lie degraded? To what notional feeling within me can he
hope to touch? Is it my remembrance of my children? It is a remembrance of
distortion and decay, scrofula and fever? Would he address himself to my
hopes of immortality? I am so surrounded by material filth that my Soul can
207
Dickens, The Life of Our Lord, p. 28.
According to Walder, ‘the fundamental aim of Oliver Twist is to move readers into sympathy and
charity for the poor (p. 42).
209
Charles Dickens, Collected Papers, London: Chapman and Hall, 1906, p. 265.
210
Oulton describes the author’s view that ‘no religious instruction would be of use to a child who was
dirty and half-starved,’ as being one of Dickens’ most fervently held beliefs (p.175).
211
Fielding, p. 129. The speech was delivered on 10 May, 1851.
208
77
not rise to the contemplation of an immortal existence! Or, if I be a miserable
child, born and nurtured in the same wretched place, and tempted in these
better times, to the Ragged School, what can the few hours teaching that I get
there do for me, against the noxious, constant, ever-renewed lesson of my
whole existence. But, give me my first glimpse of Heaven through a little of
its light and air - give me water - help me to be clean - lighten this heavy
atmosphere in which my spirit droops and I become the indifferent and
callous creature that you see me - gently and kindly take the body of my dead
relation out of the small room where I grow to be so familiar with the awful
change that even its sanctity is lost to me - and, Teacher, then I’ll hear, you
know how willingly, of Him whose thoughts were so much with the Poor,
and who had compassion for all human sorrow! 212
In the opening paragraph of ‘Our Parish’, Dickens uses the desperate plight of a poor
family who are trapped in an alarming downward spiral of poverty to make the same
point to his readers. In describing the enormity of their daily struggle just to survive, he
writes of their total inability to think about the future.213 The poor, surrounded by squalor
and depravation and oppressed by poverty, could ill afford to think of tomorrow, let alone
consider their eternal, spiritual destiny.
Dickens’ use of his fiction to express his personal beliefs about the poor was
epitomized by his recurring representation of two contemporary issues: the neglect of the
urban poor by Missionary Societies and Sabbath Day legislation. He severely criticised,
212
213
Ibid.
Dickens, Sketches, p. 1.
78
in both cases, those Christian-based organisations that, in his view, failed in their duty to
care for the poor. Dickens believed that the London-based Evangelical Missionary
Societies were guilty of committing their considerable resources overseas whilst
neglecting the needs of the poor on their own door-step. Grayson Carter, with reference
to this point, refers to an open letter written by the leading Evangelical clergyman, the
Reverend Baptist Noel, to the Bishop of London.214 In the published letter Noel pointed
out that while England sent out missionaries to Africa and the East, London, at the time
‘Our Parish’, had 518,000 neglected souls within reach of hundreds of Christian ministers
and thousands of intelligent and wealthy Christian laymen.215
Indeed, comparison of the 1847 annual income figures received by the three leading
London based Evangelical Overseas Missionary Societies with the £14,000 received by
the pan-Evangelical London City Mission, who worked domestically with the capital’s
poor, clearly indicates the overseas focus of those who supported these societies: The
Church Missionary Society, The British Foreign Bible Society, and The Society For The
Propagation Of The Gospel In Foreign Parts, all had donated incomes in excess of
£100,000.
Whilst Bleak House, which contains the wonderfully coined phrase, ‘Telescopic
Philanthropy’, 216 represents Dickens’ most notorious attack on the overseas missionary
societies, there are other examples to be found in his earlier work. In ‘Our Parish’ the
members of a Ladies’ society enlist the services of an overseas Missionary speaker in the
hope of boosting their popularity. Dickens, through associating the missionary with this
214
Grayson Carter, Anglican Evangelicals Protestant Secessions from The Via Media, 1800-1850, Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 319. Entitled ‘State of the Metropolis Considered’, the letter was first
published in 1835 (p. 319).
215
Ibid.
216
Dickens original use of this phrase was as a heading for Chapter IV.
79
group of selfish ladies who, in competition with other women, are exploiting the poor to
further their own matrimonial ambitions, clearly signalled his disapproval of the
individual and the organisation to which he belonged. Dickens’ disparaging description
of the man’s address and his inference that he has preyed on the affections of a wealthy
widow add to the negativity of the missionary’s portrayal.217 In Chapter VII of The
Pickwick Papers, Dickens cleverly contrasts the fervent opposition of the inhabitants of
Muggleton to slavery abroad with their failure to help emancipate the poor domestic
slaves of England’s prevailing inhumane industrial regime.218
In the ‘Full Report of the Second Meeting of the Mudfog Association’ (September
1837) a delegate, Mr Tickle, when challenged about the connection between his newlyinvented spectacles (which enable the wearer to discern objects at a great distance, whilst
rendering them blind to those immediately before him) and the principle of the human
eye refers to ‘a large number of most excellent persons and great statesmen [who] could
see, with the naked eye, most marvellous horrors on West India plantations, whilst they
could discern nothing whatever in the interior of Manchester cotton mills.’219
In 1848, five years prior to the publication of Bleak House, Dickens, in The Examiner,
directly challenged the approach adopted by the overseas missionary societies:
There is a broad, dark sea between the Strand in London [the location of
Exeter Hall which was the venue synonymous with the work of the Overseas
Missionary Societies] and the Niger, where whose rings [of Christianity] are
not yet shining; and through all that space they must appear, before the last
217
Dickens, Sketches, p. 36.
Dickens, Pickwick, pp. 87, 88.
219
Dickens, Sketches, p. 662.
218
80
one breaks upon the shore of Africa […] no convulsive effort, or far-off aim,
can make the last great outer circle first, and then come home at leisure to
trace out the inner one. Believe it, African Civilization, Church of England
Missionary, and all other Missionary Societies! The work at home must be
completed thoroughly, or there is no hope abroad.220
It was, however, in Bleak House that Dickens launched his most concerted attack on
‘Telescopic Philanthropy’. Dickens begins his attack by contrasting Mrs Jellyby’s
concern for the inhabitants of Borriobola-Gha with the neglect of her own children.221
Twelve chapters later, Dickens, in his portrayal of Jo, the destitute, homeless child, sitting
on the door-step of ‘The Society for The Propagation of The Gospel in Foreign Parts,’222
eating his dirty bit of bread for his breakfast, 223 drives his point home. This poignant,
thought-provoking image prompted an angry response from within the Evangelical
community. Dickens’ passionate defence of his position in a letter to the Reverend Henry
Christophsen, who had questioned the veracity of his representation, typifies the strength
of Dickens’ conviction that those charged with the divine commission of caring for the
nation’s poor had neglected their duty:
There was a long time during which benevolent societies were spending
immense sums on missions abroad, when there was no such thing as a ragged
220
Pope, p. 105.
Roger Stenning Edgecombe, ‘Dickens and Addison: A Possible Source for Mrs Jellyby’, The
Dickensian, Vol. 98, Summer, 2002, connects Dickens’ characterisation of Mrs. Jellyby with Joseph
Addison’s Spectator essay ‘The Political Upholsterer’ (pp. 153-155).
222
The Society was one of three largest overseas missionary organisations of the period with, an income in
excess of £100,000 per annum.
223
Dickens, Bleak House, p. 221.
221
81
school in England, or any kind of associated endeavour to penetrate to those
horrible domestic depths in which such schools are now to be found, and
where they were, to my certain knowledge, neither placed nor discovered by
the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. If you think
the balance between the home mission and the foreign mission justly held in
the present time, I do not. I abstain from drawing the strange comparison that
might be drawn between the sums even now expended in endeavours to
remove the darkest ignorance and degradation from our very doors, because I
have some respect for mistakes that may be founded in a sincere wish to do
good. But I present a general suggestion of the still- existing anomaly (in such
a paragraph as that which offends you), in the hope of inducing some people
to reflect on this matter, and to adjust the balance more correctly. I am
decidedly of the opinion that the two works, the home and the foreign, are not
conducted with an equal hand, and that the home claim is by far the stronger
and the more pressing of the two.224
Dickens’ conspicuous antipathy towards those within the Christian community who
sought to introduce and maintain Sabbath Day legislation lay in his belief that it unfairly
penalised the poor and labouring classes. Oulton comments that ‘the tailoring of social
policy to evangelical doctrine was to inspire some Dickens’ bitterest satire, both in his
journalism and in his novels.’225 Whilst agreeing that Sunday was a day to attend church,
he also believed that it gave an opportunity for the urban poor and labouring classes to
Hogarth and Dickens, pp. 296, 270. The Reverend Christophenson’s letter to Dickens was dated 9 July,
1852.
225
Oulton, p. 187.
224
82
appreciate God’s presence in creation and to relax with their families. Leisure pursuits,
sports and visits to museums and galleries were also considered by Dickens to be
legitimate Sunday activities. Dickens rightly perceived that the laws advocated by the
Sabbatarians would curtail these activities and that the only holiday that the needy
members of society had would be compromised. Conversely, he recognised that the
Sunday pleasures enjoyed by wealthier people were unaffected by the legislation.
Chadwick, in his authoritative work on the Victorian church, supported Dickens’ view:
The odium of Sabbatarians partly arose because their proposals seemed to
hurt the poor and not the rich. The bus-driver must be forbidden to work and
therefore the poor could not travel. But no one suggested that you could ban
the rich from driving out in their carriages with coachmen and footmen. The
poor who had no ovens were not allowed to roast their joints in bake-houses,
while the rich enjoyed comfortable hot beef. In 1839 the Lord Mayor of
London summoned various poor fishermen for using illegal nets in the
Thames on Sunday. The fishermen retorted that gentlemen were allowed to
fish with rod and line on Sunday.’226
The Sabbath issue, mainly due to the political lobbying of The Lord’s Day
Observation Society (which Dickens witnessed at first-hand during his time as a
parliamentary reporter), attracted a huge degree of interest within Victorian society. In
1837, six years after the inception of The Lord’s Day Observation Society, Parliament,
with the exception of the slave trade, received more petitions regarding Sunday
226
Chadwick, (Part One), p. 457.
83
legislation than any other single issue. A year later, eight major Sunday bills had been
introduced. Lord Ashley’s 1850 bill to prohibit Sunday post was supported by 4,419
individual petitions bearing more than 650,000 signatures. The Wilson-Patten Act of four
years later, which sought to restrict the opening times of beer-shops and public houses,
also attracted considerable interest.
Dickens’ personal convictions regarding the Sabbath and the public interest it attracted
prompted considerable coverage of the issue in his fictional work. In Sketches By Boz he
includes a less-than flattering reference to Sir Andrew Agnew, the chief political
spokesmen of ‘The Lord’s Day Observance Society’.227 In a separate sketch he parodies
the work of the society with an allusion to Cornelius Brook Dingwall MP and his
attempts to draft ‘A Bill for the better observance of Easter Monday’. 228 The Dedication,
and Parts I and II of Sunday Under Three Heads 229 (published in the spring of 1836)
provide, in their vitriolic content, the clearest evidence of Dickens’ impassioned
opposition to Sunday legislation and those who sought to impose it. In the third part of
the book Dickens, under the pseudonym of Timothy Sparks, provides his readers with his
own personal vision of how Sundays should be.
In Chapter VII of the Pickwick Papers, Dickens, in his critical description of the
corporate town of Muggleton refers to their eighty-six petitions opposing Sunday street
trading.230 In the final chapter of Oliver Twist, Noah Claypole and Charlotte deviously
entrap charitable publicans by reporting them for breaking Sunday trading laws. Mr
227
Dickens, Sketches, p. 161
Ibid., p. 332.
229
Commenting on the effectiveness of Sunday Under Three Heads, The Weekly Dispatch review, dated
3 July 1836, recorded that ‘there is more true Christianity in this little book than all the sermons and
pamphlets that have been published against Sabbath breaking since the days of Praise God Barebones.’
230
Dickens, Pickwick, p. 88.
228
84
Gallanbile, another MP supportive of the Sunday observance position, is satirically
represented in Nicholas Nickleby. 231 Beyond his earlier works, a series of pieces which
appeared in Household Words 232 demonstrated both the constancy of his personal
position, and his continuing appreciation of the topicality of the Sunday issue. ‘The
Sunday Screw’, June 1850, appeared the day before Lord Ashley’s bill banning Sunday
post came into effect. In September 1854, ‘It Is Not Generally Known’, ‘Sunday Out’,
and ‘Sunday Tea Gardens’ all appeared in response to the Wilson-Patten Act. ‘The Great
Baby’, which appeared in August of the following year, was published to coincide with
the final stages of the parliamentary debate regarding the act’s repeal.
Dickens’ personal belief in the necessity of the Christian community to care for those
in need is reflected in the constancy of his attacks on the institutionalised abuse of the
poor. The abject failure of the parochial system and the selfishness and inhumanity of
those charged with the care of the poor is graphically described in ‘Our Parish’ and the
first seven chapters of Oliver Twist. In Miscellaneous Papers, two articles originally
drawn from the 1849 Examiner comment directly on the appalling conditions endured by
poor children at a ‘Farm’ in Tooting. 233 In the All theYear Round Christmas story for
1865, ‘Doctor Marigold’, Dickens attacks a ‘dunderheaded triumvirate’ of parochial
officials responsible for the death of some five-hundred workhouse inmates.234 Although
231
Dickens, Nickleby, p. 187.
Household Words, as noted by John Lucas, ‘Past and Present: Bleak House and A Child’s History of
England in John Schad’s (ed.), Dickens Refigured: Bodies, Desires and other Histories, Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1996, was used by Dickens to highlight the plight of the poor; and to
champion the cause of improving their living conditions and education (pp. 145, 146).
233
The term ‘Farm’, originally referred to in the opening paragraph of Chapter II of Oliver Twist, relates
to a branch workhouse used to house very young children. The two articles referred to are ‘The
Paradise at Tooting’ and ‘The Tooting Farm’. Dickens, Miscellaneous Papers, pp. 166-174.
234
Dickens, Christmas Stories, pp. 463, 465.
232
85
not based on an actual incident there is a clear inference that those charged with
managing the relief of the poor at a parochial level were at times incompetent and cruel.
In The Uncommercial Traveller pieces, ‘Wapping Workhouse’ and ‘The Short
Timers’, Dickens critically reports on the care provided for inmates in two separate
workhouses.235 In ‘Red Tape’, Miscellaneous Papers, Dickens exposes the effects of the
government’s Window Tax on the poor living in dimly lit rooms, and addresses the
depraved state of the agricultural poor.236 In his postscript to Our Mutual Friend, drawing
on his characterisation of Betty Higden, he returns to the injustices of the Poor Law and
the abuses it inflicted upon the poor.237 Dickens’ fictional representations of his personal
convictions regarding the poor, and his strategies for communicating them to his readers,
will be further explored in the next two chapters of this thesis.
However, in addition to investigating Dickens’ personal life it is also necessary to
carefully examine his fictional work to fully appreciate the nature of his Christian beliefs.
As Forster correctly observed, there existed a close connection between Dickens’
convictions and his writing: ‘Although Dickens bore outwardly so little of the impress of
his writing, they formed the whole of that inner life which essentially constitutes the
man.’238 Dickens not only used his fiction to communicate his beliefs to his readers but
also as a means of confirming to himself what he believed.239 He used The Life of Our
Lord in the same way in relation to his children. A good example of the connection that
existed between Dickens’ fiction and his personal beliefs is to be found in Part Two of
235
Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, pp.18 -28, pp. 209, 210.
Dickens, Miscellaneous Papers, pp. 207-209, 219. Further articles that illustrate Dickens’ concern for
the poor include: ‘A Sleep to Startle Us’, Household Words, 4, 13 March 1852, pp. 577-80; ‘A Walk in
the Workhouse’, Household Words, I, 25 May 1850, pp. 240-7 and ‘A Nightly Scene in London’,
Household Words, 13, 26 January 1856, pp. 25-7.
237
Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 821, 822.
238
Forster, p. 816.
239
Larson refers to Dickens’ religious ‘dialogue with himself ’ (pp. 121, 314).
236
86
this thesis where, in Dickens’ representation of his ‘Charitable Angels’, his views on the
Resurrection, Judgement and Providence are revealed.
CHAPTER TWO: DICKENS AND THE RELIGIOUS CLIMATE
In this chapter it is argued that Dickens’ creative strategy for communicating his
Christian convictions demonstrates both the contemporary nature of his beliefs and the
author’s insightful grasp of the religious climate and issues of the period. Through
providing a critical commentary on Victorian religiosity and documenting ecclesiastical
life on an individual, parochial and national level, Dickens was able to skilfully
contextualise his views. By carefully comparing aspects of the author’s fictional content
with extant ecclesiastical commentaries on the period1 this chapter seeks not only to
demonstrate Dickens’ unparalleled capacity for showing the religious features of the age
to itself, 2 but to show how the author provides the modern reader with a reliable,
comprehensive account of Victorian religiosity.
The chapter begins by assessing the religiosity of the Victorian period during Dickens’
lifetime. The author’s fictional representation of religious plurality, the Established
1
The works consulted include: S. C Carpenter, Church and People 1789-1889, London: S.P.C.K, 1933;
Desmond Bowen, The Idea of the Victorian Church: A Study of the Church of England, 1833-1889,
Montreal: McGill University Press, 1968; Owen Chadwick, The Victorian Church, 1829-1859 (Part One),
London: A&C Black Ltd., 1971; Owen Chadwick, The Victorian Church, 1860-1901 (Part Two), London:
A&C Black Ltd., 1970; Chris Brooks and Andrew Saint, The Victorian Church: Architecture and Society,
Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995; Frances Knight, The Nineteenth Century and English
Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995; John Wolffe (ed.), Religion in Victorian Britain,
Volume V Culture and Empire, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997; P. Ell and K. Snell, Rival
Jerusalem’s: The Geography of Victorian Religion, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000;
Grayson Carter, Anglican Evangelicals: Protestant Secessions from the Via Media, 1800-1850, Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2001; Timothy Larsen, Contested Christianity: The Political and Social Contexts
of Victorian Theolgy, Waco: Baylor University Press, 2004; Michela Giebelhausen, Painting the Bible:
Representation and Belief in Mid-Victorian Britain, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2006; Timothy
Larsen, Crisis of Doubt: Honest Faith in Nineteenth Century England, Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2006.
2
Robert Patten, ‘Dickens Time Again’, Dickens Studies Annual, Vol. II, 1972, p. 194.
87
Church, Dissent, Roman Catholicism; the attempted Christianization of the urban poor
and the ‘Papal Aggression’ controversy of 1850 are then used to illustrate both the
historicity of Dickens’ work and the nature of his personal beliefs.
Dickens lived during a period of unprecedented religious fervour. According to
Briggs, Victorian society perceived issues relating to Christianity as being ‘more exciting
and important than anything else.’ 3 Holbrook both confirms the pre-eminence of
religious issues and the intense importance people of the period attributed to it.4 Reed
defines Victorian society as being ‘overwhelming Christian in its “official” culture’5; a
culture which, according to Williams, was infused by a Christian discourse.6 Knight, in a
similar vein, describes the culture of the period as being suffused by diffused
Christianity. 7 Although Larsen in Contested Christianity questions the assumption that
Christianity ‘was part of the air that the Victorians unquestionably breathed’ he does,
nonetheless, concede that it was ‘strong and pervasive.’ 8
Chadwick, in his impressive work, The Victorian Church, describes how ‘churches
thrived and multiplied. Public law and private morals, mental philosophy and social
convention - the life of the nation was rooted in age-long conviction of Christian truth.’9
This view is supported by Brooks: ‘Churches are at the centre of Victorian culture and
architecture. In our mental map of Victorian life, religion and religious observance figure
large. We imagine a society secured at middle-class level upon the rock: church-going
3
Asa Briggs, Victorian People 1851-1867, London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1954, p. 27.
David Holbrook, Charles Dickens and The Image of Woman, New York: New York University Press,
1993, pp. 58, 59.
5
John Reed, Dickens and Thackeray: Punishment and Forgiveness, Athens: Ohio University Press, 1995,
p. 3.
6
Sarah Williams, ‘Victorian Religion: A Matter of Class or Culture?’, Nineteenth Century Studies, Vol.
17, 2003, p. 15.
7
Knight, p. 204.
8
Larsen, Contested Christianity, pp. 1, 2.
9
Chadwick, The Victorian Church (Part One), p. 1.
4
88
and chapel-going, with priests and ministers presiding over thronged, respectful and
believing congregations.’10 Bowen, in The Idea Of The Victorian Church, describes how
‘no institution was of greater interest to Victorian Englishmen than the church.’11
Clark, in The Making of Victorian England, continues the theme by describing the
revival of religion as being a power almost as dynamic as that provided by the blind
forces of population increase and the Industrial Revolution. It ‘pervaded all society,
challenged men and women of every level of society or of education and became fused
with the objectives of most political parties and hopes of every class.’12 He adds: ‘The
Christian religion coloured what many Victorians, particularly lower-and middle-class
Victorians, thought about everything. Mid-nineteenth century England was very heavily
charged with religious feeling, or religiosity.’13 Gilmour observes that ‘Victorian culture
was steeped in religious controversy - in which the churchmen’s language and concepts
permeated other forms of intellectual and cultural discourse – to a remarkable degree.’14
However, as Dickens astutely observed, Victorian England was not simply an era of
personal or institutionalised piety. It was also an age of great religious activity and
energy.15
The extensive urban church and chapel building programme represents the period’s
most conspicuous and enduring example of religious activity. The sheer magnitude of the
undertaking, and the lasting impact it made upon the urban landscape, provides tangible
10
Brooks and Saint, p. ix.
Bowen, p. 336.
12
George Kitson Clark, The Making of Victorian England, London: Methuen, 1962, p. 140.
13
Ibid., p. 284.
14
Robin Gilmour, The Victorian Period: The Intellectual and Cultural Context of English Literature 18301890, London: 1993, Longman, p.71.
15
G. D. Carrow, ‘An Informal Call on Charles Dickens by a Philadelphian Clergyman’, Dickensian,
Vol. 63, May 1967, refers to a conversation that Dickens had with a clergyman in which the author
remarked that ‘ours is an age of great religious activity (pp. 112-119).
11
89
evidence of the contemporary pre-eminence of religion. In Dickens’ London, as in the
other cities and new manufacturing towns of early Victorian England, the programme
represented a hugely resourced response to the twin social forces of population growth
and urban migration.
Brooks and Saint observe that ‘In 1801, the year of the first census, the total
population of the United Kingdom was around 16 million. It had passed 25 million by the
time the young Victoria came to the throne in 1837. When she died in 1901, the number
of her subjects living in the British Isles had risen to 41.5 million.’16 Chadwick records
the population increase as ‘ten millions between 1801 and 1851.’17 Sanders, with specific
reference to London during Dickens’ lifetime, notes that the population of the capital rose
from just over one and a half million in 1831 to two and half million twenty years later.
In 1871, a year after Dickens’ death, it had reached three and a half million.18
Brooks and Saint, with reference to urban migration, note that ‘in 1801, only twenty
per cent of the population lived in cities or urban concentrations, a hundred years later
seventy-five per cent did.’19 Sanders places the 1801 figure substantially higher at
‘around a third’, and also adds a mid-point estimate of just over a half in 1851.20 In the
same year it had been calculated that more than half the population of Dickens’ London
aged twenty and over had not been born in London.21 In the opening paragraph of his
April 1835 sketch ‘Thoughts About People’, Dickens alludes to this through his
identification of ‘a numerous class of people in this metropolis, who seem not to possess
16
Brooks and Saint, p. 1.
Chadwick, (Part One), p. 325.
18
Andrew Sanders, Dickens and the Spirit of the Age, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 6, 7.
19
Brooks and Saint, p.1.
20
Sanders, p. 6. Knight supports Sanders’ estimate when she observes that the 1851 Census revealed for the
first time that urban dwellers were in the majority (note 4, p. 22).
21
Parliamentary Papers, 1852-3, lxxxviii, Part I, cvii.
17
90
a single friend’ and have been ‘urged by imperative necessity’ to come to London ‘in
search of employment and subsistence.’22 Will Fern, a character from The Chimes who
travels to London in the hope of finding work, represents another reference to urban
migration in Dickens’ early work.
Bowen estimates that these two factors combined resulted in more than six million
people being left without a place of worship to attend.23 A significant majority of these
belonged to the poor and labouring classes. The poorer areas of Dickens’ London were
grossly under-churched, with sittings for on average only 30.2 per cent of the population.
In some of the most deprived areas the ratio of sittings to population was even lower. For
example, in Shoreditch there was no church accommodation for 72 per cent of the
population. This meant that on any given Sunday forty-three thousand people could not
attend church even if they wanted to.24 Bishop Winnington-Ingram, in his report to the
Church Congress of 1899, revealed that in 1831, within the densely populated East End
slums of London, there were only twenty-three places of worship.25 Palmer estimated that
in London alone more than 1.4 million people were left without spiritual aid.26
The response of the Established Church, Dissent and Roman Catholicism to this
accommodation crisis was to undertake a sustained and ambitious church and chapel
building and extension programme. Ell and Snell estimate that between 1750 and 1851
over half of the total places of worship in England and Wales were either built or
designated.27
22
Charles Dickens, Sketches by Boz, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 215.
Bowen, p. 14.
24
Chadwick, (Part One), p. 367.
25
Church Congress Report, 23, 1899, pp. 40-41.
26
William Palmer, Enquiry into the Possibility of Church Extension, London: 1841, pp. 11-16.
27
Ell and Snell, p. 404.
23
91
In 1818 one million pounds was allocated by Parliament for the specific use of
Established Church building. This sum was supplemented in 1824 by a further allocation
of half a million pounds.28 Ell and Snell note that the agency charged with administering
the government’s church building funds, the ‘Society for Promoting the Enlargement,
Building and repair of Anglican Churches and Chapels in England and Wales’ (its name
was changed in 1828 to the ‘Incorporated Church Building Society), added an additional
four and half million pounds raised through personal subscriptions.29
In early Victorian London the national Established Church building programme was
supplemented by diocesan and parish initiatives. ‘The Metropolis Church Extension
Fund’ inaugurated by the Bishop of London in 1836 provided new church buildings
throughout the capital including ten in Bethnal Green. Of the various parish based
schemes the ‘Saint Pancras Church Extension Fund’, introduced by the Reverend Thomas
Dale, is a good example.
The impact of the various Established Church building initiatives was immense.
Knight estimates that between1831-1851 an additional 2,069 churches were built. 30
Forty-one per cent of these were in new centres of population. Brooks and Saint for the
period 1835 and 1875 calculate that the various church-building initiatives resulted in the
consecration of 3,765 new or rebuilt Anglican churches -1,010 of them in the peak
decade of the 1860s. 31 In 1868, fifty years after the government allocated their one
28
This was the last occasion that the Established Church was to receive funding from the government for
church building.
29
Ell and Snell, p. 82.
30
Knight, p. 63.
31
Brooks and Saint, p. 9. The authors also note that in the thirty-five year period between 1841 and 1876
the number of Established Church places of worship rose from 12, 668 to 15, 867- a rise of 25 per cent.
92
million pound grant, a staggering 1,092,000 extra seats had been added to the seating
capacity of the Established Church.
Dickens’ fictional work contains numerous references to the Established Church’s
building initiative in London. In ‘The Boarding House-Chapter II’, which was originally
written in October 1834, he refers to ‘New Saint Pancras Church’,32 which was built in
1820 by the Church Commission with funds from the 1818 ‘Million Pound Act’. In the
‘Introduction Of The Giant Chronicles’, which appeared in Chapter One of Master
Humphrey’s Clock (1840), Joe Toddyhigh, who has never visited London before,
wanders up and down the streets, amazed at the number of churches he sees.33 In Chapter
XV of The Old Curiosity Shop, as Nell and her grandfather are travelling through the
streets of London, Dickens, among other scenes they witness alludes to ‘plenty of new
churches erected with a little superfluous wealth.’34
In Chapter LVI of Dombey and Son Dickens, commenting on the London church
where Florence and Walter are to be married, writes:
But so far was this city church from languishing for the company of other
churches, that spires were clustered round it, as the masts of shipping on the
river. It would have been hard to count them from its steeple-top, there was so
many. In almost every yard and blind-place near, there was a church. The
confusion of bells when Susan and Mr Toots betook themselves towards it on
32
Dickens, Sketches, p. 292.
Charles Dickens, Master Humphrey’s Clock and A Child’s History of England, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1994, p. 16.
34
Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop, London: Hazell and Viney Ltd., N.D., p. 96.
33
93
the Sunday morning was deafening. There were twenty churches close
together, clamouring for people to come in.35
Dickens returned to this theme several years later in The Uncommercial Traveller
piece, ‘City of London Churches’, when he again comments on the number and close
proximity of churches in the City of London area.36 In Chapter One of A Child’s History
of England (1851), Dickens describes how Roman artefacts were often being dug up by
labourers in the course of building new churches.37
The leading Dissenting denominations - the Methodists, Independents,
Congregationalists and Baptists - also undertook an extensive urban chapel building
programme throughout Dickens’ lifetime. Wakeling, commenting specifically on
Methodism, observed that during Dickens’ childhood they built chapels in virtually every
town in England. 38 For example the Wesleyan Methodist Original Connexion alone had
over six and half thousand chapels by 1851. According to Ell and Snell in the period
1801 to 1851 the number of Baptist chapels increased four-fold from six hundred and
fifty-two to two thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine.39 Larsen, in relation to the
Congregationalists, notes that by 1863 the denomination had raised nearly two hundred
thousand pounds to finance their chapel building programme.40
Dickens’ fictional references to Dissent chapel building are far less numerous than
those referring to the Established Church’s building initiative. This is most likely due to
35
Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 792.
Charles Dickens, The Uncommercial Traveller and Reprinted Pieces, Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1996, pp. 85, 90.
37
Dickens, Master Humphrey’s Clock, p. 137.
38
Brooks and Saint, p. 84.
39
Ell and Snell, p. 107.
40
Larsen, Contested Christianity, p. 166.
36
94
the London, south-east focus of Dickens’ work. Chadwick, in his commentary on Mann’s
1851 Religious Census, identifies the Established Church’s strength as being in the Home
Counties and East. Conversely he describes Dissent as being at its strongest in the
industrial cities and towns of the Midlands and the North.41 Dickens, in using Preston as
the model for ‘Coketown’ in Hard Times, confirms this point by referring to the eighteen
religious persuasions who have built their chapels in the town.42
Despite the nature of Dissent’s geographical distribution, Dickens’ fictional work does
contain three specific examples of the chapel-building programme that was carried out in
London and the South-East. In Chapter V of The Old Curiosity Shop, as Nell and her
grandfather reach the outskirts of London, there is a reference to several small Dissenting
chapels among the new and partly built dwellings of the poor.43 In his short piece, ‘Out of
Town’, which was written in 1853, Dickens, in his observations of Pavilionstone writes,
‘we have more chapels than I have yet added up.’ 44 Finally, in ‘Out of the Season’, 45 a
Household Words piece published in June 1856, the author writes: ‘All the houses and
lodgings ever let to visitors were to let that morning. It seemed to have snowed bills with
To Let upon them. This put me upon thinking what the owners of all these apartments
did, out of the season; how they employed their time, and occupied their minds. They
could not be always going to the Methodist Chapels of which I passed one every other
minute.’ 46
41
Chadwick, (Part One), pp. 368, 369.
Charles Dickens, Sketches by Boz and Hard Times, London: Hazell, Watson & Viney Ltd., N.D. p.522.
43
Dickens, Old Curiosity Shop, p. 96.
44
Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, p. 449. Pavilionstone is drawn from Dickens’ recollections of
Folkestone.
45
It is probable that the piece is based on Dickens’ beloved Broadstairs.
46
Charles Dickens, Miscellaneous Papers and The Mystery of Edwin Drood, London: Hazell, Watson &
Viney Ltd., N. D. p. 44.
42
95
In England’s four major cities, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and London,
overwhelming demands were placed upon the Victorian Roman Catholic Church by the
huge influx of French, Scottish and Irish immigrants. Between 1841 and 1851, for
example, an estimated 400,000 Irish immigrants entered England. The majority of these,
as noted in the findings of the 1851 Religious Census, lived in the slums of the above
named cities. This burgeoning urban growth in adherents presented the relatively
impoverished Roman Catholic Church with an accommodation and resource problem
similar to that faced by the Established Church. Chadwick likened their position to being
that of ‘a kindly pauper who has wages just enough to support a little family and finds his
home besieged by a hundred orphans.’47
In response to this huge challenge, the Roman Catholic Church in these four cities
undertook their own church and chapel building programme. The resultant increase in the
number of places of worship was dramatic. In 1824 there were only 357 chapels in
England and Wales, by 1851 this number had risen to 570 chapels and by 1870, the year
of Dickens’ death, the figure had more than trebled to 1,151. Judging by this marked
increase, ‘the pauper’, in Chadwick’s analogy, must have experienced a considerably
favourable change in his circumstances. A subsequent discussion of this point appears
later in the chapter.
Although Dickens, in Barnaby Rudge, Pictures From Italy, and an early Household
Words piece, ‘A Crisis in the Affairs of Mr John Bull as Related By Mrs Bull to the
Children,’ does refer to Roman Catholicism, there is no reference to its chapel building in
his early fictional work. The reason for this could have been the relatively small numbers
of Roman Catholics that were present in London during the earlier part of the Victorian
47
Chadwick, (Part One), p. 271.
96
era. Mann’s 1851 Census of Religious Worship reported that only 4 percent of the total
church and chapel attendees on the day of his census were Roman Catholic. In addition,
the most significant number of Irish immigrants originally settled in Liverpool and
Manchester, and it was not until later that they moved south into London. The
Established Church, Dissent and Roman Catholicism will be examined in more detail
later in this chapter.
The pervasiveness of religion in the literature of the period provides a further
indication of the intensity of Victorian religious activity. Jay estimates that between 1801
and 1835 twenty-two per cent of all books published were of a religious nature. During
the period of 1836-1863 this figure had increased to around thirty-three per cent.48 Carter,
with reference to the Evangelical clergyman, Baptist Noel, whom he describes as being
‘one of the most popular religious authors of the Victorian era’, notes that at least nine of
his books sold in excess of 108,000 copies.49
The Dublin Review announced in 1846 ‘This is the age of religious novels, since at
least a third of the novels published in 1845 were either directly religious or at all events
possessed more of religious character, than would have been sufficient ten years ago.’ 50
Wolff observes that ‘of all the subjects that interested Victorians, and therefore
preoccupied their novelists, none - not love, or crime, or war, or sport, or ancestry, or
even money - held their attention as much as religion.’51 Butler argues that all of
Victorian fiction was to some extent imbued with religion.52
48
Elisabeth Jay, The Religion of the Heart, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979, p. 7.
Carter, note 9, p. 314.
50
Dublin Review, 1846, Vol. XXI, p. 261.
51
Robert Lee Wolff, Gains and Losses: Novels of Faith and Doubt in Victorian England, London: John
Murray (Publishers) Ltd., 1977, pp. 1, 2.
52
Lance St. John Butler, Victorian Doubt and Cultural Discourses, New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf,
1990, p. 89
49
97
Beyond the pages of fiction, there was also a plethora of religious works focusing on a
whole range of issues, including religious observance within the home, which was
particularly popular.53 Cazamian, commenting on the relative popularity of novels
between1816 and 1851, details how, with the publication figure of three thousand five
hundred titles, they exceeded both dramatic and poetic works and scientific books. By
comparison, however, during the same period, more than ten thousand theological works
were published.54 Briggs observes that ‘the amount of pamphlet and periodical literature
devoted to religious problems was far greater than that devoted to economic and social
problems.’55
The volume and multifarious nature of religious journals provides further evidence of
the religious intensity of the period. Covering the full spectrum of contemporary
Christian affiliation, these journals not only catered for Dissent, Roman Catholicism and
the Established Church, but also for specific denominations and parties within these
broad groupings. For example, with reference to the Established Church, the ‘Record’,
‘Christian Guardian’ and ‘Christian Observer’ represented the views of the Evangelical
party; the ‘Guardian’ and ‘Church and State Gazette’ the views of the High Church; the
‘Church Times’ the views of the Ritualists and the ‘English Review’ and ‘British Critic’
the views of the Tractarians. In addition to the journals there were also novels which
represented specific Established Church parties. Charlotte Yonge’s novels, Abbey
53
For example, William Rufus Bailey, The Family Preacher; or Domestic Duties, New York, John Taylor,
1837; Reverend Thomas Garnier, Domestic Duties: A Series of Sermons Preached in Trinity Church,St.
Marylebone, London: 1851; J. Laver and Reverend F. B. Ashley, The Domestic Circle; or The Relative
Duties, London: Watchard, Hamilton and Adams, 1851.
54
Louis Cazamian, The Social Novel in England, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1973, p. 307, n.5.
55
Briggs, p. 27.
98
Church in 1844, The Heir of Redclyffe in1853, and The Castle Builders in1854, were, for
example, pro-Tractarian.56
Beyond the auspices of the Established Church there were numerous Roman Catholic
publications including ‘The Month’, ‘The Directory’, ‘The Tablet’ and ‘The Dublin
Review’. Also, in response to Kingsley’s 1853 anti-Catholic novel Hypatia, Nicholas
Wiseman and John Henry Newman published their pro-Catholic novels, Fabiola (1854)
and Callista (1856).
Journals like ‘The Patriot’, ‘The Nonconformist Journal’ and ‘The Eclectic Review’
were sympathetic with Dissent in general. Whilst individual Dissenting denominations
had their own specific publications including ‘The Wesleyan’, ‘The Wesleyan Methodist
Magazine’, ‘The Methodist New Connexion Magazine’; ‘The Congregationalist
Magazine’; ‘The Freeman’ and ‘The Standard’ (Baptist journals); ‘The Inquirer’ and the
‘Monthly Repository’ (Unitarian journals) and ‘The Quaker Journal’. In addition, specific
inter-denominational religious views were also represented. For example the ‘Morning
Watch’, the ‘Christian Herald’, the ‘Watchman’ and the ‘Expositor of Prophecy’
represented the views of the Millennialists.
The Victorians also had an insatiable appetite for Christian tracts. For example J.V.
Hall’s Evangelical tract, ‘The Sinner’s Friend’, first published in 1821, and revised on
numerous occasions, sold 800,000 copies by 1845. By March 1867 it had sold 1.8 million
copies. His son, Newman Hall, also published a similar tract entitled ‘Come to Jesus’.
Translated into about forty languages, the tract sold 4 million copies. Reverend Legh
Richmond’s ‘The Dairyman’s Daughter’, described by Walder ‘as the most successful
56
For an excellent overview of novels which represented specific Established Church parties, Roman
Catholicism and Dissent during Dickens’ lifetime see Wolff’s Appendix.
99
tract ever published’,57 achieved, along with his ‘The Young Cottagers’ and ‘The Negro
Servant’, a circulation of over 1.3 million copies.
Early Victorian religiosity was also reflected in the artistic output of the period. A
reviewer writing in the Athenaeum in 1843 commented ‘on the remarkable increase in
religious painting.’58 Giebelhausen also notes the prominence given to religious painting
by the press; and the ‘general rise in all categories of religious subjects exhibited at the
Royal Academy’ from 1835 through to the 1840s.59 Some of the noteworthy religious
works of the period include Charles Lock Eastlake’s ‘Hagar and Ishmael’ (1830), ‘Christ
Blessing Little Children’ (1839), ‘Christ Lamenting over Jerusalem’ (1841); and
Benjamin Robert Haydon’s ‘Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem’(1820), which achieved a net
profit of over £1,300 from its exhibition at the Egyptian Hall, London.60 The vast
amounts of money, time and energy expended on the Sabbath Day issue, overseas
Evangelical activity, and the expansion of the Established Church throughout the British
Empire 61 also testify to the religious activity of the period.
Dickens and religious plurality
Whilst it can be argued that religion in Victorian society was synonymous with
Christianity, it was not exclusively so. A careful examination of Dickens’ fictional work
reveals references to Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Spiritualism, Mormonism
57
Dennis Walder, Dickens and Religion, London: George Allen and Unwin Publishers Ltd., 1981, p. 3.
Giebelhausen, p. 38.
59
Ibid., p. 31.
60
The dates given relate to the exhibition of the paintings rather than the date completed. For a more
comprehensive description of the religious art of the period see Giebelhausen.
61
In Dickens’ lifetime, bishoprics were inaugurated in Jamaica, Australia, New Zealand, Natal and
Zambesi.
58
100
and Swedenborgianism, an issue that has been overlooked by Dickens’ critics.62 These
references demonstrate Dickens appreciation of the religious diversity that existed during
his lifetime, his grasp of contemporary religious affairs, and his personal understanding
of some of the tenets of these alternative beliefs. Dickens’ religious plurality material will
also be examined to reflect upon aspects of his personal Christian beliefs.
Dickens’ fictional depiction of Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam, the first three
religions to be covered in this section, represents little more than an acknowledgement of
their presence in Victorian society.63 Dickens’ direct personal experience of these eastern
religions is difficult to ascertain. Although Dickens spent much of his childhood in the
seaports of Portsmouth and Chatham, where he would have had some degree of contact
with sailors who would have been adherents of these religions, he never personally
visited the East. However, as More notes, ‘Dickens became increasingly interested in
India in the 1850s.’ 64 More partly attributes this to the departure of his son, Walter, to
India in July 1857. (Six years later another of his sons, Frank, also left England for India).
Dickens increased interest in India during this decade was also linked to the huge
coverage afforded to India at The Great Exhibition (May-October 1851). The East Indian
Company exhibit was allocated thirty-thousand square feet. The arrival and subsequent
Authors such as (Reverend C. H. Mackenzie’s, The Religious Sentiments of Charles Dickens, William
Kent, Dickens and Religion, Reverend William Procter, Christian Teaching in the Novels of Charles
Dickens, Norris Pope, Dickens and Charity, Dennis Walder, Dickens and Religion, Andrew Sanders,
Charles Dickens Resurrectionist, Janet Larson, Dickens and the Broken Scripture, John Reed, Dickens
and Thackeray: Punishment and Forgiveness, Carolyn Oulton, Literature and Religion in Mid-Victorian
England and Vincent Newey, The Scriptures of Charles Dickens) who have written books specifically on
Dickens and religion have overlooked the author’s representation of Victorian religious plurality. With
the exception of Ron Lampard’s article on the Swedeborgians in The Dickensian, Vol. 93, No. 442,
1997, the omission has continued within both the Dickensian and Victorian literary journals.
63
For an excellent description of the Victorian context of these Eastern religions, and also Sikhism and
Zoroastrian, see Gwilym Beckerlegge’s chapter ‘Followers of Mohammed, Kallee and Dada Nanuk: The
presence of Islam and South Asian Religions in Victorian Britain’ in Wolffe’s Religion in Victorian
Britain.
64
Grace More, Dickens and Empire, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2004, p. 104.
62
101
residency in London of Muslem nobility, Meer Jaffier Ali, the Nawab of Surat, and the
Queen of Oude, along with their respective retinues, in the 1850s attracted considerable
media attention. Also the 1857 Sipoy Rebellion, which included the infamous Cawnpore
Massacre of British women and children, and unrest elsewhere in India, attracted a great
deal of public interest. 65 More connects Dickens’ Household Words Christmas 1857
story, ‘The Perils of Certain English Prisoners’, and aspects of Tale of Two Cities with
this rebellion.66
The presence of Eastern religions within Victorian society was historically linked with
the arrival of overseas adherents who settled in England during the preceding centuries.
In the main, their settlement was a direct consequence of the slave trade and the initial
establishment of empire. For example the number of lascars (Indian sailors from the
territories administered by the East India Company) coming to Britain increased at the
end of the eighteenth century as a result of a manpower shortage caused by the outbreak
of the French wars. Returning East Indian Company officials and military personnel who
had served in India also brought back native servants to England. Dickens acknowledged
this with his portrayal of Joey Bagstock’s native servant in Our Mutual Friend. Also
merchant trading brought foreign sailors to England, some of whom settled in the ports of
Liverpool, Bristol and London. In addition, numbers of ex-servicemen, recruited
overseas, took up residence in these cities.
65
The rebellion had been sparked by the introduction of the Enfield rifle to the Benegal army in February
1857. In order to load the rifle the native soldiers (Sepoys) had to bite off the end of a greased cartridge.
Rumours spread the grease was made from pork and beef fat. Those Sepoys of the Muslim faith
considered pigs an abomination whilst the Hindus revered cows as being holy. The Sepoys, having
refused to carry out their orders on these grounds, were imprisoned and publicly humiliated, an act which
led to the rebellion. For full details of the rebellion see More, pp. 92-104.
66
More, p. 121.
102
References to Hinduism appear in four of Dickens’ books: Sketches by Boz, Pickwick
Papers, Dombey and Son and Our Mutual Friend. ‘The First of May’, which was
originally published on June 1836, and appeared in the Second Series of Sketches, refers
to ‘the doctrine of the transmigration of souls.’ 67 In Chapter XXX of the Pickwick
Papers,68 the contemporary term ‘Hindoo’ appears. In Chapter XXXIX of Dombey and
Son Dickens again refers to the transmigration of the soul. Five chapters later he alludes
to the Hindu custom of Sati (widows throwing themselves on the funeral pyres of their
deceased husbands which Parliament attempted to end with the Abolition of Sati Act
1829 and the Hindu Re-Marriage Act of 1856). 69 Finally in Our Mutual Friend, the term
‘Hindoo’ appears on several occasions.70
These references, particularly those two that relate to the transmigration of souls, one
of the key tenets of Hinduism, appear at the very inception of Victorian interest in
Hinduism. Their respective appearance in 1836 and 1848 demonstrates the extent of
Dickens’ religious curiosity and the up-to-date nature of his religious reading. The first
Boden Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Oxford, H. H. Wilson, was not appointed
until 1832. Chadwick, commenting on Hinduism, observed that it was not until 1847 that
one of the prominent Victorian Churchmen of the period, Frederick Denison Maurice,
deemed it appropriate to publish a short series of sermons called The Religions of the
World.71 The author also points out that Friedrich Max Muller, described by Beckerlegge
67
Dickens, Sketches, (Oxford), p. 171.
Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, p.410.
69
Dickens, Dombey, pp. 547, 615.
70
Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 79, 85.
71
Chadwick, (Part Two), pp. 35, 36.
68
103
as ‘the father of comparative religion’,72 did not begin publishing his six volume
translation of the sacred Hindu Rigveda text until 1849.73
In contrast to Hinduism, there appears to be only one reference in Dickens’ fiction to
Buddhism. Toward the end of the 1858 Household Words piece, ‘Our Honourable
Friend’, ‘the honourable member for Verbosity’ is described as being ‘a disciple of
Brahma in his youth and was a Buddhist when we had the honour of travelling with him a
few years ago.’74 This reference reflects Dickens’ up-to-date awareness of comparative
Victorian religion. Although Brian Hodgson, one of the period’s leading agents
responsible for the dissemination of information on Buddhist teaching, published a work
entitled Illustrations of the Literature and Religion of Buddhists in 1841, it was not until
two years later, following his return to England from Nepal, that he began the timeconsuming task of translating more than four hundred Sanskrit manuscripts. The
inauguration of the Buddhist Society of Great Britain and Ireland did not occur until
1907.
Dickens’ first allusion to Islam, in Oliver Twist, occurs at a very early stage of
Victorian interest in comparative religion.75 This reference will be discussed further at the
end of this section. Chronologically, the next reference to Islam appears in Barnaby
Rudge.76 Here, as in Oliver Twist, the word ‘Mussulman’ (a contemporary term for a
Muslim) is used by Dickens. Reference to the Koran, and the term ‘Mussulman’, also
appears in Dombey and Son.77 In terms of frequency, the most notable allusion made by
72
Wolffe, p. 179.
Ibid., pp. 36, 37.
74
Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, p. 565.
75
Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 350.
76
Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 164.
77
Dickens, Dombey, pp.170, 383.
73
104
Dickens to Islam is to be found in his Household Words article ‘The Thousand and One
Humbugs’. The piece, originally appearing on 21 April 1855, uses the name of ‘Allah’ on
six separate occasions, whilst the term ‘the prophet’ is also mentioned four times.78 In
‘Our Honourable Friend’, referred to previously with regards to Buddhism, the term
‘Koran’ again appears.79 Finally, in his Christmas story of 1859, ‘The Haunted House’,
the author refers to both ‘the Prophet’ and ‘Islam’.80 Interestingly Dickens, in his fictional
references to Islam, avoids the common mistake of his contemporaries, as noted by
Beckerlegge, of referring to Muslims as ‘Mohammedan’s or ‘worshippers of
Mohammed.’81
In contrast to Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam, Judaism is granted more prominence in
Dickens’ fiction. It is likely that this change of strategy was a result of his readers relative
familiarity with Jews.82 Judaism was the only comparative religion to appear in Mann’s
1851 Census of Religious Worship.83 Dickens’ portrayal of Judaism also differs from
Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam in that it reveals an aspect of Dickens’ personal belief.
As will be shown, Dickens used two of his positive Established Church clergymen, the
Reverend Stephen Hughes and Frank Milvey, to indicate his own degree of religious
tolerance.
Dickens’ portrayal of Judaism through characterisation falls into three distinct
categories. The first relates to Dickens’ reinforcement of the Jewish cultural stereotype.
The reference in Sketches by Boz to crowds of Jews swarming around coach passengers
78
Dickens, Miscellaneous pp. 247-257.
Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, p. 564.
80
Charles Dickens, Christmas Stories, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 247, 249.
81
Wolffe p. 226.
82
See Chapter Seven of Chadwick (Part One) for an excellent description of Jews within Victorian society.
83
Mann recorded fifty-three places of worship and 6,030 attendees on the census day.
79
105
in an attempt to persuade them to purchase various items is a good example of this, as is
his depiction of Jewish involvement in Private Theatres.84 In the Pickwick Papers this
style of representation continues with Dickens’ characterisation of Solomon Lucas, the
owner of the fancy-dress shop in Eatanswill High Street, and his description of pen-knife
salesmen.85
The second category relates to Dickens’ negative portrayal of Judaism. In Oliver
Twist, all three Jewish characters who appear - the notorious Fagin, Barney, and the
second-hand clothes dealer who betrays Oliver - are represented in a most unfavourable
light. Dickens, in writing to a disgruntled female Jewish correspondent in July 1863,
sought to differentiate his controversial representation of Fagin from Judaism.
Presumably he would apply the same argument to both his other negative Jews in Oliver
Twist.
I must take leave to say, that if there be any general feeling on the part of the
intelligent Jewish people, that I have done them what you describe as ‘a great
wrong’, they are a far less sensible, a far less just, and a far less good-tempered
people than I have always supposed them to be. Fagin, in Oliver Twist, is a Jew,
because it unfortunately was true of the time to which that story refers, that that
class of criminal almost invariably was a Jew. But surely no sensible man or woman
of your persuasion can fail to observe – firstly, that all the rest of the wicked
84
85
Dickens, Sketches, p. 50, 120,123,124.
Dickens, Pickwick, pp. 195, 198, 199, 490.
106
dramatis personae are Christians; and, secondly, that he is called a ‘Jew’, not
because of his religion, but because of his race.86
Dickens’ attempt to disconnect his representation of Fagin from Judaism is, within the
context of his letter, understandable. However, his argument is flawed to a degree.
Interestingly, by describing ‘the rest of the wicked dramatis personae’ in the novel as
being Christians, he exposes the weakness of his position. His readers would most
certainly not consider evil characters such as Sikes and Monks to be Christians. The
cultural connection between being English and Christian was not sufficiently established
to promote such a conclusion. However, such a connection was far more likely to exist in
his readers minds in relation to Jews and Judaism. Whilst it is certainly true that Dickens’
representation of the Jews in the above two categories was a cultural one, it was also
undeniably religious and racial.87
The final category in Dickens’ characterised depiction of Judaism concerns his
positive representation of the religion. Lord Gordon in Barnaby Rudge is the first of these
positive portrayals. Eight years after the Gordon riots, Dickens describes how on
returning to England from Holland, Gordon went to Birmingham where in August, he
made ‘a public profession of the Jewish religion; and figured there as a Jew until he was
86
Georgina Hogarth and Mamie Dickens (eds.), The Letters of Charles Dickens, London: Macmillan and
Co., 1893, p. 563.
87
For a more in-depth discussion of this issue see Murray Baumgarten, ‘Seeing Double: Jewish Isolation
in Oliver Twist and Our Mutual Friend’, Website: dickens. ucsc. edu /OMF /murray. html; Susan
Meyer; “Antisemitism and Social Critique in Dickens’ Oliver Twist,” Victorian Literature and Culture,
Vol. 33, Issue 1, 2005, pp. 239-252; Tara Macdonald, ‘Red-headed animal: Race, Sexuality and Dickens’
Uriah Heep’, Critical Survey, Vol. 17, No. 2, 2005, pp. 48-62; Bryan Cheyette, (ed.), Between Race and
Culture: Representations of the Jew in English and American Literature, Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1996.
107
arrested.’88 Until his death, in November 1793, he conformed ‘in all respects to the
ceremonies of his new religion.’ 89
Commenting on the reaction of Gordon’s fellow Newgate prisoners to his death
Dickens observes: ‘He had his mourners. The prisoners bemoaned his loss, and missed
him; for though his means were not large, his charity was great, and in bestowing alms
among them he considered the necessities of all alike, and knew distinction of sect or
creed.’90 Dickens’ message is clear: Gordon, the Protestant bigot who only a few months
prior to his conversion had to flee England as a result of an injurious, libellous pamphlet
he had written about the Roman Catholic queen of France, had become, as a result of
Judaism, a tolerant, charitable individual. Judaism, unlike Protestantism, had changed
him.
More interesting, though incorrect, is Jonathan Grossman’s claim that Dickens’ work
lacks a positive female Jewish character. 91 Grossman has overlooked the ‘beautiful
Jewish girl’92 found within Barnaby Rudge. The girl, along with his long-standing
servant, John Grueby, cares for Gordon during his imprisonment, and is commended by
Dickens for her virtuousness. Such was her integrity and reputation that, even in the
Newgate prison environment, her relationship with Gordon, still only a middle-aged man,
was ‘beyond the censure even of the most censorious.’93
In his last completed novel, Our Mutual Friend, Dickens again in his characterisation
of Mr Riah, and the mill owners who befriend Lizzie Hexam, portrays Judaism in a
88
Dickens, Barnaby Rudge, p. 629.
Ibid.
90
Ibid.
91
Jonathan Grossman, ‘The Absent Jew in Dickens’, Dickens Studies Annual, Vol. 24, 1986, pp. 37-59.
92
Dickens, Rudge, p. 629.
93
Ibid.
89
108
positive light. Riah, cunningly exploited by his employer Fledgeby who uses the stereotypical cultural representation of Jewish money lenders to disguise his own harsh
dealings with his clients, comes to the aid of Lizzie Hexam, one of Dickens’ ‘Female
Angels’. In view of her dilemma regarding the attentions of both Eugene Wrayburn and
Bradley Headstone, he arranges for her to leave London and take refuge with some of his
Jewish friends who employ her within their mill. In so doing, Riah, in his dealings with
Lizzie and Jenny Wren, transcends the cultural stereotype falsely assigned by his
employer. The theme, in common with Gordon, is the religious tolerance, fairhandedness and genuine benevolence of Judaism.
Dickens, having commended his representatives of Judaism for their religious
tolerance, uses two of his positive Established Church clergymen, Frank Milvey and
Stephen Hughes, to show how Christians should reciprocate tolerance toward them.
Lizzie Hexam, in conversation with the Reverend Frank Milvey and his wife Margaretta,
commends the Jewish friends of Riah for their kindness to her and their help in arranging
the Christian burial of Betty Higden. Lizzie, speaking of these Paper mill owners
concludes: ‘I think there cannot be kinder people in the world.’ Margaretta, concerned
that the Mill owners will attempt to convert Lizzie, urges her husband to speak to Lizzie
in the hope that he will persuade her to break off her relationship with them. 94 The
Reverend Milvey, contrary to his wife’s wishes, refuses to do so, intimating that there
was no shortage of prejudiced individuals who at some stage would do so. 95 Several
years earlier, in ‘The Shipwreck’, the opening piece of The Uncommercial Traveller, the
Reverend Stephen Hughes, receives a letter from ‘The Old Hebrew Congregation of
94
95
Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, pp. 516, 517.
Ibid.
109
Liverpool’ and a Jewish gentleman, commending him for his kindness and
conscientiousness toward them following their bereavement as a result of the sinking of
the ‘Royal Charter’. 96
Dickens’ depiction of Spiritualism, contrary to his positive depiction of Judaism,
represents the author’s most sustained criticism of any contemporary comparative
religious movement of the period. Religious tolerance is replaced by scathing rejection.
His fictional representations of Spiritualism and Mormonism clearly indicate his personal
conviction that both were pseudo-religious movements whose activities deceived those in
search of spiritual truth. Dickens’ animosity, in contrast to his less distinct representations
of Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam, can be partly traced to his relatively increased
exposure to Spiritualism and Mormonism as shown in his Christmas story, ‘The Haunted
House’ and his Uncommercial Traveller piece ‘Bound For The Great Salt Lake’.
Inspired by the purported supernatural experiences of the Fox sisters, which took place
in New York, in August 1848, the Spiritualist movement grew rapidly in the United
States. In ‘Rather A Strong Dose’, Dickens suggests that five years on there were 30,000
mediums in the United States, and by 1855 2.5 million spiritualists in the country.97 The
movement quickly took root in England.98 By 1852 the Victorian Spiritualist movement
had its very own journal, The British Banner. Five years later their voice was extended
through two more publications, the Spiritual Telegraph and the British Harmonial
Advocate. Larsen notes how the movement proved particularly attractive to the leading
96
Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, pp. 14, 15.
Dickens, Miscellaneous, p. 285.
98
Peter Lamont’s article, ‘Spiritualism and a Mid-Victorian Crisis of Evidence’, The Historical Journal,
2004, Vol. 47, No. 4, discusses Victorian London’s most celebrated medium, Daniel Dunglas Home, and
the connection between séance room phenomena and the popularity of Spiritualism.
97
110
freethinkers and secularists of the period including George Sexton, Robert Owen and
Alfred Russel Wallace.99
In ‘Stories For The First Of April’ (1857), Dickens drew on articles from January’s
edition of the British Harmonial Advocate, to lampoon the activities of the
Spiritualists.100 In the opening chapter of his 1859 Christmas Story, ‘The Haunted
House’, Dickens, through a conversation between the narrator and ‘a Rapper’, which
takes place during a train journey, again mocks the movement.101 Finally, in his
Miscellaneous Papers piece, ‘Rather a Strong Dose’, Dickens launches his most sustained
attack on ‘The Table-rapping cause’. In this piece Dickens vilifies the editor of the
British Banner, Doctor John Campbell, as well as a Mr Howitt who, having drawn on the
reflections of Campbell, published in 1862 a book on the subject of Spiritualism. Dickens
also mentions certain ‘transatlantic trance-speakers’ and provides details of a sceptical
All the Year Round investigation into a haunted house referred to in Howitt’s book.102
Mann’s 1851 Census of Religious Worship revealed that fourteen years after the first
Mormon missionaries arrived there were around 222 Mormon places of worship and
35,626 attendees at their services on census day.103 This figure, which exceeded the
number of Quakers, continued, according to Dickens, to grow considerably during the
1850s and 1860s. In his Uncommercial Traveller piece, ‘Bound For The Great Salt Lake’,
which details his visit to the Mormon emigrant ship ‘The Amazon’, Dickens estimated
the number of English emigrants aboard to be about eight hundred. In a footnote he refers
99
Larsen, Crisis of Doubt, pp. 109, 110.
Ibid., pp. 264-267.
101
Dickens, Christmas Stories, pp. 226-228.
102
Dickens, Miscellaneous, pp. 283-288.
103
Quoting J. F.C Harrison, The Second Coming: Popular Millenarianism 1780-1850 (1979) Ell and
Snell observe that they were initially successful in Lancashire, Yorkshire, the Staffordshire Potteries,
the Black Country, Herfordshire, Gloucestershire and London (p. 166, note 112).
100
111
to The Select Committee of the House Commons Report on Emigrant Ships dated 1854,
which recorded Mormon emigrant voyages taking place around ten years prior to the
publication of his piece. If there were only three sailings a year, each carrying the same
number as ‘The Amazon’, this would place the number of Mormons leaving the country
during that decade at twenty-four thousand.104 This figure would of course exclude those
who remained in England. 105
Dickens, in his first reference to Mormonism, which appears in American Notes,
refers to a woman who hears voices in the air: ‘“Well!” thought I, “it would be well if we
could shut a few false prophets of these later times, who have professed to do the same;
and I should like to try the experiment on a Mormonist or two to begin with.”’ 106 Later
on in the same book, Dickens alludes to ‘Mr Joseph Smith, the apostle of Mormonism
and his benighted disciples.’ 107 Towards the end of ‘Bound For The Great Salt Lake’
(The Uncommercial Traveller) Dickens questions the veracity of the Mormons ‘New and
Everlasting Covenant’.108 In the same piece he reflects on the fate of the departing
emigrants: ‘What is in store for the poor people on the shores of the Great Salt lake, what
happy delusions they are labouring under now, on what miserable blindness their eyes
may be opened then, I do not pretend to say.’109 Finally, in a letter written a year before
his death, he disparagingly writes: “The first shriek of the first engine that traverses the
104
Sanders, p. 46
estimates that some seventeen thousand British mormons emigrated between 1837-1851.
105
Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, pp. 220-232.
106
Charles Dickens, American Notes and Pictures From Italy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997,
p. 76.
107
Ibid., p. 249.
108
Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, p. 231.
109
Ibid., p. 232.
112
San Francisco Railroad from end to end will be a death warning to the disciples of Jo
Smith. The moment the Mormon bubble gets touched by neighbours it will break.’110
The final religious group to appear in Dickens’ fictional work was the
Swedenborgians (also known as the New Church). Inspired by the eighteenth century
Swedish scientist and theologian, Emanuel Swedenborg, The Swedenborg Society was
founded in London in 1810. The Census of Religious Worship shows that forty-one years
later they had fifty places of worship, and just over ten thousand attendees. Dickens’ first
recorded contact with the Swedenborgians is to be found in the contents of a letter dated
9 September 1841, in which Dickens thanked a representative of the Swedenborg Society
for sending him a translated version of Swedenborg’s A Treatise Concerning Heaven and
Hell. In writing, Dickens assures his correspondent that the book will receive ‘his most
careful and attentive consideration.’111 The cataloguing of Dickens’ library following his
death further revealed that he also possessed a copy of Swedenborg’s Life and Writings,
published in two volumes in 1867.
According to Ron Lampard, Dickens’ fictional representation of the Swedenborgians
(the New Church) is to be found in Hard Times.112 In his 1997 article ‘The New Church
in Hard Times’, Lampard proposes that the ‘New Church’ in Coketown, with ‘a stuccoed
edifice with a square steeple over the door terminating in four short pinnacles like florid
110
Hogarth and Dickens, p. 722. The letter referred to was written to a Mr Rushden on the 18 May, 1869.
For a further discussion on Dickens and the Mormons see Terryl Givens, The Viper on the Hearth:
Mormons, Myths and the Construction of Heresy, Oxford: Oxford university Press, 1997, pp. 66,52
58-59, 173. Also Deborah Wynne, in The Sensation Novel and the Victorian Family Magazine,
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan Ltd., 2002, comments on Dickens’ views of the Mormons in relation
to polygamy.
111
Madeline House and Graham Storey (eds.), The Letters of Dickens, 1840-1841, Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1969, Vol. II, p. 377.
112
Ron Lampard, ‘The New Church in Hard Times’, The Dickensian, Vol. 93, No. 442, 1997, pp. 109-115.
113
wooden legs’,113 is a meeting place of the Swedenborgians. Lampard further suggests that
the ‘New Church’ was based on an actual chapel situated in Avenham Road, Preston. Ell
and Snell note that the Swedeborgians were strongest in Lancashire,114 and Dickens had
visited the Lancashire town prior to writing Hard Times to gain inspiration for his
depiction of Coketown and industrial unrest. Lampard, based on his visit to the Avenham
Road Chapel, notes a striking resemblance between a portrait of Hugh Becconsall, the
financer of the chapel, and Dickens’ description of Thomas Gradgrind, which appears in
the opening page of the novel.115 He also connects Stephen Blackpool’s reminiscence of
‘the table of commandments at the altar with the sunlight shining upon them from
behind’116 with commandments on display at the chapel. Lampard also suggests that the
‘Old Hell’ mineshaft, into which Stephen Blackpool falls, can be considered as a
metaphor of the Swedenborgians doctrine of Hell. If Mr Bounderby, as the author
proposes, is a Swedenborgian, Dickens’ characterisation of him provides little to
commend the movement to his readers.
A careful reading of Dickens’ work provides the modern reader with an appreciation
of the religious diversity of the period and, in certain cases, insight into the author’s
beliefs. On a certain level, with one exception relating to Mr Brownlow, which is
discussed below, the references to Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam merely reflect the
growth of Empire, and the interest this generated. However, elsewhere, plurality is used
by Dickens to represent his core Christian values and to expose, what was in his view,
113
Dickens, Sketches by Boz and Hard Times, pp. 522, 523.
Ell and Snell, p. 162.
115
Lampard, p. 509.
116
Dickens, Sketches by Boz and Hard Times, p. 564.
114
114
spurious religion. The author’s original fictional reference to Islam in Oliver Twist
provides an excellent example of the former.
In one of the key scenes of the narrative: Nancy’s clandestine meeting with Rose and
Mr Brownlow on London Bridge, Mr Brownlow, in response to Nancy comparing Rose’s
kindness to her in contrast to the attitudes of ‘haughty religious people’, observes: ‘“A
Turk turns his face, after washing it well, to the East, when he says his prayers; these
good people, [the haughty religious people] after giving their faces such a rub against the
World to take the smiles off, turn with no less regularity, to the darkest side of heaven.
Between the Mussulman and the Pharisee, commend me to the first!”’117 The novel’s
‘Charitable Angel’ suggests that hypocritical Christianity, devoid of compassion and
charity toward those in need, is not true religion. This point is cleverly accentuated by
comparing such a religion to Islam.
In a similar way Judaism is used in Barnaby Rudge to depict Dickens’ opposition to
religious extremism, and promote his values of charity and tolerance. The dangers and
excesses of extreme religion are depicted in relation to those directly involved in the
Gordon riots and the Protestant Association. Conversely, the novel’s positive characters,
Gabriel Varden, Edward Chester, Mary Rudge and Joe Willett are all detached from
formalised religion. Whilst the book promotes a degree of sympathy for the Catholic
characters who are persecuted, the transformation of the novel’s leading protagonist,
Lord Gordon, results from his conversion to Judaism. Gordon’s newly acquired qualities
of charity and tolerance, exhibited within the context of Newgate prison, mirror both
Dickens’ own values and those he sought to promulgate through his fiction. As with
117
Dickens, Twist, p. 350.
115
Islam, in the previous example, the author suggests that Judaism is preferential to a false
form of Christianity which promotes sectarianism and intolerance.
Dickens’ criticism of Mormonism and Spiritualism reveals both a limit to his religious
tolerance and a personal adherence to a degree of Christian orthodoxy. Although, as
discussed in Chapter One, Dickens’ views on the Old Testament were far from orthodox,
he retained a fundamental belief in the person of Christ and perceived these pseudoreligions to be opposed to this. The author describes both Mormonism and Spiritualism
disparagingly, and seeks to reveal, what he believes to be, the deceptive nature of each.
Certainly the influence of Mormonism on the labouring classes and the uneducated, as
reflected in the author’s description of the emigrants aboard the Mormon ship in ‘Bound
For The Great Salt Lake’, concerned Dickens.118 Interestingly, unlike the other religions
discussed in this section, including the Swedenborgians, there are no references to either
Mormonism or Spiritualism in his novels, although, with the exception of Judaism, they
appear more frequently. The reason for this is unclear. Perhaps it reflects Dickens’ wish
to marginalise them.
Dickens’ fictional representation of early Victorian Christianity
The next section of this chapter focuses on the three broad expressions of early-midVictorian Christianity: the Established Church, Dissent and Roman Catholicism; and
Dickens’ early fictional depictions of each.
118
Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, pp. 227-230.
116
The Established Church
Frances Knight suggests that during the course of Dickens’ lifetime the Established
Church ‘underwent a transformation more rapid, dramatic and enduring than any which it
had experienced since the Reformation.’119 In essence the author argues that as a result of
several factors the Established Church moved from being the Church of the nation to a
denomination.120 If this dramatic shift toward denominational status did indeed take
place, then as Ell and Snell note, the Church, based on the 1851 Census of Religious
Worship, was numerically by far the most important denomination.121
To give ‘some sense of the massive weight of the Established Church’s presence’122
within early Victorian society, Burns provides a comparison between the number of
active magistrates and the number of clergy.123 (It is not clear whether the author allows
for the fact that a considerable number of clergymen were also magistrates). In 1831 the
number of registered magistrates in the English counties and boroughs was just below
five thousand six hundred whilst the number of clergy in 1835 (the year that the ‘Our
Parish’ sketches first appeared) was in excess of eleven thousand six hundred.124
In his representation of the Established Church, Dickens did not concern himself with
detailed descriptions of the content of church services, or with the formularies and
doctrines of the Church, or the various controversies which embroiled the Church, all of
119
Knight, p. 1.
Knight identifies these factors as being the change in the Anglican character of Parliament [caused by
the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts (1828), the Catholic Emancipation Act (1829) and the
admission of Jews in (1858)]; the cessation of government funds for church building; the reform of the
Municipal Corporations in 1835; the implementation of the Civil Registration Act in 1837 and the
abolition of the compulsory church rate in 1868 (p. 201).
121
Ell and Snell, p. 54.
122
Arthur Burns, The Diocesan Revival in the Church of England 1800-1870, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1999, p. 1.
123
It is not clear whether the author allows for the fact that a considerable number of clergymen in the
1830s were also magistrates.
124
Ibid.
120
117
which were familiar to his readership. Rather, as the remainder of this section details, he
focused upon the pastoral performance of the clergy. In keeping with Dickens’ creative
strategy for communicating his personal beliefs, both positive and negative
representations of clergy are to be found in his early work. These will be examined both
within the context of the contemporary perception of the Church; and, in the case of
Dickens’ positive representations, in relation to Chadwick’s ecclesiastical history.
Following on from this the factors which impinged upon parochial effectiveness will be
considered with reference to Dickens’ depiction of ‘The Curate’ in ‘Our Parish.’
‘The Curate’, ‘Our Parish’,125 is the original member of a select group of Established
Church clergy commended by Dickens for their conscientious fulfilment of their pastoral
responsibilities toward the poor and those in need. The details of this clergyman’s
charitable actions are discussed in the next chapter of this thesis. The other members of
this select group are: the village clergyman in Part III of Sunday Under Three Heads, the
‘Dingley Dell’ clergyman in The Pickwick Papers, the Reverend Stephen Roose Hughes
and his brother Reverend Hugh Robert Hughes in ‘The Shipwreck’ (Uncommercial
Traveller), ‘the chief clerical dignitary’ in ‘Our English Watering Place’ (Uncommercial
Traveller), Frank Milvey in Our Mutual Friend (described by Oulton as being Dickens’
‘model clergyman) 126 and Septimus Crisparkle in The Mystery of Edwin Drood. In
Dombey and Son, Dickens also makes an anonymous reference to the ‘good clergyman
who visits the dens of the poor.’127 Of these the Hughes brothers are of particular interest
on account of their being actual clergymen whose faithful ministrations to the family and
He originally appeared in the Evening Chronicle series of sketches entitled ‘Sketches of London’, May
1835.
126
Carolyn Oulton, Literature and Religion in Mid-Victorian England from Dickens to Eliot, Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan Ltd., 2003, p.153.
127
Dickens, Dombey, p. 647.
125
118
friends of the victims of the ‘Royal Charter’ shipwreck were recorded, at first hand, by
Dickens.128 In keeping with his portrayal of his ‘Angels’, Dickens depicts the positive
activities of his clergymen as taking place beyond the confines of church buildings.
Dickens’ representation of parish clergymen who conscientiously fulfil their pastoral
responsibilities toward the poor mirrors other literary works of the period. Thackeray’s
‘Our Street’ (1848), offsets the faults of his clergymen against their conscientious
treatment of the poor. In Mary Russell Mitford’s Our Village the curate is commended
for his conscientious pastoral work, whilst the Reverend Mansfield and his wife are
described as loving the poor.129 George Crabbe in ‘The Parish Register’ (1807),
commends Doctor Grandspear for his kindness to the poor and, in ‘The Borough’ (1810),
‘The Vicar’ and ‘The Curate’ are both commended for their piety and faithful service.130
John Clare in his The Parish: A Satire, praises a former clergyman as ‘one whom the
wretched and the poor knew best […] And while he had it they near wanted bread His
chiefest pleasure charity possest in having means to make another blest.’131
Examples of Dickens’ fictional model clergy were also to be found within the
contemporary church. The Reverend George Martin, who for thirty-one years faithfully
ministered in the parish of St. Breward, Cornwall, raised the living standards of the
poorest parishioners through the building of schools and improved sanitary conditions;
The Reverend Edward Girdlestone, in the North Devon parish of Halberton opposed the
exploitation of local agricultural labourers and arranged for them to move to Somerset
where rates of pay were higher; and the Reverend Robert Elrington, vicar of Lower
128
Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, pp. 13-17.
Mary Russell Mitford, Our Village, London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1936, pp. 9, 125, 226.
130
A. J. Carlyle and R. M. Carlyle, (eds.), The Poetical Works of George Crabbe, London: Oxford
University Press, 1932, pp. 80, 117–119.
131
John Clare, The Parish, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd., 1986, pp. 71, 72.
129
119
Brixham in Devon for thirty-four years, dealt with a cholera epidemic in the parish
almost single-handedly. He subsequently sacrificed his own health in attempting to deal
with an outbreak of scarlet fever.132
But equally Dickens also reflected in his early work the period’s negative perception
of the Established Church through his clerical representations. In his overview of the
condition of the Established Church in 1833, Bowen makes reference to contemporary
negative public attitudes toward the church at that time.133 Benlow, in relation to the
preceding decade, wrote of the ‘prevailing immorality among the clergy.’134 In 1820 one
of the most vehement attacks on the Established Church appeared in the notorious Black
Book. Written by the Benthamite, radical journalist, John Wade, the book sought to
expose jobbery and corruption throughout all of society, including the Established
Church. In its pages Wade castigates the clergy for acting as ‘ministers of the government
rather than ministers of the Gospel.’135 With reference to the Reverend William Tiptaft,
whose letter of secession to the Bishop of Salisbury in 1831 quickly sold three thousand
copies and was subsequently published in eight editions, Carter notes that some of the
clergyman’s provocative objections to the practices of the Church coincided with
Wade’s. 136
In Wade’s eyes the typical establishment cleric was ‘rapacious, insolent and luxurious,
having no fear of God before his eyes; neglectful of his spiritual concerns, waging
increasing war against liberty, knowledge and humanity; exerting all his influence to
132
Chadwick, (Part Two), pp. 153, 176-178.
Bowen, p. 5.
134
William Benlow, Crimes of the Clergy or The Pillows of Priest-Craft Shaken, 1823, p. 4.
135
John Wade, Black Book or Corruption Unmasked, 1820, p. 320.
136
Carter, p. 287.
133
120
promote tyranny and enslave and debase his fellow creatures.’137 Eleven years later
Wade, on a similar theme, published The Extraordinary Black Book.
Sketches by Boz, Sunday Under Three Heads, Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist and
Sketches of Young Couples all contain members of the clergy who, in accordance with
J. L. and L. B. Hammond’s observation, ‘never allowed their religious duties to interfere
with the demands of scholarship or of pleasure.’138 The first ever clergyman to appear in
Dickens’ fictional work baptizes Frederick Kitterbell. Due to dining some distance from
town, he only spends ‘about five minutes’ on the ceremony. He has also arranged to
conduct two churchings, three christenings, and a funeral, in less than an hour.139 The
Reverend Charles Timson, (in the Sketches by Boz piece, ‘A Passage in The Life of Mr
Watkins Tottle - Chapter the Second’) instructs his uncle’s servant to inform any
parishioners who call that he is not to be disturbed. When Gabriel Parsons enquires
whether this is due to Timson preparing his sermon, he is told that the clergyman is
practising his violin-cello in his bedroom.140
In the first part of Sunday Under Three Heads, Dickens describes ‘a fashionable
London church’ in which the demands of pleasure take precedence over religious
observance: ‘Here is a fashionable church, where the service commences at a late hour,
for the accommodation of such members of the congregation – and they are not a few- as
may happen to have lingered at the Opera far into the morning of the Sabbath; an
excellent contrivance for poising the balance between God and Mammon, and illustrating
137
Ibid., p. 320.
J.L.and L.B Hammond, The Village Labourer 1760-1832, London: 1927, p.193.
139
Dickens, Sketches, p. 476. The clergyman in question appears in a sketch entitled ‘The Bloomsbury
Christening’, which originally appeared in the Monthly Magazine in April 1834.
140
Dickens, Sketches, p. 463.
138
121
the ease with which a man’s duties to both may be accommodated and adjusted.’141 Not
surprisingly, the clergy who preside over such a congregation are heavily criticised by
Dickens: ‘The clergyman enters the reading-desk - a young man of noble family and
elegant demeanour, notorious at Cambridge for his knowledge of horse-flesh and
dancers, and celebrated at Eton for his hopeless stupidity.’142 The church’s second
clergyman, ‘the sleek divine’, ‘in a voice kept down by rich feeding’, preaches a twelve
minute sermon containing the ‘most comfortable doctrines’.143
In Pickwick Papers one of Mr Pickwick’s fellow-prisoners in the Fleet Debtors’
Prison is ‘a drunken chaplain’.144 Oliver Twist contains a description of a clergyman
who, after being an hour late for a pauper’s funeral, compresses the service into four
minutes.145 As with Dickens’ positive depiction of the Reverend Stephen Hughes and his
brother in ‘The Shipwreck’, this particular individual was drawn from life.146 The ninth
sketch from Sketches of Young Couples (1840), ‘An Egotistical Couple’, describes the
Reverend Silverstone and his wife as being ostentatious hypocrites.147 Chapter LII of
The Old Curiosity Shop, whilst providing a more sympathetic account of the village
clergyman who acquiesces to Mr Marton’s request to shelter Nell and her grandfather,
still questions his pastoral competence.148
141
Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, p. 640.
Ibid.
143
Ibid.
144
Dickens, Pickwick, p. 591.
145
Dickens, Twist, pp. 37, 38.
146
Stone provides an interesting anecdote connected with this incident. In his article he recalls a
conversation in which Dickens informed him that the actual clergyman upon whom he had based his
account had written to him claiming that such things never took place. Marcus Stone, ‘Some
Recollections of Dickens’, The Dickensian, Vol.6, January, 1910, pp. 62-63.
147
Dickens, Sketches, p. 592.
148
Dickens, Old Curiosity Shop, p. 316. ‘He was a simple-hearted old gentleman, of a shrinking, subdued
spirit, accustomed to retirement, and very little acquainted with the world, which he had left many years
before to come and settle in that place. His wife had died in that house in which he lived, and he had
long since lost sight of any earthly cares or hopes beyond it.’
142
122
This section concludes by considering, with reference to ‘The Curate’ in ‘Our Parish’,
the factors which compromised parochial performance. In many parishes across the
country, as with Dickens’ fictional parish, the clergyman who owned the living was nonresident. This, in part, was due to plurality (the practice of clergy holding more than one
living). Ell and Snell report that ‘in 1812 a Parliamentary enquiry had found that there
were 4,813 incumbents who were non-resident [...] Six years later, only forty per cent of
parishes had resident clergy. Substantial reforms had taken place by 1850 [including the
Plurality Acts of 1838 and 1850] but still well over a thousand beneficed clergy were
non-resident.’149
In situations where the incumbent was non-resident, curates would be appointed by
the absent clergyman to carry out his parochial responsibilities, usually at appallingly low
wages.150 Therefore, parishes situated in some of the neediest areas of Dickens’ London
were understaffed and run by clergy who, in most cases, despite the Stipendiary Curates
Act (1813) and Consolidation Act (1817), shared the financial needs of many of their
parishioners. Ell and Snell note that at the time ‘Our Parish’ appeared, just prior to the
1837 inauguration of two specific societies aimed at financially assisting curates (the
Evangelical Church Pastoral Aid Society and Additional Curates Society), ‘about a third
of clergy were at, or below, what might be termed a contemporary poverty line.’151
Dickens reinforced the popular image of the impoverished curate elsewhere in his
work. In David Copperfield we have the penurious Devonshire curate the Reverend
Horace Crewler; and Frank Milvey, in Our Mutual Friend, is described as living in ‘a
149
Ell and Snell, pp. 84, 85.
The First Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Consider the State of the Established Church,
1835, Table IV, pp. 346, 347, revealed that the average stipend of the 4, 224 curates who did the work
of non-resident incumbents was £81.00 per year.
151
Ell and Snell, p. 90.
150
123
very modest abode, because his income was a very modest income.’152 We also read that
‘he was under the necessity of teaching, and translating from the classics to eke out his
scanty means.’153 Also the other curate to appear in Sketches by Boz, Mr Timson, is
described by another character, Gabriel Parsons, as being, in the words of the ‘old joke’,
‘bred for the church, which I fear will never be bread for him.’154
The non-residency of the ‘Our Parish’ incumbent could be linked to his holding
additional livings elsewhere.155 Alternatively, it could be as a result of health concerns for
himself and his family. Also, as Lord Henley’s 1832 ‘Plan for Church Reform’ revealed,
4,809 livings had no habitable residents for the parish clergy.156
Of the three broad expressions of early-mid Victorian Christianity the Established
Church has, by far, the highest profile in Dickens’ early fiction.157 This is partly due to
the natural increased use of the Established Church in connection with christenings,
marriages and funeral’s.158 Also, as previously discussed, the London focus of Dickens’
early work reflected the relative geographical strength of the Established Church of the
period. Dickens’ early fictional representation of the Established Church reveals much
about the essence of his own beliefs.
152
Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, p.103.
Ibid.
154
Dickens, Sketches, p. 437.
155
Brooks and Saint suggest that the high levels of plurality within the Established Church was caused by
the ‘number of poor or unpropriated benefices’ (p. 3). Hastings Robinson, in Church Reform in
Christian Principles, London: 1833, identified 4,361 benefices with incomes of less than £150 per year.
156
Bowen, pp. 9, 10.
157
Sketches by Boz – The Old Curiosity Shop has thirteen clergymen compared with two Dissenting
ministers and no Catholic priests. This pattern is repeated with reference to the relative number of
Established Church services which appear. Whilst only two Dissenting services appear (one in Sunday
Under Three Heads and one in The Old Curiosity Shop) there are, in Sketches by Boz, Sunday Under
Three Heads, Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist, collectively at least four times this number of
Established Church services. There are no references to Roman Catholic services.
158
Examples include, ‘The Bloomsbury Christening’ (Dickens, Sketches, p. 476); the marriage of Miss
Willis in ‘The Four Sisters’ (Dickens, Sketches, p. 16) and the pauper’s funeral (Dickens, Oliver Twist,
pp. 37, 38).
153
124
Those qualities highlighted in his positive clergymen: the charity and the concern for
the well being of the poor demonstrated by ‘The Curate’, the country clergyman in
Sunday Under Three Heads and the Dingley Dell clergyman (Pickwick Papers), and the
conviviality of the latter, are very much in keeping with the elements of his own
Christianity which he sought to communicate through his ‘Charitable Angels.’ It is within
the broader context of their parish ministry, rather than within the confines of church
services, that their genuine Christianity is expressed. It is not their words from the pulpit,
liturgical utterances or prayers that confirm their faith, but rather it is their treatment and
compassion for the poor and needy in their care. In the same way, as will be discussed in
the next chapter, Dickens uses the seating arrangements of his parish church, services and
the attitudes of church-goers to highlight his belief that one of the key responsibilities of
the Christian Church was to care for the poor. Dickens’ fictional depiction of the
Established Church will be further explored later in this chapter with reference to his
depiction of the Papal Aggression of 1851.
Dissent
The significant growth of Dissent represented one of the most distinct changes in the
Victorian religious landscape.159 The 1851 Census of Religious Worship sensationally
revealed that only an 8 per cent gap existed between the attendances recorded for the
Established Church and the varying Dissenting denominations.160 Chadwick described
As will be shown this growth was primarily within the ‘Evangelical’ and ‘New’ Dissenting
denominations.
160
According to the Census, 4,536,264 people attended Dissenting Chapels on Census day (30 March,
Mothering Sunday) compared with 5,292,551 attendees at Established Church services. For an excellent
discussion of the Census of Religious Worship see Owen Chadwick (Part One), pp. 363-369.
159
125
this finding as ‘a landmark in the history of England.’161 Several factors contributed to
the relative strengthening of Dissent. The repeal of the Test and Corporation Act (1828)
and the reform of the Municipal Corporations (1835) allowed Dissenters to assert
political influence. Larsen for example notes that Sir James Graham’s 1843 Factory Bill,
which proposed to place the control for the education of the young into Anglican hands,
was defeated by the influence of Dissent.162
Whereas the Established Church struggled to retain its traditional hold on the newly
urbanised population the rural exodus seems to have acted as a catalyst of growth for
Dissent.163 Briggs observes that attendance by Dissenters made up more than 50 per cent
of total church and chapel attendances in Bradford, Leeds, Oldham, Wolverhampton and
Sheffield.164 Brooks and Saint note that the appeal of ‘Evangelical Dissent’ was toward
those connected with manufacturing and commerce rather than to those associated with
the land.165 The term ‘Evangelical Dissent’, also used by other modern commentators,
including Carter and Larsen,166 specifically relates to Baptists and Congregationalists,
two Dissenting denominations directly influenced by the Evangelical Revival. Along
with Mcleod, Brooks and Saint also observe of the first part of the nineteenth century that
Dissent particularly attracted artisans and white collar workers instead of those from the
lower reaches of the working population.167
161
Chadwick, (Part One), p. 368.
Larsen, Contested Christianity, p. 146.
163
Ell and Snell note that ‘All the religious measures show the Established Church doing less well in urban
areas, particularly in growing industrial towns’ (p. 80). Burns, however, contests this point when he
suggests that Anglican attendance grew faster than that of Dissent in larger towns between 1821 and
1851 (p. 5).
164
Briggs, p. 68.
165
Brooks and Saint, pp. 4, 5. This point is not universally accepted. For example Ell and Snell claim that
no clear connection existed between urban locations and Baptist strength (p. 107).
166
Carter, pp. 22, 23; Larsen, p. 146.
167
Hugh Mcleod, ‘Reviews of Religion in Nineteenth-Century Britain’, Journal of British Studies,
162
126
Larsen accredits the remarkable upsurge of the Baptists and Congregationalists
(‘Evangelical Dissent’), also noted by Carter,168 to their adoption of Evangelicalism: ‘The
most important internal change in the life of these denominations in the late eighteenth
century and early nineteenth century was their embracing of evangelicalism. The
dynamism of the evangelical movement is the principal reason for the remarkable
numerical growth that the Congregationalists and Baptists enjoyed during this period.’ 169
Ell and Snell in their analysis of Victorian Dissent use two broad terms ‘Old’ and
‘New.’170 Their method of classification is based on the differentiation of the historic
Dissenting denominations [Presbyterians, Independents (Congregationalists), Baptists,
Quakers and Unitarians]171 from those denominations, primarily Methodist, which were
inspired by the Evangelical Revival. As with Evangelical Dissent, it is within these
‘New’ Methodist denominations,172 directly linked with the Revival, that substantive
growth and spiritual influence is most evident.
The leading ‘New’ denomination, indeed the leading Dissenting denomination, was
the Wesleyan Methodist Original Connexion. Despite the numerous Wesleyan schisms
173
by the time of the Census of Religious Worship the denomination had 6, 579 places of
Vol. 38, Part 3, 1999, p. 387; Brooks and Saint, pp. 4, 5.
Carter, pp. 22, 23.
169
Larsen, Contested Christianity, p. 146.
170
These two terms are used as the chapter headings of Chapter Three and Four of their work.
171
In keeping with the comments made with reference to ‘Evangelical Dissent’ the authors note that the
Independents and Baptists were the strongest of the ‘Old’ Dissenting denominations. See Ell and Snell,
pp. 102, 105.
172
According to Ell and Snell, the ‘New’ Dissenting denominations were: the Wesleyan Methodist
Original Connexion, the Wesleyan Methodist New Connexion, the Primitive Methodists, the Calvinstic
Methodists, Lady Huntingdon’s Connexion, the Wesleyan Methodist Association, the Wesleyan
Reformers, the Independent Methodists, the Bible Christians, the Moravians and the New Church
(p. 121).
173
At the time of the Census of Religious of Worship there were three specific other Wesleyan
denominations: the Wesleyan Methodist New Connexion, Wesleyan Methodist Association
and Wesleyan Methodist Reformers. These last two merged in 1857. In addition, the second largest
Methodist denomination, the Primitive Methodists, had its origins in Wesleyan Methodism.
168
127
worship and over 1.5 million attendees. The second largest ‘New’ denomination, the
Primitive Methodists, had by comparison 2,871 places of worship and just over half a
million attendees. As previously referred to Dickens, in his Household Words piece, ‘Out
of Season’ (June 1856), alludes to the high numbers of Methodist chapels in
Broadstairs.174
Compared with the Established Church, Dissent has a reduced fictional profile in
Dickens’ early fictional work. This may well be linked to the London-based focus of the
author’s work. Ells and Snell, along with Chadwick, note that the regionalised strength of
the Established Church was in London and the southern counties.175 In contrast
Chadwick, commenting on Dissent in general, observes that its strength lay in the
manufacturing towns of the North and the Midlands.176 Cunningham, in his authoritative
work on Dissent in the Victorian novel, states that ‘if culture means the tone of the centre
and specifically of London then most dissenters could be written off as uncultured for
Dissent was most strong in the North, and in Wales.’ 177
Ell and Snell note that ‘New’ Dissent ‘had much less presence in central and southern
England.’178 They also add that contrary to the general trend, three ‘Old’ Dissenting
denominations, the General Baptists of the New Connexion, the Particular Baptists and
the Independents (Congregationalists), had a relatively strong presence in the southern
counties and London.179
174
Dickens, Miscellaneous Papers, p. 44.
Ells and Snell, p. 168; Chadwick, (Part One), p. 368.
176
Chadwick, (Part One), pp. 368, 369.
177
Valentine Cunningham, Everywhere Spoken Against: Dissent In The Victorian Novel, Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1975, p. 67.
178
Nell and Snell, p. 168.
179
According to the authors the Independents (Congregationalists) were popular in patches across Southern
England especially in Essex and in north-east London; the General Baptists were strong in Kent and the
Particular Baptists in London. See Nell and Snell, pp. 99, 100, 106, 107.
175
128
Despite these geographical factors Dickens’ early fictional work provides a useful
insight into contemporary Dissent and the author’s perception of it. In ‘The Dancing
Academy’ (Sketches by Boz), Augustus Cooper, who lives in London, attends ‘Bethel
Chapel’.180 On two further occasions Dickens used this non-denominational specific
name in connection with London Dissenting chapels. At the ‘General Agency Office’
Nicholas Nickleby overhears a conversation regarding a vacancy for a cook. One of the
conditions stated by the employer, Mrs Wrymug, is that the successful employee attends
a ‘Little Bethel Congregation’ every Sunday.181 ‘Little Bethel’ is also the name of the
chapel attended by Kit’s mother in The Old Curiosity Shop. (The minister at Kit’s
mother’s chapel is based on an actual Baptist clergyman known to Dickens who presided
at Goodman’s Field Chapel in Whitechapel). Dickens also neglects to identify the
denominational affiliation of the two remaining chapels to appear in his early fiction, ‘the
small close chapel’ in Sunday Under Three Heads and the chapel which Job Trotter
attends in the Pickwick Papers.182
Dickens was to use the same approach of denominational anonymity in his later work.
In ‘George’s Silverman’s Explanation’ (All the Year Round, February 1868), the chapel
where Brother Hawkyard and Brother Gimblet reside is referred to as belonging to an
‘obscure denomination.’183 He also adopted a similar strategy with regards to his
Dissenting ministers. In ‘City of London Churches’ (All the Year Round May 1860), no
attempt is made to identify the denominational allegiance of Boanerges Boiler.184 In the
180
Dickens, Sketches, p. 257.
Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 187.
182
In Sunday Under Three Heads Dickens omits to identify the denominational identity of ‘a small close
chapel with a white-washed wall, and plain deal pews.’ Also Job Trotter attends an anonymous chapel in
Ipswich. See Dickens, The Uncommercial Traveller, p. 641; and Dickens, Pickwick, p. 319.
183
Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, p. 733.
184
Ibid., pp. 83, 84.
181
129
case of Chadband (Bleak House), Dickens states that ‘he is attached to no particular
denomination.’185 The reason for this approach is not clear. It may have been due to
Dickens’ lack of detailed knowledge of individual denominations, and how they differed.
Alternatively, his general purpose was to expose religious hypocrisy, cant and what he
considered to be religious extremism, rather than the practices and beliefs of any
particular Dissenting denomination.
By applying Ell and Snell’s analysis of the relative geographical strengths of varying
Dissenting denominations it is, however, possible to speculate about the identity of
Dickens’ various early fictional denominational references. The four London chapels
(‘The Dancing Academy’, Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop and Sunday
Under Three Heads) may be either Independent (Congregationalist) or Particular Baptist;
whilst the chapel which Job Trotter attends in Ipswich could be Independent
(Congregationalist).186 The identity of Emmanuel Chapel in Pickwick Papers will be
discussed shortly.
Although Dickens’ approach may have resulted from his lack of detailed knowledge
of individual denominations, and how they were differentiated, it is, I would suggest,
more likely that it was linked to his desire to satirise Dissent in general rather than
specific denominations. In his early work the varying degree of the severity of this satire
is apparent. The link between Augustus Cooper, who is shown to be both gullible and
naïve in his dealings with Signor Billsmethi’s daughter, and Dissent is nothing more than
a subtle inference that these same failings may have influenced his choice of religion.187
185
Charles Dickens, Bleak House, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 260.
Ell and Snell, pp. 99, 100, 106, 107.
187
Dickens, Sketches, pp. 250-261. The chapel reference appears on page 257.
186
130
The choice of the name Wrymug, in connection with a person who insists that their
servants attend chapel three times on a Sunday, is little more than comic satire.188
The link between Job Trotter, the roguish accomplice of Alfred Jingle, and a
dissenting chapel in Ipswich189 represents, along with the depiction of Mrs Nubble’s
minister,190 a more severe satirical attack. However, Dickens’ harshest criticism of what
he considered to be the worst excesses of Dissent appears in his second published work,
Sunday Under Three Heads. Having scathingly depicted a ‘fashionable Established
Church’191 the author turns his attention to ‘a less orthodox place of religious worship.’192
The sour solemnity of the women and the lank, hollow faces of the men in the
congregation, are, Dickens suggests, indicative of a ‘stronghold of intolerant zeal and
ignorance.’ At the conclusion of a hymn the preacher, ‘a coarse, hard-faced man’ enters
the pulpit. Just before he preaches ‘he delivers an extempore prayer, in which he calls
upon the Sacred Founder of the Christian faith to bless his ministry, in terms of
disgusting familiarity not to be described.’193
Following on from this, in his description of the sermon delivery, Dickens goes out of
his way to identify the preacher with the popularised excesses associated with religious
enthusiasm.
He begins his oration in a drawling tone [...] He grows warmer as he proceeds
with his subject, and his gesticulation becomes proportionately violent. He
188
Dickens, Nickleby, p. 187.
Dickens, Pickwick, p. 319.
190
Dickens, Old Curiosity Shop, pp. 246-249.
191
Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, p. 640.
192
Ibid., p. 641.
193
Ibid.
189
131
clenches his fists, beats the book upon the desk before him, and swings his
arms wildly about his head [...] working himself up to a pitch of enthusiasm
amounting almost to a frenzy, he denounces Sabbath-breakers with the direst
vengeance of offended Heaven. He stretches his body half out of the pulpit,
thrusts forth his arms with frantic gestures, and blasphemously calls upon the
Deity to visit with eternal torments those who turn aside from the word, as
interpreted and preached - by himself.194
The exception to Dickens denominational anonymity is to be found with reference to
Methodism. Although, even here a degree of ambiguity still exists. Despite Kent’s and
Pope’s claim that Dickens’ representations of Dissent were primarily drawn from the
eighteenth-century, and because of this Dissent meant Methodism, 195 there are only three
references to the Methodists in Dickens’ early work. The first, in ‘The Bloomsbury
Christening’ (Sketches by Boz), is in connection with the satirical villain ‘Nicodemus
Dumps’ who provides considerable financial support for ‘two itinerant Methodist
parsons’.196 This particular reference could equally apply to any of the five Methodist
denominations which existed at the time the sketch was written.197
In Dombey and Son, Mrs Miff the pew-opener, in conversation with Sownds the
beadle, refers to the ‘Wesleyans.’198 At the time of the book’s publication (1848) there
194
Ibid., pp. 640, 641.
William Kent, Dickens and Religion, London: Watts & Co., 1930, p. 18; Norris Pope, Dickens and
Charity, London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1978, pp. 38, 39.
196
Dickens, Sketches, p. 467.
197
The five denominations are the Wesleyan Methodist Original Connexion, the Wesleyan Methodist New
Connexion, the Primitive Methodists, the Wesleyan Methodist Association and the Independent
Methodists.
198
Dickens, Dombey, p. 804.
195
132
were three specific Wesleyan Methodist denominations.199 Also Dombey and Son
contains Dickens’ one unambiguous reference to a specific Methodist denomination. In
describing the discredited Reverend Melchisdech Howler as belonging to the ‘Ranting
persuasion’200 he clearly identifies him as being a Primitive Methodist. The urban
London setting of Dickens’ reference is noteworthy in that, as Ell and Snell observe,
Primitive Methodism was primarily associated with rural locations. 201
The denominational identity of ‘Emmanuel Chapel’, Dorking (Pickwick Papers),
home to the notorious religious hypocrite Stiggins, is somewhat uncertain. Although
Tony Weller, in conversation with his son, describes his wife, who has been attending the
chapel and fallen under the influence of Stiggins, as ‘getting rather in the Methodistical
order lately’,202 it is by no means definite that the chapel is affiliated to any particular
Methodist denomination. During the conversation in which the term ‘Methodistical’
appears, Mr. Weller Senior makes reference to the Evangelical salvational phrase ‘born
again’, which was popularised during the Evangelical Revival of the late eighteenth
century through which he would have lived. The Wesley brothers, founders of
Methodism, were synonymous with this revival.
It is therefore reasonable to suggest that Mr Weller’s comment was not an indication
of the Methodist identity of Emmanuel Chapel, but rather an internalised association of
its practices with the Evangelical Revival. In addition, Ell and Snell in their Chapter on
‘New Dissent’ do not refer to any of the various Methodist denominations being
199
The Wesleyan Methodist Original Connexion, the Wesleyan Methodist New Connexion and the
Wesleyan Methodist Reformers.
200
Dickens, Dombey, p. 207.
201
Ell and Snell, p. 142.
202
Dickens, Pickwick, p. 297.
133
particularly strong in Surrey.203 In contrast, according to Mann’s Census of Religious
Worship, the Dissenting denomination with the most significant presence in Surrey was
the Congregationalists.
A careful study of Dickens’ work also reveals his familiarity with the visperous and
diverse nature of contemporary Dissent. Ell and Snell calculate that if ‘other isolated
congregations’ were included about seventy sects and denominations named in the 1851
Census of Religious Worship had not existed in 1700.204 For example the census
identified nine separate Methodist denominations.205 Oulton links this upsurge in
Dissenting sects ‘with the desire to get belief right even to the fine detail.’206 In Hard
Times, written three years after the 1851 census, Dickens refers to the presence of
eighteen separate religious persuasions in Coketown.207
Representative of the more exotic Dissenting sects of the period, the Catholic
Apostolic Church, who fervently proclaimed the imminence of the millennial reign of
Christ, are referred to in The Uncommercial Traveller.208 At the time of the census the
Church was shown to have thirty congregations and nearly six thousand communicants.
In 1831, some years prior to the Uncommercial Traveller, Dickens, in the front of a book
belonging to Maria Beadnell, wrote a poem entitled ‘The Devil’s Walk’, which includes a
derisory verse on the London chapel under the pastorate of the charismatic friend of
Thomas Carlyle, Edward Irving, from whom the popularised name of the Catholic
203
Ell and Snell, Chapter Four, pp. 121-168.
Ibid., p. 404.
205
As identified in Chapter Four of Nell and Snell’s work these denominations were the Wesleyan
Methodist Original Connexion, the Wesleyan Methodist New Connexion, the Primitive Methodists, the
Calvinistic Methodists, Lady Huntingdon’s Connexion, the Wesleyan Methodist Association, the
Wesleyan Reformers, the Bible Christians and the Independent Methodists.
206
Quoting Brian Spittles, Godless Women, (1993), Oulton, p.12.
207
Dickens, Sketches by Boz and Hard Times, p. 522.
208
Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, p. 60.
204
134
Apostolic Church, the Irvingites, was derived.209 Also, Dickens, whilst living in
Tavistock Square, lived next-door to the Established Church clergyman, John Cardale,
who was to become the first ‘apostle’ of the Irvingite church.210 In ‘Mrs Lirriper’s
Legacy’, Dickens’ Christmas Story of 1864, there is also a reference to the Plymouth
Brethren.211
Dickens’ early fictional representation of Dissent is far from favourable. Unlike their
Established Church counterparts, there are no positive Dissenting ministers. In fact, Mr
Taylor, the only commendable minister to appear in his books, is not the product of the
author’s imagination, but an individual who presided at a chapel in Boston attended by
Dickens on his first visit to America in 1842.212 Stiggins (Pickwick Papers) and Mrs
Nubble’s minister (The Old Curiosity Shop), the only two Dissenting ministers that do
appear, are the prototypes of all of Dickens’ subsequent negative fictional minister
portrayals.213
Stiggins is a blatant religious hypocrite who champions the cause of temperance
whilst having a partiality for rum.214 He also selfishly abuses his position to gain
influence over female members of his congregation, including Susan Weller, who, in her
capacity as landlady of the ‘Marquis of Granby’, regularly supplies him with hospitality
and drink. The minister in The Old Curiosity Shop, who holds an unhealthy sway over
Kit’s mother, reckons himself to be a ‘Divine’, and is disparagingly represented by
209
Cunningham, p. 197. Although not specifically identified by Cunningham or Dickens himself, the
chapel was either the Caledonian Chapel in Hatton Garden or a chapel situated in Regent Square.
210
For a more detailed analysis of the Catholic Apostolic Church see Carter, Chapter V.
211
Dickens, Christmas Stories, p. 417.
212
Dickens, American Notes, pp. 57-59.
213
Melchisdech Howler (Dombey and Son), Chadband (Bleak House) and Verity Hawkyard and Brother
Gimblet ‘George Silverman’s Explanation’ (All the Year Round 1868 and reproduced in Reprinted
Pieces.
214
Melchisdech Howler, the ‘Ranting’ (Primitive Methodist) in Dombey and Son, loses his job as a result
of helping himself to drink.
135
Dickens as a type of the period’s uneducated Dissenting minister (he is a shoemaker by
trade).215 His lack of spirituality is comically exposed by his attack on Kit Nubbles, who,
having entered the chapel to fetch his mother in an attempt to help Nell, is accused by the
minister of being Satan. Meanwhile, the novel’s villain, Daniel Quilp, sits unnoticed by
the preacher in the congregation. The minister not only fails to recognise good but is
oblivious to evil.216
Dickens’ concerns about Dissent, as expressed through these two ministers, and their
subsequent incarnations, centred on what he perceived to be their harmful influence and
exploitation of the impressionable and uneducated classes, particularly women. Susan
Weller is an excellent example of this.217 Job Trotter’s connection with Dissent in the
Pickwick Papers 218and Quilp’s presence among the Little Bethel congregation support
this view. Dickens does not, however, attack the tenets or beliefs of Dissent. Indeed, it is
only the extreme elements which attract his displeasure. In a sense, as with his negative
portrayal of the Established Church clergy, and those in ‘Our Parish’ who neglect the
poor, Dickens is more interested in exposing false religion than any particular movement
or denomination.
Roman Catholicism
Representations of Roman Catholicism are, with the exception of the historical novel
Barnaby Rudge, absent from Dickens’ early fictional work. This omission represents an
accurate picture of the peripheral nature of Catholicism during this period. Sketches by
215
Dickens, Old Curiosity Shop, p. 247.
Ibid., pp. 247-250.
217
Tony Weller, in his conversation with his son, reveals that just prior to her death his wife acknowledged
the detrimental effect of her religion (Dickens, Pickwick Papers, pp. 732, 733).
218
Dickens, Pickwick Papers, p. 319.
216
136
Boz, Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby and The Old Curiosity Shop
were all completed prior to the mass London Irish Catholic immigration. In 1835, when
‘Our Parish’ and most of the Sketches were written, there were only 423 Roman Catholic
churches and chapels in the whole of England; when Nicholas Nickleby was first
published this figure had only increased by thirty. By the time of the1851 Census of
Religious Worship the total number of churches and chapels had risen to 570.
Although The Times, on the 3 January 1854, expressed amazement at the relatively
low number of Roman Catholics recorded in Mann’s Religious Census, 219 the figure of 4
per cent of the total church and chapel attendees in England and Wales actually
represented an upturn in Catholic fortunes. Brooks, in describing the state of the Church
at the beginning of the nineteenth century writes: ‘The numbers of ‘Old Catholics’
remaining at the beginning of the nineteenth century were small, their social and cultural
life marginalised. Years of being on the receiving end of prejudice and discrimination had
installed self-effacement and insularity.’220 The prominent Victorian Churchman, John
Henry Newman,221 in his Synod of Oscott sermon of July 1852, made a similar
observation of Roman Catholicism in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries: ‘No
longer the Catholic Church in the country; nay no longer, I nay say, a Catholic
community – but a few adherents of the Old Religion, moving silently and sorrowfully
about, as memorials of what had been,’222
In Barnaby Rudge, set in the 1770s, Dickens, in his description of Geoffrey
Haredale’s manor house, provides a wonderful allegory of the state of the eighteenth219
Chadwick, (Part One), p. 367.
Brooks and Saint, pp. 12-13.
221
Newman, a key member of the Oxford Movement who, in 1845, seceded to Roman Catholicism, was
eventually made a cardinal.
222
Alec Vidler, The Church in an Age of Revolution, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd., 1971, p. 43.
220
137
century English Catholic Church. 223 Belonging to the novel’s principal Catholic
character, the neglected, dilapidated state of the house, which is in obvious contrast to its
former state, and the general melancholic sense it pervades is much in keeping with
Brooks and Newman’s views of the Catholic Church of the period.
The pathway, after a very few minutes’ walking brought him [Joe Willet]
close to the house, towards which and especially towards one particular
window, he directed many covert glances. It was a dreary, silent building,
with echoing courtyards, desolated turret-chambers, and whole suites of
rooms shut up and mouldering to ruin. The terrace garden, dark with the
shade of overhanging trees, had an air of melancholy that was quite
oppressive. Great iron gates, disused for many years, and red with rust,
drooping on their hinges and overgrown with long rank grass, seemed as
though they tried to sink into the ground, and hide their fallen state among the
friendly weeds. The fantastic monsters on the walls, green with age and
damp, and covered here and there with moss, looked grim and desolate. There
was a sombre aspect even on that part of the mansion which was inhabited
and kept in good repair, that struck the beholder with a sense of sadness; of
something forlorn and failing, whence cheerfulness was banished. It would
have been difficult to imagine a bright fire blazing in the dull and darkened
rooms, or to picture any gaiety of heart or revelry that the frowning walls shut
in. It seemed a place where such things had been, but could be no more – the
223
Michael Wheeler, in The Old Enemies: Catholic and Protestant in Nineteenth Century English Culture,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, overlooks the following passage and instead refers to
the opening section of Chapter XXXVII of Barnaby Rudge (p. 111).
138
very ghost of the house, haunting the old spot in its old outward form, and
that was all.224
In contrast, in the same Synod of Oscott synod sermon, Newman used the term
‘Second Spring’ to describe the newly found optimism of the contemporary Victorian
Roman Catholic Church. The completion in July 1848 of Pugin’s St. George’s Cathedral
in Southwark was a visual representation of the changing fortunes of English
Catholicism. Whilst its plans, announced by Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman on 7 October
1850, to inaugurate thirteen bishoprics in England and Wales, including Westminster,
demonstrated its growing confidence. The remarkable animosity of the public’s response
to this announcement, which was popularised by the term ‘Papal Aggression’, clearly
signalled that its renaissance was not universally welcome. Giebelhausen, for example,
connects the media’s criticism of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in general and John
Everett Millais’ ‘Christ in the House of His Parents’ in particular, with Catholicism and
anxieties over Papal Aggression.225 At the end of the chapter Dickens’ fictional portrayal
of the Papal Aggression will be considered.
Two factors in particular were responsible for this resurgence. The first factor was the
controversial Catholic Emancipation Act passed by Wellington’s Tory government in
April 1829.226 Brooks summarises its impact as not only lifting legally imposed
disabilities, - prior to this Act Roman Catholics could not sit in either Houses of
Parliament or occupy military, judicial or administrative offices - but also changing the
224
Dickens, Rudge, pp. 101, 102.
Giebelhausen, pp. 102, 103.
226
Sir Robert Peel’s involvement with the Act cost him his parliamentary seat.
225
139
personality of Catholicism in England, and bringing the Church, and its adherents into the
mainstream of religious activity.227
The second factor was the emigration to England of thousands of French, Scottish and
Irish Roman Catholics. For example, between 1841 and 1851, an estimated 400,000 Irish
Catholic immigrants entered England. By 1851, no less than 3 per cent of the population
of England and Wales was born in Ireland; and this statistic took no account of babies
born in England to Irish parents. Initially the Irish immigrants, living in appalling
conditions, settled in Liverpool and Manchester.228 After this they moved south and
settled in large numbers in both Birmingham and London. At the time of the 1851 census
it was estimated more than 500,000 people born in Ireland lived in the slums of these four
cities. Ell and Snell estimate that in the same year the total number of Catholics resident
in England was between 800,000 and one million.229
The christianization of the urban poor and labouring classes
The greatest challenge that confronted the Established Church, Dissent and Roman
Catholicism in Dickens’ London, and the other cities and new manufacturing towns
throughout the country, was how to reach the poor and labouring classes.230 On the day of
the Census of Religious Worship, Mothering Sunday, 30 March, 1851, there were over
5.25 million people who did not attend either church or chapel.231 Mann, in his
227
Brooks and Saint, pp. 12, 13.
The Census of Religious Worship in 1851 showed that in Liverpool the Roman Catholic share of total
church and chapel attendance was 30 per cent. In Manchester it was 20 per cent.
229
Ell and Snell, pp. 102, 103.
230
For an excellent discussion on the recent challenge to the previously held assumption of the causal
relationship between urbanisation and secularization see the final chapter of Ell and Snell’s work.
231
The degree of reliability of Horace Mann’s Religious Census has been questioned. For example, shortly
after Mann published his final report on 3 January, 1854, a heated debate took place in Parliament
regarding his findings. This debate became popularly known as ‘The Arithmetic War’. An excellent
228
140
explanatory discourse on the census findings, concluded that it was the urban poor and
the labouring classes who formed this vast multitude of absentees. His view is
corroborated by a variety of other contemporary sources including Dickens.
In 1832, nineteen years prior to Mann’s Census, the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry
estimated that only 2.5 per-cent of the total population of his mainly urban diocese
attended Communion services within his parish churches.232 Gilbert, reporting on urban
areas nationally, describes how, ‘between 1801 and 1831 the proportion of the population
aged fifteen and over taking communion on Easter Sunday, in urban locations, slid from
10 per cent to just over 7 per cent.’233 In 1840, Mozley, writing in the British Critic,
estimated that from three quarters to nine-tenths of the whole urban lower classes were
not church-going.234
Mann’s conclusion was also supported by the experiences of the Established clergy
ministering in the poorest areas of London. Reverend W. W. Champneys, one of the
capital’s leading Evangelical clergyman, found on his arrival at his new Whitechapel
parish that only a handful of people came to Sunday worship; whilst only sixteen people
attended his first monthly service of Holy Communion.235 The Reverend Bryan King,
had, in the early 1840s, a similar experience in his parish of St. George-in-the-East
description of the census methodology and its associative problems can be found in Chadwick, (Part
One), pp. 363-369. Despite these concerns, in general terms the census results, and Mann’s conclusions,
represent an accurate reflection of Victorian religious affairs. Ell and Snell’s work contains an excellent
statistical analysis of the census findings.
232
Chadwick, (Part One), pp. 4-5.
233
Alan D. Gilbert, Religion and Society in Industrial England: Church, Chapel and Social Change, 17401914, London: 1976, pp. 98–101.
234
British Critic, 1840, XXVIII, p. 346.
235
Bowen, p. 290.
141
where, from a population of 30,000 parishioners, only around fifty to sixty worshippers
attended services in the parish church.236
Ell and Snell summarise the varying explanations for the absenteeism. ‘The arguments
varied, but they included the views that urban parochial supervision was relatively
ineffective, that a sense of religious community was destroyed by industrial cities, that
urban churches and sittings were inadequate to demographic requirements, that nonagricultural employment was inimical to religious belief and fostered more secular forms
of class organisation, and that the pluralistic environment and diverse ideas available to
town inhabitants militated against steadfastly held other doctrines.’237
Dickens, in his fictional observations of church and chapel attendance, both confirms
the absence of London’s labouring classes and the poor and contrasts this with their rural
counterparts. Only ‘five old men and six old women’ attend the ‘Our Parish’ church
service.238 In Dombey and Son, commenting on the church where Florence and Walter
are to be married, he observes: ‘It was a great dim, shabby pile, with high oaken pews,
among which about a score of people lost themselves every Sunday.’239 In Hard Times,
Dickens, in his description of Coketown, writes:
First, the perplexing mystery of the place was, who belonged to the eighteen
denominations? Because, whoever did, the labouring people did not. It was
very strange to walk through the streets on a Sunday morning, and note how
few of them the barbarous jangling of bells that was driving the sick and
236
Chadwick, (Part One), p. 497.
Ell and Snell, p. 395.
238
Dickens, Sketches, p. 35. In the same passage ‘the innumerable children in the free seats’ are
inmates of the workhouse, and as such were there under compulsion.
239
Dickens, Dombey, p. 792.
237
142
nervous mad, called away from their own quarter, from their own close
rooms, from the corners of their own streets, where they lounged listlessly,
gazing at all the church and chapel going, as at a thing which they had no
manner of concern.240
Chapter III of Little Dorrit refers to the church bells that have caught Arthur
Clennam’s attention whilst seated in a coffee-house in the Ludgate Hill area of London:
At the quarter, it went off into a condition of deadly-lively importunity,
urging the populace in a voluble manner to Come to church, Come to church,
Come to church! At the ten minutes, it became aware that the congregation
would be scanty, and slowly hammered out in low spirits, They won’t come,
they won’t come! At the five minutes, it abandoned hope, and shook every
house in the neighbourhood for three hundred seconds, with one dismal swing
per second, as a groan of despair.241
‘City of London Churches’(The Uncommercial Traveller) contains Dickens’ most
concentrated observation of low urban church attendance: ‘As I stand at the street corner
I don’t see as many as four people at once going to church, though I see as many as four
churches with their steeples clamouring for people.’ The narrator attends three separate
church services and on each occasion comments on the meagre congregation: ‘About
240
241
Dickens, Sketches by Boz and Hard Times, p. 523.
Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 29.
143
twenty people are discernible’; ‘as a congregation we are fourteen strong’; and ‘the
exceedingly sparse congregation’.242
By contrast, the rural parish churches which appear in his early fictional work seem
well patronised by the local poor. In Sunday Under Three Heads (1836) Dickens writes
of a small village parish church service: ‘Groups of people - the whole population of the
little hamlet apparently - were hasting in the direction of the church.’ 243 The theme of
high levels of rural church attendance is continued in Chapter XXXII of Oliver Twist and
Chapter LV of The Old Curiosity Shop.244
Brooks and Chadwick’s social explanation for the contrasting levels of church/chapel
attendance among the urban and rural poor supports Dickens’ fictional representation.
Brooks identifies the eroding effect of urban migration on traditional rural social relations
and work patterns which normalized formal religious observance as a probable cause.245
Similarly Chadwick observes that ‘in the countryside the tradition of the community and
the social might of squire and parson, usually held the parishioners to a minimum of
religious duty. In the industrial city there was no squire and parson, no tradition, no
community […] So far as the Churches and Chapels possessed the allegiance of the
working class of England and Wales they lost that allegiance when the country labourer
became the town labourer.’246
Ell and Snell, however, sound a note of caution regarding this assumed connection
between urbanisation and secularisation. ‘The view that “urbanisation” or a growing
proportion of the population living in towns and cities, adversely affected religious belief
242
Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, pp. 85, 87, 90.
Ibid., p. 658.
244
Dickens, Twist, p. 239; Dickens, Curiosity Shop, p. 333.
245
Brooks and Saint, p. 1.
246
Chadwick, (Part One), p. 325.
243
144
and attendance in the in the nineteenth century was for a long time considered almost
axiomatic among historians [...] This view [however] has been thrown into doubt in the
last decade or so.’ 247 McLeod also acknowledges a shift in recent research toward
‘discounting the assumption that there was a close association between urbanization and
secularization and to give more serious attention to the religious beliefs of nonchurchgoers.’248 Having in mind Watts’ work, The Dissenters, Volume Two: The
Explanation of Evangelical Nonconformity (1995), Mcleod goes on to argue that the
extent of working-class religious alienation in the period 1791-1859 has been greatly
exaggerated.249
Clark describes the urgency of the response of the Victorian Church to rectify the
situation: ‘All religious denominations engaged with ever-increasing zeal in the attempt
to re-convert England, churches and chapels were built, missions despatched, revivals
staged; what was spent on that work in the way of human effort and sacrifice and for that
matter of financial expenditure, is one of the really important facts of English history of
the nineteenth century.’250 These extraordinary efforts, though primarily spiritually
motivated, were, as noted by Bowen and Knight,251 also fuelled by genuine societal
concerns, shared by Dickens,252 about social unrest and the possibility of urban class
warfare. In 1848, for example, (popularly known as the year of revolution in Europe)
there were riots in Liverpool and other large towns across in England. In London, which
Ell and Snell, pp. 395, 396. The authors then cite Callum Brown’s, ‘Did urbanization secularize
Britain?’, Urban History Yearbook, 1988, as a notable example of the re-examination of the relationship
between secularisation and urbanisation.
248
Hugh McLeod, ‘Reviews of Religion in Nineteenth-Century Britain’, Journal of British Studies, Vol. 38,
Part 3, 1999, p. 387.
249
Ibid., p. 396.
250
Clark, p. 284.
251
Bowen, pp. 250-261; Knight, p. 63.
252
More, p. 30.
247
145
was filled with troops under the command of Wellington, the authorities barricaded
bridges, garrisoned the Bank and prepared the Houses of Parliament for an expected
siege.
One London based Church initiative, specifically designed to reach the poor and
labouring classes, was described by Dickens in ‘Two Views of a Cheap Theatre’.253
Within this Uncommercial Traveller piece Dickens describes his visit to a special church
service at the Brittania Theatre in London.254 The service, which was organised by the
United Committee for the Special Services, was specifically designed to reach the urban
lower classes of London. Following the introduction of Shaftesbury’s Religious Worship
Act in 1855, which permitted the Established Church to conduct special services outdoors
and in non-consecrated buildings, the United Committee for the Special Services and
representatives from the London City Mission, began, on 1 January 1860, to hold evening
meetings in five separate London theatres.255 By February the number had increased to
seven.
Although Dickens noted that ‘the lowest part of the audience’256 were absent, the
services, in general, did prove successful.257 By the end of the first year the seasonal
aggregate attendance exceeded 250,000, and by the end of the second season, they had
held 326 services with an aggregate attendance of 537,000. This figure does not include
those who attended the contemporaneous services sponsored by various Dissenting
denominations, which, it is estimated, attracted similar numbers. It is, therefore, probable
253
Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, pp. 29-39.
Dickens attended the service on the 29 January, 1860.
255
The theatre initiative was inspired by the success of Spurgeon’s services at Exeter Hall and Surrey
Music Hall, and the special services at Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s.
256
Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, p. 37.
257
Dickens, for example, does confirm that the ‘lower part of the audience’ were present at the Victoria
Theatre special services. Ibid.
254
146
that during this period, each Sunday evening, no fewer than 50,000 people were attending
a special theatre service in London.
Bowen argued that the Established Church, having realised that it lacked the necessary
resources to reach the urban masses,258 adopted a strategy through which it sought to
instil in the middle classes a sense of social and spiritual responsibility for the poor. 259
This ‘Osmosis Process’ was very much in line with Mann’s census conclusion that a
generation of ‘living agents’ were needed if the urban masses were to be reached. 260
Bowen, in assessing the effectiveness of the process described it as being ‘the greatest
accomplishment of the Victorian Church’,261 a view shared by Clark: ‘Through their
acceptance of middle-class virtues, which reflected Christian values, the English workers
joined with their social superiors in the revival of religion in Victorian England.’ 262
Dickens’ education of his readership regarding the appalling conditions endured by
the poor, and his use of ‘Charitable Angels’ (discussed in Part Two of this thesis) to
demonstrate how they could make a real difference to the lives of the urban lower classes,
was very much in line with the ‘Osmosis Process’. I will be arguing that his use of
characters such as Mr Pickwick, Mr Brownlow and Charles Cheeryble to show how
Christianity could be applied within a broader social context also contributed to the
process.
258
Bowen, p. 6.
Ibid., p. 290.
260
Chadwick, (Part One), p. 367.
261
Bowen, p. 258.
262
Clark, p. 140.
259
147
The Papal Aggression
Dickens’ fictional representation of the Papal Aggression, one of the leading
ecclesiastical controversies of the period, provides an excellent example of how he
portrayed contemporary religious affairs whilst projecting his own personal Christian
position. In his excellent satirical Household Words piece, ‘A Crisis in the Affairs of Mr
John Bull as Related By Mrs Bull to the Children’,263 Dickens uses the public furore
surrounding Cardinal Wiseman’s papal announcement to tap into the popularised view
that an element within the Established Church promoted Roman Catholic practices.
The piece, dated 23 November 1850, appeared at the height of anti-Catholic feeling.
Guy Fawkes Day, fuelled by the controversy, was marked by demonstrative anti-popery
public reaction. As Chadwick observed, ‘the latent and historic prejudices of the English
people had risen to the surface.’264 At Salisbury, following a torch-light parade, effigies
of the proposed new Roman Catholic bishops were burnt in the presence of a huge crowd.
At Ware an effigy of Wiseman was hung and burnt in front of an angry crowd. In Fleet
Street, effigies of the bishops, including one that was sixteen-feet high, were paraded and
burnt. One of the worst acts of violence was committed at Cheltenham on 22 November,
when a mob burnt an effigy of the Pope outside a Roman Catholic chapel, following
which it smashed the chapel windows.
At Birkenhead, two hundred and fifty policemen needed the aid, not only of seven
hundred special constables but also of two companies of the 52nd Regiment, to protect a
Roman Catholic priest who, against advice, insisted on wearing his habit in the streets,
263
264
Dickens, Miscellaneous, pp. 180–185.
Chadwick, (Part One), pp. 293, 294.
148
and as a result was assaulted.265 Far from seeking to dampen the public furore, the
Bishop of London, for the first time in centuries, actually instructed his clergy to preach
controversial sermons on the subject.266
However, as Chadwick correctly points out, ‘Wiseman had not only put Catholic
chapels in peril but unwittingly caused an upsurge of English feeling against the disciples
of the Oxford Movement.’267 Queen Victoria, in her personal correspondence with the
Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, observed, in response to Wiseman’s pastoral letter,
‘that she had long ago learnt to treat Roman Catholicism with tolerant justice and fear
Puseyites.’268 It was her belief that the real danger arose, not from the Pope, but from the
enemy within the Established Church. In response, Russell quoted the words of Dr.
Thomas Arnold: ‘I look upon a Roman Catholic as an enemy in his uniform; I look upon
a Tractarian [a more dated term for the Puseyites] as an enemy disguised as a spy.’269
Russell, in addition to expressing his anti- Puseyite feelings privately, provoked
further public antipathy by granting permission to the Bishop of Durham to publish his
private letter on the subject of Wiseman’s papal pronouncement.270 Within the letter
Russell states: ‘There is a danger, however, which alarms me much more than any
aggression of a foreign sovereign. Clergymen of our own church have been most forward
in leading their flocks, step by step, to the very verge of the precipice.’271 The last
allusion was taken from the Bishop of London’s charge at the end of October, in which
265
Ibid., pp. 294, 295.
Ibid.
267
Ibid., p. 296.
268
By the end of 1837 the adherents of the Oxford Movement were popularly known as Puseyites. See
Chadwick, (Part One), p.168. This term was based on the name of one of the movement’s most
prominent members, Dr E. B. Pusey.
269
Ibid., pp. 296, 297; A. P. Stanley, The Life and Correspondence of Dr. Arnold, First Edition, Vol. II,
p. 280.
270
The letter was dated 7 November 1850.
271
Chadwick, (Part One), p. 297.
266
149
Blomfield, not only denounced the aggression of the papists, but the insidious imitations
of Rome lately introduced into Anglican worship.272
When the Bishop of London, in response to the Papal Aggression, brought a charge
against sympathising Romanisers within his diocese in response to the Papal Aggression,
it was assumed by the public and the press that his accusation was directed toward the
Reverend W.J. E. Bennett. Bennett, who had previously been the curate-in-charge of St.
Paul’s, Knightsbridge,273 was appointed vicar of St. Barnabas, a new church consecrated
in 1850 to serve the poor districts within the Knightsbridge area. Revered by his
parishioners for his devoted and able ministry, Bennett had, prior to the Papal
Aggression, already been censored by his bishop for Puseyite practices. The argument
between the two culminated in Bennett threatening to secede to Roman Catholicism just
three months before Wiseman’s papal proclamation.
As a result of Blomfield’s charge and its publicised connection with Bennett, St.
Barnabas became the focal point of London-based public reaction to the suggested
Roman Catholic infiltration of the Established Church. On 10 November the church was
filled with a curious crowd. Following the service a small minority of the congregation
shouted out anti-popery comments. These having been reported in the press produced an
outrage a week later. When, on the Sunday, the church was full, a crowd numbering
several hundred and expressing their opposition to Popery and Puseyism gathered
outside. The crowd threatened to pull the church down and attempted to break in, but
were repelled by a strong body of police. Following this Bennett received death threats,
was abused in the streets, and had his house laid siege to. The services at St. Barnabas
272
273
Ibid., pp. 295, 296.
Ironically, Lord John Russell, and his wife both attended St. Paul’s and it was their contribution, along
with those of other wealthy subscribers, that financed the building of St. Barnabas.
150
continued to attract opposition. On 16 November Blomfield called on Bennett to resign,
as he had threatened in July. By mid-December Bennett’s resignation was one of the
main topics of public conversation as, according to the Times, it was to be the first open
step toward making secure the Protestantism of the Church of England.274 Bennett
subsequently succumbed to pressure and left St. Barnabas for a parish in Frome,
Somerset.
Dickens’ wonderful piece ‘A Crisis in the Affairs of Mr. John Bull as Related By Mrs.
Bull to the Children’ appears against this background. Adopting his customary satirical
style, Dickens was able, not only to provide a commentary on the events in London, but
also to express his own personal suspicion of Puseyism. As discussed in Chapter One,
Dickens disliked the Puseyites, and the ‘High’ church practices which he believed they
encouraged. In the piece, the Bishop of London, C. J. Blomfield, appears as ‘C. J.
London’, the son of Mr and Mrs Bull; whilst ‘Little John’, his brother, in his fierce
rebuttal of Papal Aggression, bears a strong resemblance to Lord John Russell.
Towards the beginning of the piece Mrs Bull chastens C. J. London for failing to heed
the warning of his parents not to play ‘with candles and candlesticks.’275 [These would
have been recognised by Dickens’ readers as symbols of Puseyism]. In an attempt to
defend himself C. J. begins by saying ‘“Because the rubric [...]” Mrs. Bull interrupts him:
“Don’t talk to me about the Rubric, or you’ll make it worse!” “Just exactly what the
Rubric meant then, it means now.” [This was a direct reference to the Ornaments Rubric
contained in the Prayer book of 1549, which the Puseyites used to justify their use of
vestments, altar candles and candlesticks and other ornaments. Indeed, the Privy Council
274
275
Chadwick, (Part One), pp. 301-303 for full details of the Bennett incident.
These would have been recognised by Dickens’ readers as being symbols of Puseyism.
151
judgment several years later, in 1857, seemed to justify their position]. Mrs Bull goes on
to say: “If there were any candles and candlesticks in the spirit of your lesson-book,
Master Wiseman would have been my boy and not you!” Here, Master C.J. London fell
a-crying more grievously than before sobbing, “Oh, Ma, Master Wiseman with his red
legs, [the uniform of a cardinal] your boy! Oh, oh, oh! ” Mrs. Bull then describes the
Puseyites as being ‘sentimental girls, and dandy boys!’276
Dr. E. B. Pusey (after whom the Puseyites were named) in the guise of Pussy - the
stray cat adopted by the Bull family - also features in the piece. ‘Mr. Bull, lashing out
again, the more violently than before, upset the fender, knocked down the fire-irons,
kicked over the brass footman, and, whisking his silk handkerchief off his head chased
the Pussy on the ring chain out of the room into the passage, and so out of the street-door
into the night; [this refers to the public outcry over the Papal Aggression, and the events
that took place at St. Barnabas] the Pussy having (as was well known to the children in
general) originally strayed from the Bulls of Rome into Mr. Bull’s assembled family.’
Returning to the person of Pusey later in the piece, Mrs. Bull chastens C.J. London for
encouraging ‘that mewling little Pussy, when it strayed here […]’ “Hold your tongue […]
Now that your father has turned that Pussy out of doors go on with your exercise like a
man.”’277 Here Dickens is alluding to Blomfield’s action against Bennett, and other
Puseyite clergy in his diocese.
Although Dickens’ fictional representation of Victorian religiosity is far from
exhaustive,278 it nonetheless provides the modern reader with a historical perspective of
276
Dickens, Miscellaneous p. 181.
Ibid., pp. 182, 184, 185.
278
The noticeable omissions include the notorious Denison case (1853-8), a leading Established Church
controversy which excited considerable interest. The Surplice Riots of 1845 and 1849, and the
277
152
the period’s religious landscape. Very much in the background of Dickens’ work, the
material within this chapter, highlighted in this context for the first time, demonstrates the
multi-layered nature of the author’s religious content. At one level, as in the case of the
church/chapel building programme, religion merely forms part of the realistic backdrop
of his narrative. On another level, his representation of religious plurality, with reference
Judaism, Mormonism and Spiritualism, and the ‘Papal Aggression’, reveals elements of
his personal beliefs. Whilst, with his positive Established Church clergymen, Dickens
sought to actually communicate his Christian values to his readers. In essence the author
acts as religious commentator, critic and, with reference to his own convictions,
evangelist. These roles are also apparent in the next chapter’s discussion of ‘Our Parish’.
most notorious of Newman’s Oxford’s Tracts, Tract XC (1841). Also the other leading Established
Church controversy, The Gorham Case (1849-1850), receives only the briefest of mentions in a
Household Words article, ‘From the Raven in a Happy Family’ (Dickens, Miscellaneous, p. 229).
153
CHAPTER THREE: OUR PARISH
‘Our Parish’ epitomizes both the content of Dickens’ fictionalized personal beliefs and
his adopted strategy for communicating those beliefs to his readers. Written when he was
only twenty-three years old, the material found in these seven sketches, which form the
opening section of his first book, contain the pattern the author was to adopt in expressing
his religious views throughout his writing career. 1 Dickens’ use of critical commentary
within the context of an early Victorian suburban London parish exposes the neglect of
the poor on a parochial level. His conviction that the Church was responsible for the care
of the poor on a corporate and individual level is further highlighted through the
contrasting treatment they receive from a series of parishioners. Dickens’ original
‘Angel’, ‘The Old Lady’, (based on the author’s Chatham childhood recollection of Mary
Ellen Newnham) also appears, as do the ‘Female Angelic’ themes of atonement and selfsacrifice. In addition, Dickens provides the modern reader with an accurate historical
account of an early 1830s London suburban parish.
In passing into the superbly crafted early Victorian suburban parish so familiar to
Dickens’ original audience, the modern reader enters an authentic historical setting in
which characters and narrative combine to provide Dickens’ original and enduring
fictional expression of his Christian convictions. In view of the synoptic value of ‘Our
1
The sketches, with the exception of ‘Our Next-Door Neighbour’, which was added for the Second Series
of Sketches by Boz, (1837), first appeared between January and August 1835 in the Evening Chronicle
series ‘Sketches of London’. In chronological order, the sketches, denoted as chapters, were ‘The
Beadle-The Parish Engine-The Schoolmaster’ (28 February 1835), ‘The Curate-The Old Lady-The
Captain’ (19 May 1835), ‘The Four Sisters’ (18 June 1835), ‘The Election for Beadle’ (14 July 1835),
‘The Broker’s Man’ (28 July 1835) and ‘The Ladies’ Societies’ (20 August 1835). The only title alteration
Dickens made when they appeared in Sketches by Boz was to change ‘The Captain’ to ‘The Half-Pay
Captain’. The original edition of Sketches by Boz, with illustrations by George Cruikshank, was first
published in two volumes in February 1836 by the London based publisher John Macrone. In Dickens’
lifetime there were five further editions printed.
154
Parish’ and the significance of the seminal representations it contains, it is surprising that
those who have written on the religious aspect of Dickens’ work have overlooked it.
Chronologically, Charles McKenzie, in The Religious Sentiments of Charles Dickens
(1884), makes only one brief reference to ‘Our Parish’ when he erroneously concludes
that ‘The Curate’ is of no importance.2 No references appeared to ‘Our Parish’ in either
Kent’s Dickens and Religion (1930) or Procter’s Christian Teaching in the Novels of
Charles Dickens (1930).3 Had Kent consulted ‘Our Parish’ he would, on at least three
occasions, more faithfully represented Dickens’ work.
The first occasion occurs when Kent fails to contrast and balance Dickens’ negative
representation of the Sunday Under Three Heads young Cambridge graduate clergyman
with the positive portrayal of ‘Our Curate’. The second involves the author’s link
between optimism and Dickens’ religion as depicted in Sketches by Boz. Reference to
‘The Broker’s Man’ and the ending of ‘Our Next-Door Neighbour’ (both in ‘Our Parish’)
would have quickly dispelled this misrepresentation. Finally, Kent asserts that in
Dickens’ fiction women are ‘not discovered’ reading the Bible. In ‘Our Parish’ both ‘The
Old Lady’ and William’s mother disprove this point.4
Even Pope’s Dickens and Charity (1978),5 which examines ‘The Ladies’ Societies’
(Chapter VI of ‘Our Parish), fails to draw on Dickens’ first two representations of
Evangelical clergymen, which appear in Chapter II of ‘Our Parish’. This is despite the
fact that his work focuses on Evangelicalism. Walder, Dickens and Religion (1981), 6
2
Charles McKenzie, The Religious Sentiments of Charles Dickens, London: Walter Scott, 1884, p. 42.
William Kent, Dickens and Religion, London: Watts & Co., 1930; Reverend William Procter, Christian
Teaching in the Novels of Charles Dickens, London: H. R. Allenson Ltd., 1930.
4
Kent, pp. 22, 36-37, 54.
5
Norris Pope, Dickens and Charity, London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1978.
6
Dennis Walder, Dickens and Religion, London: George Allen & Unwin Publishers Ltd., 1981.
3
155
Sanders, Charles Dickens Resurrectionist (1982) 7 and Larson, Dickens and the Broken
Scripture (1985), 8 commence their study of the religious content of Dickens’ fiction after
‘Our Parish’.9
Although Reed’s Dickens and Thackeray: Punishment and Forgiveness (1995) 10 does
refer to five pieces that appear in Sketches By Boz none belong to ‘Our Parish’. 11
Oulton’s work, Literature and Religion in Mid-Victorian England from Dickens to Eliot
(2003),12 with its 1850s and 1860s focus makes no reference to either Sketches By Boz or
‘Our Parish’; and the earliest work to be considered by Newey in The Scriptures of
Charles Dickens: Novels of Ideology, Novels of the Self (2004)13 is Oliver Twist.
Relevant articles from the various Dickens periodicals further demonstrate the neglect
of ‘Our Parish’. Of the eleven articles which have appeared in recent years in The
Dickensian (1972-2005) 14 no reference has been made to ‘Our Parish’. This is also the
case with the Dickens Quarterly (1992-2006). The twelve Dickens Studies Annual
7
Andrew Sanders, Charles Dickens Resurrectionist, London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1982.
Janet Larson, Dickens and the Broken Scripture, Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1985.
9
Each writer begins from a different point in Dickens’ early career. Walder starts with Pickwick Papers,
Sanders with Oliver Twist and Larson with The Old Curiosity Shop.
10
John Reed, Dickens and Thackeray: Punishment and Forgiveness, Athens: Ohio University Press, 1995.
11
The five sketches referred to by Reed are ‘Meditations in Monmouth Street’, ‘Criminal Courts’, ‘The
Broker’s Man’, ‘The Drunkard’s Death’ and ‘The Black Veil’.
12
Carolyn Oulton, Literature and Religion in Mid-Victorian England from Dickens to Eliot, Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan Ltd., 2003.
13
Vincent Newey, The Scriptures of Charles Dickens: Novels of Ideology, Novels of Self, Aldershot:
Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2004.
14
D. Carter and L. Mazzeno, ‘Dickens’ Account of the Shakers and West Point: Rhetoric and Reality’,
Dickensian, Vol. 72, Autumn, 1976, pp.131-139; H.P. Sucksmith, ‘Dickens Among The Pre-Raphaelites:
Mr Merdle and Holman Hunt’s Light of the World’, Dickensian Vol.72, Autumn, 1976, pp. 159-163;
Dennis Walder’s ‘Book Review of Andrew Sanders’ Charles Dickens: Resurrectionist’, Dickensian,
Vol. 79, Spring, 1983, pp. 43-45; Dennis Walder, ‘Dickens and the Reverend David Macrae’,
Dickensian,Vol. 81, 1985, pp. 45-51; Diane Jolly, ‘The Nature of Esther’, Dickensian, Vol. 86, Spring,
1990, pp. 29-40; David Parker, ‘Our Pew at Church’, The Dickensian, Vol. 88, 1992, pp. 40-42; Valerie
Gage, ‘Our Pew at Church: Another Interpretation by Way of Shakespeare’, Dickensian, Vol. 89,
Spring,1993, pp. 25-31; Rodney. S. Edgecombe, ‘The “Veiled Prophet” in Our Mutual Friend’,
Dickensian,Vol.92, 1996, pp. 208-209; Ron Lampard, ‘The New Church in Hard Times’, Dickensian,
Vol. 93, Summer, 1997, pp. 109–115; Robert C. Hanna, ‘The Life of Our Lord New Notes of
Explication’, Vol. 95, Dickensian, Winter, pp. 197-205; Carolyn Oulton, ‘A Vindication of Religion:
Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens and The Frozen Deep’, The Dickensian, Vol. 97, 2001, pp. 154-158.
8
156
articles which appeared between its inception in 1972 and 2006 15 also fail to refer to
‘Our Parish’. Two further articles from non-Dickens periodicals, cited by Walder in his
‘Further Reading’ section, Arthur Adrian’s ‘Dickens and The Brick-and-Mortar Sects
(1955)16 and Trevor Blount’s ‘The Chadbands and Dickens’ View of Dissenters’
(1964),17 also fail to draw on ‘Our Parish’.
A more recent investigation of Victorian journals confirms the paucity of material on
‘Our Parish’. To the best of my knowledge the following journals contain no reference to
either Sketches By Boz or ‘Our Parish’: Journal of Victorian Culture (2000-Spring 2008),
Victorian Literature and Culture (1999-March 2008), Victorian Review (1999- Vol. 34,
2008), Nineteenth Century Contexts (1996-Vol. 29, 2007), Nineteenth Century Literature
(1995-Vol. 62, 2008), Victorian Periodical Review (2005-Vol. 41, 2008), Victorian
Institute Journal (1996-Vol. 35, 2007), Nineteenth Century Studies (1996-Vol. 21, 2006),
Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century (2005-Issue 6, 2008) and
Victorian Studies (1999-Vol. 50, 2007).
Robert L. Patten, ‘Dickens Time and Again’, Dickens Studies Annual, Vol. 2. 1972, pp. 163–196;
Albert D. Hutter, ‘The Novelist as Resurrectionist: Dickens and The Dilemma of Death’, Dickens
Studies Annual, Vol.12, 1983, pp. 1-39; Janet Larson, ‘Biblical Reading in the Later Dickens: The Book
of Job According to Bleak House’, Dickens Studies Annual, Vol. 13, 1984, pp. 35-83; John Frazee,
‘Dickens and Unitarianism’, Dickens Studies Annual, Vol. 18, 1989, pp. 119-143; Marilyn Georgas,
‘Little Nell and the Art of Holy Dying’, Dickens Studies Annual Vol. 20, 1991, pp. 35-56; Jonathan H.
Grossman, ‘The Absent Jew in Dickens: Narrators in Oliver Twist, Our Mutual Friend and A Christmas
Carol’, Dickens Studies Annual, Vol. 24, 1996, pp. 37-59; Kenneth M. Sroka, ‘A Tale of Two
Gospels: Dickens and John’, Vol. 27, 1998, Dickens Studies Annual, pp. 145 -169; Robert R. Garnett,
‘Dickens, The Virgin, and the Dredger’s Daughter’, Dickens Studies Annual, Vol. 28, 1999, pp. 45–64;
David A. Ward, ‘Distorted Religion: Dickens, Dissent, and Bleak House’, Dickens Studies Annual,
Vol. 29, 2000, pp.195- 232; Mark M. Hennelly, Jr. ‘“Like or No Like” : Figuring the Scapegoat in Tale
of Two Cities’, Dickens Studies Annual, Vol. 30, 2001, pp. 217-242; Susan Schoenbauer Thurin, ‘The
Seven Deadly Sins in Great Expectations’, Dickens Studies Annual, Vol. 15, 1986, pp. 201-220;
Gary L. Colledge, The Life of Our Lord Revisited, Dickens Studies Annual, Vol. 36, 2005.
16
Arthur H. Adrian, ‘Dickens and The Brick-and-Mortar Sects’, Nineteenth Century Fiction, December
1955, pp. 188-201.
17
Trevor Blount, ‘The Chadbands and Dickens’ View of Dissenters’, Modern Language Quarterly, XXV,
September, 1964, pp. 295-307.
15
157
Dickens’ portrayal of the parochial neglect of the poor
The parochial system in Dickens’ London and elsewhere was failing the poor. This, in
part, was due to the burgeoning social forces of population growth and urban migration
described in the previous chapter. Dickens, however, does not attribute the neglect of the
poor in his parish to these forces. Instead, he uses his fictional parish as a means of
communicating his personal belief in the failure of the early Victorian Christian
community to discharge its responsibilities toward the poor. This point is accentuated by
his exclusive use of the Established Church, the sole denomination charged with the
administration of the Poor Law, to represent Victorian Christianity. Roman Catholicism
is completely absent; whilst in Chapter VI, ‘The Ladies’ Societies’, the only reference to
Dissent involves a missionary called upon to address a meeting organised by the Bible
and Prayer Book Distribution Society.’18
In seeking to represent this view to his readers Dickens used a variety approaches. In
both Chapter I, ‘The Beadle. The Parish Engine. The School-Master’, and Chapter IV,
‘The Election For Beadle’, he describes the failings of the civil function of the parish.
In Chapter I and Chapter II, ‘The Curate. The Old Lady. The Half-Pay Captain’, Dickens
depicts the social segregation that exists within his parish church. Chapter V, ‘The
Broker’s Man’, exposes his readers to the appalling conditions endured by the poor; and,
along with the opening paragraph of Chapter One, represents the abject failure of the
parish administration to assist those in need. Finally, in Chapter VI, ‘The Ladies’
Societies’, Dickens used the activities of The Children’s Examination Society and The
18
Charles Dickens, Sketches by Boz, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 36. The missionary, in
view of his West Indian connection, may well have belonged to the Baptist Missionary Society.
158
Bible and Prayer-Book Distribution Society to expose the false charitable motives of
individuals associated with the parish church.
In his wonderfully perceptive opening paragraph to ‘Our Parish’, Dickens records the
appalling downward spiral of ‘a poor man’ and his family, and in so doing details both
the absurdity of the parish’s operation of the Poor Law, and the total dependency of the
poor upon it.19 It is the parish that distrains their goods and any money they may have for
their non-payment of rates. As a result they have no means of support. Faced with
destitution, their only recourse is to apply to the parish for support. The result of the
parish’s intervention is disastrous: the poor man’s wife dies and his children enter the
workhouse where they become subject to a tyrannical master, while he himself turns to
drink and becomes ‘a harmless babbling idiot, in the parish asylum.’20
Through a series of rhetorical questions Dickens’ readers are left in no doubt that the
parish represented the only agency to which the poor man and his family could apply to
for relief. 21 The non-interventionist policy of central government fuelled by the
philosophy of laissez-faire, and political economy, and a passive acceptance of
Malthusian population theory and Utilitarianism, meant that the poor in Dickens’ parish,
and all those it represented, could expect no help from central government. There was
also very little hope of privately sponsored charitable organisations coming to ‘the poor
man’s’ aid. The London City Mission, the leading charity working specifically among the
poor of London, had only begun its work the year the original ‘Our Parish’ sketches
appeared in the Chronicle. Also, it was not until the 1850s that the proliferation of private
London-based charities began.22
19
Dickens, Sketches, p. 1.
Ibid.
21
Ibid.
20
159
Dickens’ early 1830s pre-Poor Law Amendment suburban parish with its rate-raising
powers, including the legal power to restrain goods for non-payment; its responsibility
for administering the Poor Law; and its provision of various other services, effectively
fulfilled a local government function.23 The responsibility for the management of this
civil authority lay with the select vestry, which comprised churchwardens and overseers,
the vestry-clerk, and the clergyman, who acted as chairman. With the exception of the
clergyman and one churchwarden selected by him, the select vestry was elected at Easter
by the leaseholders and property owners of the parish who paid £50.00 or more a year in
rates.24 This electoral body was in turn referred to as the vestry, and was made up of
individuals who typified Dickens’ readership. Monthly Vestry meetings and vestry
committees, comprising nominated members of the vestry, also contributed to the
management of the parish.
The issue which caused most contention within the vestry was the annual setting of
the parish rates. The two main rates levied being the Poor Rate and the Church Rate.25
When it came to the setting of the Poor Rate the key objective of the vestry was to keep it
as low as possible. This, in connection with the care for the institutionalised poor in the
workhouse and outside of it, often meant that they received the bare minimum provision.
However, Dickens makes clear that it is not only the selfishness and self-interest of the
vestry members that was responsible for his parish neglecting their Christian duty to the
poor.
22
Sampson Low identified 491 charitable organizations based in London during the 1850s, by 1863 this
figure had increased to more than 750. Pope, p. 253, n. 28.
23
The poor man in the opening paragraph of ‘Our Parish’ has his goods restrained. Sketches, p. 1.
24
According to L.C.B Seaman, Life in Victorian London, London: B. T Batsford Ltd., 1973, p. 18,
25
In view of the suburban setting of Dickens’ parish his vestry would also have had to consider
watching rates, lighting rates, paving rates and sewer rates.
160
In ‘The Election for Beadle’, Dickens highlights the existence of two party factions
within his vestry whose activities compromise, obstruct and hinder the provision of care
for the parochial poor. The identity of the two parties, who have ‘long divided’ the parish,
is unclear. It could simply be a political division. For example, on the occasion of the
Eatanswill election (Pickwick Papers), the existence of political division within parishes
is illustrated by the presence of separate Blue and Buff aisles in the parish church.26 In
‘Our Parish’ the conservative ‘official party’ with their resistance to change, upholding
tradition, could be seen to represent the Tory party; whilst ‘the advocates of the great new
beadle principles’27 are representative of the reforming Whig party. Alternatively, as
suggested by Pope,28 the two could symbolise the main Established Church parties of the
period: the Evangelicals (Low Church) and the High Church.
The leaders of these two respective parties, both of whom live in Gordon Place, 29 are
‘The leader of the Official Party’ 30 (who, due to his owning six separate properties, is
entitled to six vestry votes, the maximum available to any individual during that period)
and Captain Purday, the ‘determined opponent of the constituted authorities whoever they
may chance to be.’
31
At the beginning of the chapter, Dickens ironically reflects on the
content of previous vestry disputes between the two parties: ‘They divided the vestry
fourteen times on a motion for heating the church with warm water instead of coals: and
made speeches about liberty and expenditure, and prodigality and hot water.’ They also
had a violent disagreement over the recipe for the pauper’s soup served in the
26
Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, p.158.
Dickens, Sketches, p.18.
28
Pope, pp. 11, 12.
29
Gordon Place, a ‘neat row of houses in the most airy and pleasant part of the parish’ is also home to ‘The
Old Lady’, the four Miss Willises, the surgeon and the narrator. Dickens, Sketches, p. 9.
30
Ibid., p.18
31
Ibid., p. 19.
27
161
workhouse.32 Although humorously done, Dickens clearly makes the point that the issue
of the poor in the parish is little more than a political football. The two parties concerned,
rather than having a genuine interest in the well-being of those parishioners in need, use
them for their own purposes. In a later Chronicle sketch, ‘Doctors’ Commons’, October
1836, Dickens again makes this point.33
Dickens’ emblematic use of his original beadle, Simmons, to represent the failings of
the parochial Poor Law system is of particular interest as it links this aspect of ‘Our
Parish’ with contemporary anti-Poor Law propaganda.34 Simmons, in common with his
successors, Sowster (The Mudfog Papers), Bumble (Oliver Twist) and Sownds (Dombey
and Son) is, in direct contrast to the parish poor, over-weight.35 Dickens was to use this
symbolic device of the over-indulgence of the Poor Law officials in relation to the thin,
emaciated neglected poor on several occasions in Oliver Twist: the parish board is
described as consisting of ‘eight to ten fat gentlemen’; the Master of the Workhouse is ‘a
fat healthy man’ and Mrs Corney’s (Mrs Bumble) portly appearance is confirmed in two
separate illustrations.36
Examples of Dickens’ use of Simmons can, as Sally Ledger has pointed out, be found
in anti-Poor Law literature of the period. ‘The bloated, overfed figure of the parish
32
Ibid.
Ibid., pp. 88, 89.
34
Sally Ledger’s, Dickens and the Popular Radical Imagination, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2007, pp. 79-86 contains an excellent description of the use of beadles within 1830s anti-Poor Law
literature and its connection with Regency graphic satire. The author primarily links this with Oliver
Twist and Mr Bumble.
35
Simmons’ rotundness is represented in Cruikshank’s opening ‘Our Parish’ illustration ‘The Parish
Engine’ (Dickens, Sketches, facing page 4). Cruikshank’s illustrations fulfilled the same purpose for
Sowster (‘The Tyrant’, Dickens, Sketches, facing page 654) and Bumble (Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 21, 189, 271). Whilst Sownds does not appear in an
illustration he is described as being both ‘corpulent’ and ‘portly’ (Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 55, 437). There is also a passing reference to ‘a portly
beadle’ in the opening section of Sunday Under Three Heads (Charles Dickens, The Uncommercial
Traveller, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 642)
36
Dickens, Twist, pp. 9, 12, 189, 271.
33
162
beadle, who contrasts ironically with the starving poor whom he disciplines, heavily
populates anti-Poor Law literature of the 1830s and 1840s: Dickens was neither the first
nor the last to focus on the much derided lackey.’37 The author continues by providing
several examples including two Robert Seymour’s 1830 engravings: ‘Heaven and Earth’
(1830) and ‘The New Poor Laws’ (1836). In the former, a prominent overweight,
pompous beadle can be seen remonstrating with a ‘particularly withered mother and
child.’38 In the latter, a large-girthed beadle violently refuses outdoor relief to a ragged,
emaciated family group. In the background a group of rotund parish officers are shown
enjoying a drink in the ‘New Poor Laws Tavern’.39
Simmons is also connected with earlier satirical representations of beadles. Ledger
observes that ‘up until the 1820s, though, the beadle had been represented textually and
pictorially simply as a figure of chastisement.’40 She continues by describing William
Hogarth as providing ‘the best known popular eighteenth century example of the beadle
as an agent of punishment in the second illustration from his Industry and Idleness series,
the ‘Idle ‘prentice at Play in the Churchyard.’41 In the illustration the beadle is shown
beating the ‘ideal apprentice’ as he plays with his friend on a tombstone. Simmons,
likewise, in Chapter I of ‘Our Parish’ is depicted caning a workhouse boy who has had
the misfortune to drop his penny during a church service.42 Interestingly, Ledger, with
reference to Cruikshank’s engraving, ‘The Parish Beadle’ (Gentleman’s Pocket
Magazine, 18 January 1827), describes Dickens’ ‘Our Parish’ illustrator as being ‘the
37
Ledger, p. 82.
Ibid., p. 79.
39
Ibid., p. 83.
40
Ibid., p. 82.
41
Ibid.
42
Dickens, Sketches, p. 3.
38
163
first of the cartoonists to represent the lowly parish officer satirically, as a figure of both
hate and fun.’43 Simmons, in his comic episode with the parish engine and brutalisation
of the workhouse boy, performs both of these roles in ‘Our Parish’.44
The original appearance of the first six ‘Our Parish’ chapters in the Morning
Chronicle, and its sister publication the Evening Chronicle, 45 inevitably influenced
Dickens’ representation of the civil operation of his parish. From its inception, the
Morning Chronicle had been sympathetic to the reforming Whig government. However,
following its takeover in 1834, the year Dickens started as a political reporter, the
newspaper became a vigorous Whig party organ.46 One of the three new joint owners, all
of whom were active Whigs, John Easthope, who was to become the paper’s driving
force, had represented the party in Parliament; whilst the Whigs’ Parliamentary agent,
Joseph Parkes, was involved in the paper’s reorganisation.47 Maxwell points out with
reference to the Evening Chronicle, which was also controlled by the Whig activists, that
evening papers relied more heavily on political funds than morning papers and as such
were more susceptible to political influence.48
In relation to the local government function of parish administrations across the
country ‘Our Parish’ appeared at a defining moment. The Whig government, committed
to reform, having adopted a concerted strategy to dilute and diffuse the historic civil
43
Ledger, p. 82.
Dickens, Sketches, pp. 3, 4.
45
The six chapters of ‘Our Parish’ first appeared in the Evening Chronicle in 1835 as part of a twenty
sketch series entitled ‘Sketches of London’. The dates each chapter appeared are as follows: Chapter I,
28 February; Chapter II, 19 May; Chapter III, 18 June; Chapter IV, 14 July; Chapter V, 28 July; Chapter
VI, 20 August.
46
Richard Maxwell, ‘Dickens, The Two Chronicles and the Publication of Sketches By Boz’, 1981,
Dickens Studies Annual, Vol. IX, pp. 21, 22.
47
Walder suggests that Easthope bought the Morning Chronicle with the expressed purpose of promoting
the Poor Law Amendment Act (p. 46).
48
Maxwell, pp. 24, 25; Edgar Johnson, Charles Dickens His Tragedy and Triumph, London: Penguin
Books, 1986, pp. 73, 74.
44
164
power of parishes, introduced two key pieces of legislation: The Poor Law Amendment
Act (1834) and ‘The Municipal Corporations Act’ (1835). Dickens, by representing the
apparent inability of his pre-reform parish to deal equitably and efficiently with the poor,
49
a state of affairs only too familiar to his readership, was in fact vindicating the Whig
government’s parish reform programme. Dickens further reinforces the need for
parochial reform by his symbolic use of Simmons (the beadle who, enfeebled by age,
dies), the aged pauper schoolmaster, and the bullying workhouse-master. These elements
of ‘Our Parish’ can be interpreted as representing a politically motivated report seeking to
justify the reform of the obsolete parish system.
Dickens’ decision to depict a pre-Poor Law Amendment parish, even though the
sketches originally appeared a year after the amendment was introduced, was not solely
influenced by the Chronicle’s Whig affiliation. Chadwick’s Poor Law Amendment Act
was by no means universally embraced, and numerous parishes of the period continued
their former practice. Walder points out that the implementation of the Act in the London
metropolitan area did not take place until 1837;50 whilst Knight, commenting on the
national adoption of the Act, describes how, a year later, a thousand parishes had failed to
adopt the new Poor Law practice.51 Dickens, as evidenced by some of the characters
used, drew upon his own previous personal experiences of parish life in writing ‘Our
Although in the conclusion of the original ‘The Curate - The Old Lady – The Half-Pay Captain’ sketch,
which appeared in the Evening Chronicle, 19 May 1835, the Poor Law Amendment does receive a
passing mention, (Duane Devries, Dickens’s Apprentice Years, Sussex: The Harvester Press Ltd., 1976,
p. 83) reference to it was omitted when it appeared in Sketches. Dickens’ parish, with Simmons the
beadle explaining ‘the state of the existing poor laws’ [my emphasis] to the deaf old women on the board
room passage on business nights; (Dickens, Sketches p. 2), with its absence of references to the ‘Board
of Guardians’, the localised managers of the Poor Law Amendment, who replaced the vestry model of
churchwardens and overseers -and ‘Unions’- the amalgamated parishes of the Amendment; and ‘Union
Workhouses’- is a pre-Poor Law Amendment parish.
50
Walder, p. 46.
51
Frances Knight, The Nineteenth Century Church and English Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1995, pp. 68, 69.
49
165
Parish’- these experiences would have been firmly fixed in a pre-amendment setting.
Also his readership would have been more familiar with the original system.
As discussed in Chapter One Dickens was opposed to the Church’s participation in
maintaining the social hierarchy. In ‘Our Parish’ he uses the issue of seating to highlight
the social segregation that existed within the church services of the period. In his opening
chapter Dickens provides his most poignant image of the social segregation that existed
within his parish church. Having depicted the parish workhouse children as being
pompously marshalled into the free seats by the beadle (put ‘into their places’) Dickens
observes that the churchwardens and overseers are ‘duly installed in their curtained
pews.’52 Not only are they kept from seeing the poor but the poor are also painfully
reminded of their lowly status.
To add to their poignancy, Dickens records these events taking place during the
communion service, when symbolically the body of Christ appears as one before God.
Joseph Arch, in The Story of His Life, gives a contemporary account of how social
segregation even impinged upon the giving of sacraments to his poor parents. He
recounts how, due to their reluctance to wait their turn behind the richer members of the
congregation, the clergyman cut off their family allowance of soap and coal. 53
Commenting on pew rents within the early Victorian church, Brooks observed that
they ensured that the physical arrangements of the church interior replicated the class
structure of the parish.’54 Though not exclusively an Established Church practice,55 the
use of pew rents effectively kept the poor away from the middle-classes who could afford
to pay for their pews. The Victorian churchman, John Mason Neale, a vehement and
52
53
Dickens, Sketches, p. 3.
Joseph Arch, The Story of His Life, London: 1898, pp. 20, 21, 53, 54.
166
active opponent of pew rents, claimed they were invented by people who thought
themselves too good to pray by the side of their neighbours, and that they reflected the
desire of the wealthy to shut out the poor.56
In Dickens’ parish church the poor are situated in the free seats in the side aisle. 57
In keeping with Established Church practice of the period, they could have been seated
also at the back of the church or in the gallery. The wealthier members of the
congregation are seated separately in their own pews. However, even among those who
could afford to pay the annual pew rent, their relative standing in the social hierarchy was
reflected in the location of their pew. Dickens clearly demonstrates this in the relative
pew locations of the Miss Browns, the Johnson Parker’s and ‘The Old Lady’.58 The
situation of the pews was determined by price. In the case of Dickens’ parish as with
other Evangelical churches of the period, the price of the pew was, in part, determined by
the calibre of the clergyman. The proximity of the pew to the pulpit or reading desk
reflected the relative social standing of those who owned it. Dickens clearly depicts this
when he describes how, following the popularity of ‘The Curate’, ‘pews in the immediate
vicinity of the pulpit or reading-desk rose in value, sittings in the central aisle were at a
premium: an inch of room in the front row of the gallery could not be procured for love
or money.’59
54
Chris Brooks and Andrew Saint, The Victorian Church: Architecture and Society , Manchester,
Manchester University Press, 1995, p. 4.
55
For information on pew rents within Dissenting chapels see Brooks and Saint, p. 41; and Owen
Chadwick, The Victorian Church (Part One), London: A and C Black Ltd., 1971, p. 330.
56
Chadwick, (Part One), pp. 520, 521.
57
Dickens, Sketches, p.11.
58
The Miss Browns have an ‘obscure family pew’ and the Johnson Parkers are seated close to the free
seats, whilst ‘The Old Lady’, a personage ushered to her seat by a pew-opener, is in the central isle. Ibid.,
pp. 7, 11, and 35.
59
Ibid., p. 7.
167
Although Chadwick observes that pew rents gave rise to one of the legal and pastoral
arguments of the age,60 it was not until several years after ‘Our Parish’ that positive
action was taken. One reason for this was that pew rents provided a valuable source of
income, which in some parishes was used to subsidise the non-collection of the
controversial church rate.61 Whilst in the newly built Established Churches, which were
funded by the one million pound grant of 1818, 1819 and 1828, a fifth of the seats had to
be free, they were an uncomfortable two-foot-four inches back to back, compared with
three feet for the private pews.
Concerted High Church opposition against pew rents did not surface until after 1840,
and even then the Evangelical Party, in the main, remained unopposed to segregated
seating. Mann’s 1851 Census of Religious Worship revealed that throughout England and
Wales free seating accounted for only 43.1% of the total number of seats available within
the Established Church.62 The Free and Open Church Movement (founded in 1866)
campaigned vigorously throughout London for the abolition of both pew rents and pews.
Churches where pew rents were abolished relied upon offertory income to offset the loss
of pew rent funds. Within ten years of its inauguration the movement saw the percentage
of churches with exclusively free seats in London and its suburbs rise from 10 to 30 per
cent.63 Knight also notes the Incorporated Church Building Society commitment to
increasing the availability of free seating. In 1868, of the1,092,000 additional sittings
provided by the society since its inauguration in 1818, 78 per cent were free.64
60
Chadwick, (Part One), pp. 520, 521.
Payment of the church rate remained, in theory, compulsory up until Gladstone’s Church Rate Act of
1868.
62
K. Snell and P. Ell, Rival Jerusalem’s: The Geography of Victorian Religion, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2000, pp. 346, 347.
63
Brooks and Saint, p. 41.
64
Knight,
61
168
Dickens, as previously discussed in Chapter One, realised that in order to encourage
his middle-class readership to fulfil their Christian responsibilities toward the poor, he
needed first to educate them as to the reality of the terrible lives the poor were forced to
endure. Mr Bung’s harrowing description of a family living in a single room in
‘George’s Yard’, a ‘dirty little court at the back of the gas works’,65 in Chapter V of ‘Our
Parish’ is used for this purpose:
There was a little piece of enclosed dust in the front of the house, with a
cinder-path leading up to the door, and an open rain-water butt on one side. A
dirty striped curtain, on a very slack string, hung in the window, and a little
triangular bit of broken looking-glass rested on the sill inside. I suppose it
was meant for the people’s use, but their appearance was so wretched, and so
miserable, that I’m certain they never could have plucked up courage to look
themselves in the face a second time, if they survived the fright of doing so
once. There was two or three chairs that might have been worth, in their best
days, from eight-pence to a shilling a-piece; a small deal table, an old corner
cupboard with nothing in it, and one of those bedsteads which turn up half
way, and leave the bottom legs sticking out for you to knock your head
against, or hang your hat upon; no bed, no bedding. There was an old sack, by
way of a rug, before the fireplace, and four or five children were grovelling
about, among the sand on the floor [...] In one of the chairs, by the side of the
place where the fire ought to have been, was an old ‘ooman – the ugliest and
65
Ibid., p. 29.
169
dirtiest I ever see - who sat rocking herself backwards and forwards, without
once stopping, except for an instant now and then, to clasp together the
withered hands which, with these exceptions, she kept constantly rubbing
upon her knees, just raising and depressing her fingers convulsively, in time
to the rocking of the chair. On the other side sat the mother with an infant in
her arms, which cried till it cried itself to sleep, and when it ‘woke, cried till it
cried itself off again. The old ‘ooman’s voice I never heard: she seemed
completely stupefied; and as to the mother’s it would have been better if she
had been so too, for misery had changed her to a devil. 66
Dickens also describes how a few weeks earlier the father had been transported; and
that the family’s rent was six month’s overdue. As a result they are soon to be evicted.
The inevitable tragic conclusion of this account bears a close resemblance to the fate of
the ‘poor man’, and his family. The children are taken into the workhouse; the old
woman is taken into the parish infirmary, and very soon dies; and the mother, who ‘had
been a quiet, hard-working woman’, is driven wild by her misery and after visiting the
‘house of correction half-a-dozen times’ dies of a burst blood vessel.’67
In Chapter VI of ‘Our Parish’, ‘The Ladies’ Societies’, Dickens depicts the competing
activities of two rival female groups who selfishly use the poor to further their respective
matrimonial ambitions regarding ‘The Curate’. Whilst Dickens represents the neglect of
the poor resulting from the vestry power struggle within the context of the civil function
of the parish, here the setting switches to the confines of the parish church. Prior to
66
67
Ibid., pp. 29-31.
Ibid., p. 31.
170
exposing their false charitable motives, Dickens uses the Miss Browns and the Johnson
Parkers to call into question the motives behind the church attendance of many of the
female parishioners. Dickens suggests that far from seeking to imbibe Christian truth,
they are there in the hope of satisfying their own personal matrimonial ambitions.
In Chapter Two, ‘The Curate. The Old Lady. The Half-Pay Captain’, Dickens
describes how, within one month of the arrival of the twenty-five-year old bachelor
curate, ‘half the young lady inhabitants were melancholy with religion, and the other half
desponding with love.’68 As a result, the narrator observes: ‘Never was so many young
ladies seen in our parish church on Sunday before; and never had the little round angels’
on Mr Tomkins’ monument in the side aisle, beheld such devotion on earth as they all
exhibited.’69 Not only are these mothers and their daughters lacking spirituality and
pursing their own selfish motives, they are also depicted as being fickle in their
allegiance. On the arrival of the new chapel-of-ease clergyman, who provides a
competing matrimonial target, the narrator reports that ‘Crowds of our female
parishioners flocked to hear him’, and as a result of their wholesale desertion, ‘seats are
once again to be had in any part of our parish church.’70
Although Pope erroneously seeks to define the rivalry that exists between the three
Miss Browns and Mrs Johnson Parker, and her seven unmarried daughters, in terms of
Evangelical and High Church affiliations,71 Dickens makes clear that it is the pursuit of
their matrimonial ambitions with regards to ‘The Curate’ which is the cause.72 Aware of
68
Ibid., p. 7.
Ibid.
70
Ibid.
71
Pope, pp. 11, 12.
72
In Chapter Two the narrator observes of the Miss Browns how, on one Sunday, they moved from their
obscure family pew to the free seats for the sole reason of ‘lying in wait for the curate as he passed to
the Vestry’. Dickens, Sketches, p. 7.
69
171
‘The Curate’s’ genuine concern for the poor, the two rival groups set up their own
charitable societies in the hope of winning his favour. Dickens makes clear that this
mercenary practice was by no means restricted to the Miss Browns and the Johnson
Parkers: ‘When the young curate was popular, and all the unmarried ladies in the parish
took a serious turn, the charity children all at once became objects of peculiar and
especial interest.’73
The three Miss Browns, having correctly viewed the charity children as a means of
endearing themselves to ‘The Curate’, set up the Children’s Charity School. To
ensure that they received no unwanted competition, rather than staffing the charity school
with young ladies they instead appointed only old maids. ‘The Curate’, in recognition
of their efforts, preached ‘a charity sermon on behalf of the charity school’ during which
he extolled the virtues of the three Miss Browns. 74 In response to their rising popularity,
Mrs Johnson Parker, with her seven unmarried daughters and a collection of other
mothers and daughters with similar matrimonial aspirations,75 sets up The Bible and
Prayer Book Distribution Society. The remainder of the chapter focuses on the rivalry
between these two societies and the strategies they adopt to gain the upper hand.
Dickens compounds his exposure of the false, selfish motives of those involved in the
two competing societies by suggesting that their efforts have done nothing to benefit the
poor. In the case of the Miss Browns their exertions actually have a detrimental effect on
their pupils. The recipients of the bibles and prayer books can’t read; and the charity
children, having been constantly exercised, examined and re-examined, grow pale and
73
Ibid., p. 34.
Ibid.
75
Ibid., p. 35.
74
172
consumptive.76 In another Sketch, ‘A Passage in the Life of Mr Watkins Tottle: Chapter
the First’, Dickens again questions the effectiveness of Distribution Societies, and the
motives of those who run them.77
Dickens’ attack on the false charitable motives of ladies within his ‘Our Parish’
church most noticeably reappears, albeit with more venom, in Bleak House. Here we are
introduced to a veritable legion of ‘charitable ladies’: ‘Mrs Pardiggle’, who describes
herself as being ‘a School Lady, a Visiting Lady, a Reading Lady, a Distributing Lady, a
member of the local Linen Box Committee, and many general committees’; 78 ‘Miss
Wisk’, ‘Mrs Chadband and ‘Mrs Snagsby.’ On this occasion the false motive revealed
by Dickens is not one of matrimonial ambition, but the desire to exercise power over
others. Pope describes these Bleak House ‘charitable ladies’ as being ‘socially and
domestically oppressive, intimidating, meddling, despotic, bullying females, whose
rapacious benevolence was largely a disguise for selfishness and aggression.’79
It is, however, important, despite Dickens’ portrayal of ‘charitable ladies’ 80 within
‘Our Parish’ and Bleak House, to balance his representation with reference to
76
Ibid., p.34.
During a conversation between the Reverend Mr Timson and Miss Lillerton during which the former
is congratulating the lady for her donation to various church distribution societies, the cynical Gabriel
Parsons interjects: ‘“I’ll tell you what,” interrupted Parsons. “It’s my private opinion, Timson, that
your distribution society is rather humbug.” “You are so severe,” replied Timson. “So positively
unjust!” said Miss Lillerton. “Why,” urged Mr Parsons, pursuing his objections, “what on earth is the
use of giving a man coals who has nothing to cook, or giving him blankets when he hasn’t a bed, or
giving him soup when he requires substantial food? – ‘like sending them ruffles when wanting a shirt’.
Why not give ‘em a trifle of money, as I do, when I think they deserve it, and let them purchase what
They think best? Why? – because your subscribers wouldn’t see their names flourishing in print on the
church -door – that’s the reason.”’ Dickens, Sketches, pp. 437, 438.
78
Charles Dickens, Bleak House, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p.102. Dorice Williams Elliott,
The Angel out of the House: Philanthropy and Gender in Nineteenth Century England, London:
University Press of Virginia, 2002, suggests that ‘cast-iron Lady Bountiful’ (Mrs Pardiggle) is perhaps
the most famous of Dickens’ parodies (p.2).
79
Pope, pp. 132, 139.
80
Dickens, in ‘Shops and Their Tenants’ a Sketch that pre-dates ‘Our Parish’, uses this term with reference
to the misdirected interference and thoughtlessness of those who in ignorance seek to intervene in the
lives of the poor. Dickens, Sketches, p. 61.
77
173
contemporary evidence. Pope observes that many philanthropists of the period viewed
the female contribution to charitable work as utterly indispensable. As one city
missionary explained: ‘Truly it is the female visit that is needed to follow, or even
precede mine and place these poor creatures in a position to listen to the truth.’81 The
recognition of this important contribution led in 1828 to the inauguration of The
General Society for Promoting District Visiting. Not only was Dickens’ portrayal
contrary, in part, to contemporary opinion, it would also appear that he himself,
according to Fielding, genuinely appreciated the contribution that ladies made to
charitable work. On the occasion of a special fund-raising dinner in 1858 for The
Hospital for Sick Children Dickens, who was an honorary governor, in giving a final
toast saluted ‘The ladies, whom without little good could be done in the world.’82
‘The Curate’ and ‘The Old Lady’: Dickens’ agents of Christian charity
Dickens, having portrayed the appalling conditions endured by the poor; the abject
failure of the parochial system and those charged with their care, used two characters,
‘The Curate’ and ‘The Old Lady,’ to embody his views of practical Christian charity.
Dickens’ message to his readers, in line with the ‘Osmosis Process’ described in Chapter
One, was clear: if the church was to fulfil its responsibility to the poor it was dependent
on the intervention of benevolent individuals such as these. Dickens, with the specific
purpose of encouraging his readers to participate in this process, reinforced this message
through his use of Mr Pickwick, Mr Brownlow and Charles Cheeryble, his ‘Charitable
Angels’, who are the subject of Chapter Five of this work.
81
82
Ibid., p.140
K. J. Fielding, (ed.), The Speeches of Charles Dickens, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960, pp. 245 –
253.
174
‘The Curate’, who may well have been inspired by Dickens’ childhood memories of
the Reverend Henry Drage (the curate of St. Mary’s, Chatham), represented an exemplar
of an Established clergyman faithfully ministering to those in need in his parish. In
Chapter Two of ‘Our Parish’ Dickens carefully catalogues ‘The Curate’s’ genuine acts of
charity. In response to a request from ‘a washerwoman’, ‘he got out of bed at half-past
twelve o’clock one winter’s night, to half-baptise [this term relates to the private,
impromptu nature of the baptism due to the precarious state of the child’s health] her
child in a slop basin.’83 The poor child dies, and ‘The Curate’, out of his own pocket,
orders a purpose-built bier for the funeral.84
We also learn that ‘he sent three pints of gruel and a quarter pound of tea to a poor
woman who had been brought to bed of four small children, all at once.’85 He also ‘got
up a subscription for her.’86 In addition, he preached a charity sermon on behalf of the
charity school 87 and ‘spoke for one hour and twenty-five minutes at an anti-slavery
meeting.’ 88 It is also revealed that ‘The Curate’, in his conscientious fulfilment of his
ordination vows towards the poor, sacrificed his own personal health.89 Dickens’
portrayal of the genuine charity and self-sacrifice of ‘The Curate’ is enhanced by his
subtle allusion to the clergyman’s wealthy background. 90
‘The Old Lady’, who also appears in Chapter Two of ‘Our Parish’, represents, on
account of her being Dickens’ antecedent ‘Charitable Angel’, a highly significant
83
Dickens, Sketches, p.8.
Ibid.
85
Ibid.
86
Ibid.
87
Ibid., p.35.
88
Ibid., p.8.
89
Ibid. ‘The Curate’, as a result of his contact with the poor and his exertions on their behalf, contracts
consumption.
90
‘The Curate’ wears on the ‘fourth finger of his left hand’ an expensive diamond ring described as
being ‘a brilliant of the first water’. Ibid., p. 7.
84
175
character in his early fictional work. In Dickens’ characterisation there is ample
evidence to connect ‘The Old Lady’ with his childhood recollection of his Ordnance
Terrace neighbour, Mary Ellen Newnham.91 ‘The Old Lady’ and Mrs Newnham share a
maid of the same name.92 Both were financially secure and owned, rather than leased,
their respective properties.93 ‘The Old Lady’s’ next-door neighbour in Gordon Place,
Captain Purday, is based on Mrs Newnham’s neighbour, Duncan Calder.94 Both ladies
are widows. Mr Newnham died in 1827, eight years before ‘The Old Lady’ first
appeared. Both have an only child, a son living in India. ‘The Old Lady’ regularly
entertains the ‘little girls whose parents live in the same row, each of whom has a regular
fixed day for a periodical tea-drinking with her, to which the child looks forward as the
greatest treat of its existence.’95 Dickens’ two sisters, Letitia and Fanny, were firm
favourites of Mrs Newnham’s and were constant visitors at her home, as were several
other children from the terrace.
‘The Old Lady’ is a person of considerable influence within ‘Our Parish.’ On her first
appearance within the narrative she is described by Dickens as being ‘the best known and
most respected’ individual ‘among our parishioners.’96 This introductory description is
reinforced by Cruikshank’s illustration, entitled, ‘The Election for Beadle’,97 which has
been reproduced on the following page.
William Carlton, ‘“The Old Lady” in Sketches by Boz’, The Dickensian, Vol. 49, 1953, pp. 149-152;
Robert Langton, The Childhood ‘and Youth of Charles Dickens, London: Hutchinson & Co. 1912, p. 23;
Michael Allen, Charles Dickens’ Childhood, London: Macmillan Press,1988, pp. 56, 57, all confirm this
point.
92
Mrs Newnham’s maid was called Sarah Bourne, ‘The Old Lady’s’ maid is named Sarah. Dickens,
Sketches, p. 10.
93
In introducing ‘The Old Lady’ he states that ‘her house is her own’. Ibid., p. 9.
94
Allen, p. 58.
95
Dickens, Sketches, pp. 9, 10.
96
Ibid., p. 9.
97
Ibid., facing page 20.
91
176
Figure One: The Election for Beadle
Having just arrived to cast her vote, ‘The Old Lady’, who appears on the first step, in the
middle of the illustration is enthusiastically canvassed by the two rival parties,
appreciative, no doubt, of her influence upon others. Also, one of the candidates,
Spruggins, his wife, and ten young children along with another individual are, despite
the hubbub around them, depicted reverently gazing toward her. In addition, ‘her
177
entrance into [the parish] church on Sunday is always the signal for a little bustle in the
side aisle, occasioned by a general rise among the poor people, who bow and curtsey
until the pew-opener has ushered ‘The Old Lady’ into her accustomed seat.’98
The respect shown to her, particularly by the poor, transcends that of recognition
prompted by patronage and power. Carefully divorced from the Miss Browns, and the
Johnson Parkers and the fickle female members of the congregation who desert the parish
church for the chapel-of-ease, she supports the Winter Coal and Soup Distribution
Society and is commended for both the consistency and breadth of her charitable acts.
‘Her name always heads the list of any benevolent subscriptions and hers is always the
most liberal donations to the Winter Coal and Soup Distribution Society.’99 Her
charitable acts are not only restricted to the confines of the church: ‘She has a great
number of pensioners: and on Saturday after she comes back from market, there is a
regular levee of old men and women in the passage, waiting for their weekly gratuity.’100
Of her charitable consistency Dickens writes how her life ‘has rolled on in the same
unvarying and benevolent course for many years now.’ 101
‘The Old Lady’ is also commended for her personal Christian piety. She is one of only
two characters in ‘Our Parish’, and indeed in the whole of Sketches, who is depicted
reading or, more exactly in her case, listening to the Bible being read.102 The other
character, William, who is discussed at the end of this chapter, listens to the Bible being
read to him by his mother.103 In contrast to the Miss Willises who are religious and ill-
98
Ibid., p. 11.
Ibid.
100
Ibid., pp.10, 11.
101
Ibid., p. 11.
102
Her maid reads the bible to her on a daily basis (Ibid., p. 10).
103
Ibid., p.45.
99
178
tempered,104 she remains cheerful during her personal devotion.
In addition, Dickens’ use of the phrase ‘an open Bible’,105 during ‘The Old Lady’s’
daily devotion, could possibly be construed as a symbolic statement of her life being an
open epistle known and read of all men. (See II Corinthians Chapter III v 2). In relation
to her son in India, referred to as ‘one of her greatest trials’, she reveals her providential
view of God, and acknowledges His divine assistance.106 Dickens’ concluding statement
about ‘The Old Lady’ and her life, reads: ‘It has rolled on in the same unvarying and
benevolent course for many years now, and must at no distant period be brought to its
final close. She looks forward to its termination, with calmness and without
apprehension. She has everything to hope for and nothing to fear.’107
Ecclesiastical history in ‘Our Parish’
‘Our Parish’ contains a wealth of ecclesiastical material which provides the modern
reader with a reliable historic perspective on early Victorian religiosity. In Chapters II
and V Dickens meticulously records aspects of suburban spiritual life, including:
parochial worship, Evangelical influence within the Established Church, chapels-of-ease
and proprietary chapels, party conflict within the Church and congregational gender bias.
The material in these two chapters also contains evidence of how Dickens drew on his
childhood recollections of St. Mary’s in Chatham. Dickens’ depiction of his parish
church will be the first aspect to be considered.
104
Ibid., p. 14. Dickens, in his portrayal of false religion, and his animosity toward Puritanicalism,
frequently equates bad temperedness with false religion in women: Mrs Snawley, (Nickleby); Martha
Varden, and Miggs (Rudge); Mrs. Pipchin and Mrs. Macstinger, (Dombey); Miss. Murdstone,
(Copperfield); and Miss. Barbary and Mrs. Pardiggle, (Bleak House); are all examples of this strategy.
105
Ibid., p.10.
106
Ibid.
107
Ibid., p.11.
179
Whilst Dickens makes no direct reference to the age of his parish church he does,
through a series of subtle clues, make it possible for his readers both to deduce its
age and confirm its suburban location. On two occasions Dickens refers to the gallery,
which, after having been built, was ‘enlarged and beautified.’108 The presence of this
gallery is indicative of an eighteenth-century Hanoverian church influence, which placed
an emphasis on the preaching of God’s word. 109 The enlargement of the gallery and the
presence of three pew-openers is also indicative of a suburban area experiencing
burgeoning population growth.
Suburban parishes in London such as Dickens’, prior to the Church Building Acts of
1818, 1819 and 1824, were financially hampered in their attempts to increase their
available church accommodation. For example, in Hackney in 1792 the plans to rebuild
St. John’s parish church required, as with other parishes, a specific Act of Parliament to
raise the necessary finance through the use of church rates. As a result, the addition of
galleries, as was the case with St. Mary’s, Chatham, became a popular and viable option
of providing extra seating for growing suburban populations.
In Chapter II of ‘Our Parish’ Dickens refers to ‘the little round angels’ [my emphasis]
faces on Mr. Tomkins’ monument in the side aisle.’110 This florid, renaissance style
monument was typical of the eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. The reference to
the organ, purchased with the help of a twenty-pound donation from ‘The Old Lady’, and
its subsequent rebuilding, is also suggestive of the probable age of Dickens’ parish
108
Ibid., pp. 4, 7.
The Tractarian movement who began asserting their influence in the 1830s sought to refocus attention
on the altar.
110
Dickens, Sketches, p. 7.
109
180
church.111 Assuming the detail provided is drawn from Dickens’ childhood recollections
of St. Mary’s, Chatham (1817-1822) the age of the church, based purely on the period
which would have elapsed between the original installation of the organ and its
renovation, would have pre-dated the various London based early nineteenth century
Church buildings initiatives detailed in Chapter Two of this thesis.
Drawing on these clues, and based on the autobiographical inferences associated with
St. Mary’s, which was enlarged and rebuilt between 1776-1788, it would seem likely that
Dickens based his parish church representation on either a medieval altered church or a
church rebuilt, renovated in the late eighteenth century.
‘Our Parish’ appeared at an important transitional time in parochial church worship,
and the organ was a key indicator of this change. In Evangelical parishes which, as will
be shown, Dickens’ parish appears to be, the organ signified a shift away from the
previously universal practise of metrical psalm singing (based on Tate and Brady’s New
Version of the Psalms)112 to congregational hymn singing. Whilst in ‘High’ churches the
presence of an organ heralded the arrival of surpliced choirs, as cathedral-style worship
was adopted in parish churches. In Sunday Under Three Heads, written in the spring of
1836, only a few months after Sketches, we read of ‘a fashionable church’ with an organ
and hired singers.113 Although we find no reference to hymn-singing in Dickens’ parish
church, there is an allusion, in relation to a description of ‘The Half-Pay Captain’, ‘of the
children singing psalms.’114
Dickens, over a relatively short period of time, refers to two separate communion
111
Ibid., pp. 4, 11.
Bill Sikes refers to those he perceives to be Christians as being ‘soft-hearted psalm-singers’. Dickens,
Twist, p. 113
113
Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, p. 640.
114
Dickens, Sketches, p.12.
112
181
services in his parish church. Knight describes the increased frequency of communion
services within urban parishes as ‘one of the most noticeable shifts in the structure of
Sunday worship during the period.’115 In contrast to the move toward monthly
communion in churches similar to ‘Our Parish’,116 rural parishes generally continued to
adopt the Hanoverian practice of restricting the service to Easter, Whitsun and Christmas.
However, Chadwick cites an example, set at the time of the ‘Our Parish’ sketches, of
‘one devout layman, who went to church twice every Sunday, and received the sacrament
only twice during the first five years after his confirmation.’117 As Dickens makes no
specific seasonal allusions, and the relevant narrative seems to refer to a short period of
time, it would appear that ‘Our Parish’ church has, with its monthly or quite likely
weekly communion services, a progressive attitude toward communion.
The absence of a parish clerk and sexton from Dickens’ parish church (probably due
to editorial constraints) is more than compensated for by the presence of at least three
pew-openers. Dickens used their inclusion to signal the relative size of the congregation
and to represent the presence of parochial patronage within the church. Pew-openers
were, as a rule, elderly women who due to their financial hardship relied upon the
payment they received, normally a penny, for showing parishioners to their seats during
services. In Our Mutual Friend a pew-opener is described as being ‘an extremely dreary
widow whose left hand appears to be in a state of rheumatism but is in fact voluntarily
115
Knight, p. 80.
Chadwick, (Part One), p. 514, notes that in the succeeding two decades ( 1840s/1850s) a move to
increasing the frequency to weekly took place.
117
Ibid.
116
182
doubled up to act as money-box.’ 118 In Dombey and Son we find the very personification
of a pew-opener, Mrs Miff: ‘the wheezy little pew-opener - a mighty dry old lady,
sparsely dressed, with not an inch of fullness anywhere about her [...] A vinegary face has
Mrs Miff, and a mortified bonnet, and a thirsty soul for sixpences and shillings.’119
Dickens’ parish church has an Evangelical affiliation. ‘The Curate’ and the chapel-ofease clergyman are his most obvious indicators, but there are other clues provided in his
description of the church. The presence, within a parish church of this period of a
separate reading-desk signalled an Evangelical connection.120 Traditionally Hanoverian
churches had ‘triple-deckers’, which consisted of a first tier from which the parish clerk
led the congregational responses; a second tier which was the reading-desk and lectern;
and a top tier from which the clergyman would deliver the sermon.
The frequency of the communion services was, during the period that ‘Our Parish’
appeared, another sign of Evangelical influence.121 Other than communion, the only
Church service mentioned in ‘Our Parish’ is the ‘afternoon service’.122 This particular
meeting, a combination of a prayer service followed by a lecture, was associated with the
Evangelicals of the period, as was the evening service conducted at the Dingley Dell
parish church (Pickwick Papers), which also had an afternoon service.123 Significantly,
Mann’s 1851 Census of Religious Worship revealed that St. Mary’s parish church,
Chatham, also conducted afternoon services. There is also, in Chapter VI of ‘Our Parish’,
a reference to ‘our famous anti-slavery petition’,124 which is suggestive of a historic
118
Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p.117.
Dickens, Dombey, p. 436.
120
Dickens, Sketches, p. 7.
121
Chadwick (Part One) connects the increased frequency of communion services during the period with
Evangelical influence (p. 443).
122
Dickens, Sketches, p. 8.
123
Knight, p. 77, notes that afternoon services in rural areas such as ‘Dingley Dell’ were sometimes
adopted for the convenience of the agriculture community rather than for any party affiliation reasons.
119
183
parochial Evangelical connection. Whilst these cues are extremely obscure to the modern
reader, they were clearly understood by Dickens’ ecclesiastically literate audience.
Although not the first clergyman to appear in Dickens’ fictional work,125 the ‘Our
Parish’ Evangelical curate is a significant historical character. Frances Knight notes that
‘at the beginning of the nineteenth century the term ‘curate’ was almost always taken to
designate a clergyman in whom was vested sole charge of a parish in the absence of a
non-resident incumbent.’126 This was the case in ‘Our Parish’. By 1870 the term had
become associated with ‘assistant curates’, recently ordained clergymen whose role was
to assist resident incumbents.127
In choosing to depict the curate as an Evangelical, Dickens accurately reflected the
party’s increasing presence and influence within the Established Church in general (and
in London in particular) at the time ‘Our Parish’ was first published. Cragg describes how
‘in the closing years of the eighteenth century, the Evangelicals made rapid headway [...]
and were, with the encouragement of the then Bishop of London, Beilby Portens,
particularly active in the capital.’128 The launching of the Evangelical journal The Record
in 1828 was a further indication of the Evangelicals’ growing influence. Chadwick quotes
two contemporary sources, one of which estimated that the Evangelical clergy numbered
three thousand in the late 1840s to early1850s; whilst, the second puts the figure higher,
reckoning, in 1853, that they comprised around one third of the Established Church
124
Ibid., p. 23.
In ‘The Bloomsbury Christening’, originally published in The Monthly Magazine, April, 1834, Dickens’
first clergyman, a less than conscientious individual, appears. Ibid., p. 476.
126
Knight, p. 116.
127
Ibid., pp. 121, 122 for an explanation of the factors which contributed to this change.
128
Gerald Cragg, The Church and the Age of Reason, 1648-1789, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd.,
1971, p. 154.
125
184
clergy.129
With the exception of the Evangelical Dingley Dell clergyman (Pickwick Papers), 130
‘The Curate’ is the only clergyman in Dickens’ fictional work to be identified as
belonging to a particular party within the Established Church. For example, the Reverend
Frank Milvey in Our Mutual Friend, although recognisable as a slum priest, is not
affiliated with either the High Church or the Ritualists, who between them constituted the
vast majority of the clergymen designated slum priests. Dickens makes four specific
references to the curate’s Evangelical affiliation.
‘The Curate’s’ opposition to slavery, as demonstrated by his speaking for ‘one hour
and twenty-five minutes at an anti-slavery meeting at the Goat and Boots’, 131 was a
marked Evangelical trait of the period. In Chapter VI Dickens records that he ‘preached a
charity sermon’132; Carpenter and Cragg both record contemporary Evangelical
commitment to charity. The extemporising of his preaching is also indicative of
Evangelicalism.133 Finally, and more obscurely, there is the reference to his having a
‘deep sepulchral voice of unusual solemnity.’134 Cragg, commenting on Evangelicals of
the late eighteenth century, observes: ‘They kept steadily in the forefront of their thought
the high seriousness of life and the dread solemnity of death […] They developed an
almost morbid preoccupation with death.’135 Interestingly, ‘The Curate’ abstains from the
129
Chadwick, (Part One), p. 446.
The afternoon and evening services conducted within the parish church were both associated with the
Evangelicals of the period (pp. 75, 78). The relatively high frequency of communion services within the
Church, as discussed with reference to ‘Our Parish’, is a further sign of Evangelical influence. Finally,
with reference to Dickens’ use of the term ‘minister of the gospel’ (p. 73), Grayson Carter, Anglican
Evangelicals: Protestant Secessions from the Via Media, 1800-1850, Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2001, pp. 7, 38, notes that the Evangelical clergy of the period were commonly referred to as being
‘gospel clergyman’.
131
Dickens, Sketches, p.8.
132
Ibid., p.35.
133
Ibid., p.7
134
Ibid.
130
185
Evangelical practise of extemporary prayer
136
which Chadwick declares ‘was golden to
them.’ 137 This discrepancy, when added to the competition he experiences from the more
extreme Evangelical clergyman at the chapel-of-ease, which will be considered shortly,
suggests that ‘The Curate’ adopted a moderate Evangelical position.
It is probable, in view of his age (twenty-five)138 and Evangelical affiliation that ‘The
Curate’ had recently graduated from Cambridge, where, contrary to Oxford, the
Evangelicals were strong.139 Whilst there it was likely that he was influenced, unlike the
dissolute curate in Sunday Under Three Heads,140 by the leading Evangelical churchman
Reverend Charles Simeon, vicar of Holy Trinity, who died a year after the original sketch
was written. Simeon, who exercised considerable influence among Evangelical
undergraduates and ordinands at Cambridge, inaugurated, in 1817, The Simeon Trust.
The purpose of the trust, which was aided by The Municipal Corporations Act of 1835,
was to buy as many advowsons – the right to appoint clergy to a parish – as possible. By
so doing they sought to secure parishes in which they could place Evangelical clergy and
ensure a continuing Evangelical tradition within those parishes. In view of ‘The Curate’s
Evangelical affiliation and the Evangelical clues discussed previously regarding the
parish church, it could be construed that Dickens is suggesting that the Simeon Trust
held the advowson to his parish.
135
Cragg, p. 153.
Dickens clearly states that ‘he read prayers’. Dickens, Sketches, p.7.
137
Chadwick, (Part One), p. 442.
138
As the minimum age for ordination at the time was twenty-three the curate may have held a previous
curacy elsewhere or delayed his entry into Cambridge. Alternatively, as Knight reports (pp. 107,108),
competition for curacies within the Established Church was particularly fierce at the time. Whilst the
number of available positions remained static the number of ordinands graduating from Oxbridge rose
markedly (both Oxford and Cambridge doubled in size between 1810-1830, and the proportion of
graduates seeking to enter the Established Church remained at around 60%).
139
At the time the curate originally appeared Oxford and Cambridge were the only English universities
producing ordinands for the Established Church. The University of Durham only began teaching
theology in 1834.
140
Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, p. 640.
136
186
Dickens’ depiction of his second clergyman provides the modern reader with a
historical perspective of the Established Church’s use of chapels in early Victorian
London. The Evangelical affiliation of certain of these chapels and an appreciation of
the rivalry and competition that existed within the Church at that time is also revealed.
The clergyman, who appears in Chapter Two, is described by Dickens as officiating at a
chapel-of-ease. 141 Funded by the church rate, chapels-of-ease, although restricted in their
use of sacraments were, at the time, used to supplement church buildings in densely
populated London parishes.
Despite Dickens’ reference to the chapel-of-ease, it is more likely, due to the
competition that exists with the parish church, that it is a proprietary chapel. The
likelihood of this is increased by the Evangelical affiliation of the clergyman that resides
there. In prosperous parts of London this second type of Established Church chapel
represented the typical form of church extension. Private ventures, promoted by landlords
and developers, and administered by a board of trustees, these chapels, unlike churches,
did not require a Parliamentary Act to be constructed. Financed by pew rents, the value of
which was determined by the calibre of the preacher they employed, the proprietary
chapel operated independently of the parish church, with the appointed clergyman having
no parochial responsibilities.142
During the period that ‘Our Parish’ was first published proprietary chapels were
closely associated with the Evangelical party within the Established Church.143 The
141
Dickens, Sketches, pp. 8, 9.
For a detailed description of proprietary chapels see Chapter One of Brooks and Saint.
143
For example, the Reverend Baptist Noel, described by Grayson Carter in Anglican Evangelicals:
Protestant Secessions from the Via Media, 1800-1850, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001,
pp. 313, 314, as one of the leaders of the Evangelical party, left his curacy at Cossington, Leicestershire
in 1827 to take up residency at St John’s Chapel, Bedford Row, London. In the same year the Reverend
Charles Simeon also resigned his parochial position to take up a chapel appointment.
142
187
attraction of proprietary chapels to Evangelical clergy was that it released them from
pastoral, parochial responsibility and allowed them to focus on their preaching. Desmond
Bowen, in The Idea Of The Victorian Church, suggests that the desire of certain
Evangelical clergymen to limit themselves to the role of professional preachers was
linked to the importance they placed upon preaching as the means of communicating
their beliefs; and a desire to appeal to the Victorian interest in sermon tasting.144
In addition to his proprietary chapel connection, Dickens provides further evidence of
his second clergyman’s Evangelical identity. In his description,145 Dickens’ use of the
term ‘cadaverous’, and two separate allusions to the colour black, associated with
mourning, identifies the clergyman, according to Cragg, with the Evangelicals of the late
eighteenth century.146
Dickens used ‘The Curate’ and the chapel clergyman to depict the competition and
rivalry that existed within the Victorian Church at that time. To emphasis his
representation, rather than drawing on the traditional rivalry between the Established
Church and Dissent, or the individual parties within the Established Church,147 he chose
to use his two clergymen to focus on competition within one particular Established
Church party: the Evangelicals. Whereas ‘The Curate’, as previously discussed, is shown
to be a moderate Evangelical, the chapel clergyman, with ‘his ungainly manner, extreme
144
Desmond Bowen, The Idea Of The Victorian Church, Montreal: McGill University Press, 1968, p.150.
‘He was a pale, thin, cadaverous man, with large black eyes, and long straggling black hair.’ Dickens,
Sketches, p. 9.
146
Cragg, p. 153.
147
For example, the rivalry that existed between the High Church and Evangelical parties within the early
Victorian Established Church was highlighted by two high profile clerical controversies in the 1840s. In
both, Evangelical clergymen within the diocese of Exeter, the Reverend James Shore and the Reverend
George Cornelius Gorham, were embroiled in an ecclesiastical dispute with High Church Bishop of
Exeter, Henry Phillpotts. For a detailed discussion of the Shore case see Carter, Chapter Nine. Chapter
Four of Chadwick (Part One) provides an equally thorough account of the Gorham case.
145
188
slovenliness of dress and startling doctrines’,148 is used by Dickens to represent a more
extreme Evangelical position.149
At the beginning of Chapter II ‘The Curate’s’ popularity knows no bounds. The parish
church is full to capacity. Meanwhile the chapel, where a ‘very quiet, respectable, dozing
old gentleman’150 has officiated for twelve years, has been through a period of relative
inactivity.151 However, following the arrival of the new clergyman, the chapel is
‘crowded to suffocation every Sunday.’152 As a result ‘seats are once again to be had in
any part of our parish church.’153 Whilst depicting the parish church and chapel as
competing for the same pre-dominantly female middle-class congregation, Dickens
emphasises the relative absence of the poor from both places and worship. To the
author the competition and rivalry that existed within the Victorian Church deflected
resources and energy away from what he perceived to be its central purpose: ministering
to the physical and spiritual needs of the poor.
In his first fictional representation of an Established Church congregation Dickens
depicts a scene in which the majority of those attending his sub-urban 1830s parish
church service are middle-class ladies accompanied by their unmarried daughters.154
Dickens was to maintain this predominantly female church and chapel congregational
composition in his subsequent fictional work. For example, in David Copperfield, Hablot
148
Dickens, Sketches p. 9.
Carter, pp. 255, 256, identifies four particular groups within the Established Church Evangelical party
of the period. Of these, ‘The Curate’ can be identified as belonging to the ‘Christian Observer’
moderate school; whilst the chapel clergyman could be classified as either a ‘hyper-Calvinist’ or a
‘Millennialist.’
150
Dickens, Sketches, pp. 8, 9.
151
According to Brooks and Saint, it was not uncommon for proprietary chapels to experience periods of
intermittent religious activity (page 32).
152
Ibid., p. 9.
153
Ibid.
154
Ibid., p. 7.
149
189
K Browne’s illustration, ‘Our Pew at Church’ [Figure Two page 216], shows the majority
of the congregation of the parish church to be female.155 Knight confirms the historicity
of Dickens’ ‘Our Parish’ congregational representation when she describes the crucial
dividing line in Victorian religion and irreligion to be that of gender: ‘In all areas of
society, women were more likely than men to be actively involved in a church or a
chapel; conversely, men were far more likely than women to join a secularist
organisation, and more men than women were agnostics.’156 Commenting specifically on
parish churches she adds: ‘that the Church of England drew the bulk of its support from
women has been widely asserted.’157 Pope, with specific reference to Evangelicalism,
provides two possible explanations for the levels of female church attendance:
companionship and escaping domestic responsibility.158 Dickens himself makes the same
observation in both American Notes and Pictures From Italy.159
In keeping with his ‘Our Parish’ congregation,160 Dickens’ subsequent fictional
representations of male church attendance suggest that, in general, men had relatively less
enthusiasm for formal religious observance. In Pickwick Papers, the two young medical
students, Benjamin Allen and Bob Sawyer, who attend Dingley Dell parish church on
Christmas Day, are thoroughly bored with the whole occasion. Later we find Bob
Sawyer, now in a Bristol medical practice with Benjamin Allen, attending church purely
in an attempt to further his business interests. The only other occasion in Pickwick Papers
155
Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, facing page 10.
Knight, p. 205.
157
Ibid.
158
Pope, p. 142.
159
Charles Dickens, American Notes and Pictures From Italy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997,
pp. 56, 299.
160
The only allusion to the presence of males within Dickens’ congregation is a reference to ‘grave papas.’
Dickens, Sketches, p. 7.
156
190
when men attend church is for the marriage of Mr Snodgrass to Emily. 161 We also, in the
case of Mr Murdstone (David Copperfield), Daniel Quilp and Kit Nubbles (The Old
Curiosity Shop), find males in church or chapel for ulterior reasons. In other novels, for
example Dombey and Son, with the exception of Captain Cuttle, male church
attendance is restricted purely to weddings, baptisms and funerals. Interestingly, the only
example of a church or chapel being predominantly male orientated is Mr Taylor’s chapel
in Boston.162
‘A Lady At One House’ and ‘William’: Dickens’ introduction of his ‘Female
Angelic’ qualities
In Chapter V, ‘The Broker’s Man, and Chapter VII, ‘Our Next-Door Neighbour,
Dickens uses two characters, ‘A Lady At One House’163 and ‘William’, to introduce the
Christ-like qualities he was to associate with his ‘Female Angels.’ Whilst Dickens used
his ‘Charitable Angels’, Mr Pickwick, Mr Brownlow and Charles Cheeryble, to continue
the theme introduced through ‘The Old Lady’, the appearance of Rose Maylie signalled a
significant shift in Dickens’ ‘Angelic’ emphasis: charity was to be replaced by
selflessness, self-sacrifice and atonement. Dickens’ portrayals of ‘A Lady At One House’
and ‘William’ represent his original depiction of these Christian qualities. The familial
context in which the two ‘Our Parish’ characters exhibit these qualities, and their
detachment from the Church, is also indicative of Dickens’ ‘Female Angelic’ strategy.
Dickens’ representation of atonement through ‘The Lady At One House’ and
161
Dickens, Pickwick, pp. 409, 410, 535, 798.
Dickens, American Notes, pp. 57-59.
163
This is the term that Mr Bung uses to protect the actual identity of the person and family in question
during his conversation with the narrator. Dickens, Sketches, pp. 29-33.
162
191
‘William’ was very much in keeping with the contemporary Evangelical identity of his
parish. Focusing on the centrality of atonement theology in the Evangelical revival of the
eighteenth century Chadwick observes how John Wesley ‘discovered that the unadorned
gospel of atonement preached to labouring crowds converted in the instant.’164 This focus
on atonement continued into the nineteenth century. Liddon, the biographer of the leading
Victorian churchman Dr Pusey, states that: ‘The deepest and most fervid religion in
England during the first three decades of this [the nineteenth] century was that of the
Evangelicals […] who taught of the world to come […] and the infinite value of the one
Atonement.’165 In fact, Horton, in Worship and Theology in England from Watts and
Wesley to Maurice 1690 -1850, suggests that the Evangelicals ‘overwhelming emphasis
on the Atonement as effecting a salvation out of this world’ was their greatest defect. 166 It
was not until later in Dickens’ career that there was a theological shift away from
Atonement.167
‘A Lady At One House’, who willing chooses to lay down her life to save her family,
appears in ‘Mr Bung’s Narrative’. Mr Bung, prior to being elected the new beadle in
Chapter VI of ‘Our Parish’ worked as a broker’s man. In situations where individuals
were taken to court for non-payment of rates or rent, their goods would be distrained with
a view to them being sold to pay off their debts. A broker was employed to visit their
homes and assess the value of their household goods. At a later date they would be
164
Chadwick, (Part One), p. 5.
H.P. Liddon, Life of Edward Bouverie Pusey, London: 1893, Vol. I, p. 255.
166
Davies Horton, Worship and Theology in England From Watts and Wesley To Maurice, 1690-1850,
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961, p. 239.
167
Mark Knight and Emma Mason in their discussion of Boyd Hilton’s, The Age of Atonement, (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1988) note ‘a theological transition in the nineteenth century between the age of
Atonement and the age of Incarnation.’ According to Hilton this shift occurred around the middle of the
century: ‘By 1870 it was commonplace for Anglicans to assert that a theological transformation had
recently taken place.’ See Mark Knight and Emma Mason, Nineteenth Century Religion and
Literature, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 161, 162.
165
192
instructed to sell the items. To ensure the householder did not remove any of the assessed
objects the broker would leave someone in the house: the broker’s man.
The subject of Mr Bung’s third and final anecdote,168 ‘The Lady’- this term used by
Bung infers upon her a degree of social status, as opposed to the ‘’ooman’ in George’s
Yard
169
- is the mother of four/five fine children, and the wife of an indolent husband,
who is unable to ‘rouse himself’ in response to the family’s severe financial predicament.
The family are a year’s rent in arrears and unable to settle their debt. ‘The Lady’, who has
already pawned or sold all her jewellery and borne so much for her family’s sake, is
devastated by the arrival of Fixem, the broker; and the possible implications of pauperism
for her family.
On first meeting Fixem she offers up her last remaining treasure, ‘a little miniature
mounted in gold of her father.’
170
The family have a period of three days to clear the
debt, during which, Mr Bung, who remains in the house, witnesses at first hand the
selfless exertions of ‘The Lady’ on behalf of her family. Sacrificing any personal pride
or self-consideration, wearing shabby clothes, she goes out continually, from morning to
night, in the bitter cold and damp weather, ‘in a thin dress and shoes none of the best’, 171
trying to raise the money.
Bung relates the terrible personal suffering resulting from her selfless actions: ‘I saw
sir, that his wife was wasting away, beneath cares of which she never complained, and
griefs she never told. I saw that she was dying before his eyes.’ 172 In spite of Fixem’s
negative assessment ‘The Lady’ is successful, the debt is paid and the family celebrates
168
Dickens, Sketches, pp. 31-33.
Ibid., p. 30.
170
Ibid., p.32.
171
Ibid., p. 33.
172
Ibid.
169
193
and enjoys future prosperity. However, all this is achieved at the heart-breaking cost of
‘The Lady’s’ life.173 Throughout this moving account Dickens parallels ‘The Lady’s’
sacrifice with that of Christ’s: she is motivated by love, she has no thought of self or selfpreservation, her family, including her husband, are powerless to act on their own behalf,
and her sacrifice, which involves a great deal of suffering, is willingly endured without
complaint and proves efficacious. Also, the allegory of her Christ-like atonement is
enhanced by her sacrifice being undertaken to pay a debt.
William appears in ‘Our Next-Door Neighbour’, the final chapter of ‘Our Parish’. ‘A
young lad of eighteen or nineteen’,174 he, along with his mother, takes up lodgings nextdoor to the narrator. In a predicament similar to the Nickleby’s - recently bereaved, and
left financially destitute - they have moved from the country to suburban London in the
hope of improving William’s prospects of employment. Although well educated, William
is only able to find work ‘copying writings and translating for booksellers.’175 The timeconsuming nature of this work and its low pay forces William, in his attempts to alleviate
their poverty, to work excessive hours at the cost of his health.
‘How hard the boy worked […] no one ever knew but themselves. Night after night,
two, three, four hours after midnight, could we hear the occasional raking up of the
scanty fire, or the hollow and half-stifled cough which indicated his being still at work;
and day after day could we see more plainly that nature had set that unearthly light in his
plaintive face which is the beacon of her worst disease.’176 Although gradually dying,
probably from consumption, he continues his exhaustive labours for several months
173
Ibid., pp. 31-33.
Ibid., p. 44.
175
Ibid., p.45.
176
Ibid.
174
194
without ‘giving utterance to complaint or murmur.’177 ‘One beautiful autumn evening’178
the narrator, now a regular visitor, calls upon William. His health having rapidly
declined, he is now restricted to lying on the sofa. On hearing the narrator arrive,
William’s mother closes the bible she has been reading to William. He is about to die.
Dickens was to use the same metaphor of the closed bible representing death in Pickwick
Papers.179
Here, as in the case of ‘The Lady At One House’, Dickens paints a picture of willing
self-sacrifice, terrible suffering and atonement endured patiently and without question.
Also, in both cases the person for whom the sacrifice is made is powerless to help
themselves. In William’s death scene, Dickens does make two further possible allusions
to the crucifixion. William symbolically places one hand in the narrator’s and with the
other grasps his mother, drawing them toward each other. This action is suggestive of the
Saviour’s exhortation to his disciple John and his mother Mary to adopt one another as
mother and son. The closing of the bible can also be viewed as a symbolic reference to
Christ’s final words on the cross: ‘It is finished’. In relation to Dickens’ ‘Female Angelic’
representations of atonement and that of ‘The Lady At One House, William’s sacrifice
appears to lack efficacy. Although he has provided for his mother for several months her
long term prospects are far from positive. However, if the narrator, who himself has
undergone a change of heart as a result of William’s actions, were to take a personal,
adoptive interest in William’s mother, her situation may well improve.
Although a very early example of Dickens’ work, ‘Our Parish’, which serves as a
bridge between the two parts of this thesis, contains all the elements of Dickens’
177
Ibid.
Ibid.
179
Dickens, Pickwick, p. 287.
178
195
fictionalized personal beliefs that were to subsequently appear throughout his career. As
has been shown, its seven chapters contain Dickens’ seminal ‘Charitable Angel’, ‘The
Old Lady’, the original representation of the qualities associated with Dickens’ ‘Female
Angels’ and historical ecclesiastical material. His views on the poor, including the
necessity to prioritise their physical relief; the connection between appalling living
conditions and moral decline; his opposition to the doctrine of Original Sin; and the
inability of the poor to comprehend the implications of eternity when confronted with the
daily reality of suffering, can all be found in his opening paragraph.
How much is conveyed in those two short words - ‘The Parish!’ And with
how many tales of distress and misery, of broken fortune and ruined hopes,
too often of unrelieved wretchedness and successful knavery, are they
associated! A poor man, with small earnings, and a large family, just manages
to live from day to day; he has barely sufficient to satisfy the present cravings
of nature, and can take no heed of the future. His taxes are in arrear, quarterday passes by, another quarter-day arrives: he can procure no more quarter
for himself, and is summoned by - the parish. His goods are distrained, his
children are crying with cold and hunger, and the very bed in which his sick
wife is lying is dragged from beneath her. What can he do? To whom is he to
apply for relief ? To private charity? To benevolent individuals? Certainly not
- there is his parish. There are the parish vestry, the parish infirmary, the
parish surgeon, the parish officers, the parish beadle. Excellent institutions,
and gentle, kind-hearted men. The woman dies - she is buried by the parish.
196
The children have no protector - they are taken care of by the parish. The man
first neglects, and afterwards cannot obtain work - he is relieved by the
parish; and when distress and drunkenness have done their work upon him, he
is maintained, a harmless babbling idiot, in the parish asylum.180
An examination of Dickens’ subsequent shorter work demonstrates the enduring and
representative nature of Dickens’ beliefs about the poor as expressed in ‘Our Parish’.
In both Miscellaneous Papers and The Uncommercial Traveller the issues of Capital
Punishment and crime; drunkenness among the poor; neglect of the poor resulting
from government bureaucracy; the plight of the poor labouring classes and
those working in lead mills; and abuses of the poor within Poor Law institutions181 all
correspond to the themes expressed in ‘Our Parish’.
180
181
Dickens, Sketches, p. 1.
Dickens, Miscellaneous Papers and The Mystery of Edwin Drood, London: Hazell, Watson &
Viney Ltd., N.D. pp. 135-151, 159-161, 166-171, 172-174, 201-206, 207-210, 217-222;
Dickens, The Uncommercial Traveller, pp. 18-28, 319-326.
197
PART TWO
DICKENS’ ANGELS
198
CHAPTER FOUR: DICKENS’ ANGELS: AN INTRODUCTION
Part Two of this thesis argues that Dickens, within the context of his early fiction,
determined that the most effective means of communicating his personal beliefs was
through a series of ‘Angelic’ characters. Chapter Five examines how Dickens used
Samuel Pickwick, Mr Brownlow and Charles Cheeryble, his ‘Charitable Angels’, to
express his view that it was the responsibility of the Christian community to care for the
poor. Chapter Six focuses on what was to become Dickens’ dominant ‘Angelic’
representation, ‘Female Angels’. These ‘Angels’, Rose Maylie, Madeline Bray and Nell
Trent (their cultural significance will be discussed in Chapter Six), were used by Dickens
to show how internalised Christ-like qualities, particularly self-sacrifice, selflessness and
atonement could be expressed in an individual’s life. Their successors, Florence Dombey,
Harriet Carker (Dombey and Son), Esther Summerson (Bleak House), Rachael (Hard
Times), Agnes Wickfield (David Copperfield), Amy Dorrit (Little Dorrit), and Lizzie
Hexam (Our Mutual Friend), although referred to briefly, fall beyond the time-scale of
this thesis.
In addition, Dickens used individual ‘Angels’ to introduce other aspects of his
personal beliefs. Mr Pickwick, the ‘Angel of Light’, is used by the author to connect
conviviality and cheerfulness with genuine Christianity; Mr Brownlow, the ‘Angel of
Judgement’, represents Dickens’ belief in Divine Justice; and Charles Cheeryble, the
‘Watching Angel’, is used by the author to communicate his conviction that God
observes the works of Man, and Man will be answerable for his actions, both in life and
199
on the Day of Judgement. The operation of Divine Providence is represented by Mr
Brownlow, Charles Cheeryble and the three ‘Female Angels’. Finally, Dickens’ fictional
expression of his belief in the Resurrection is positively affirmed through his
representation of Nell Trent.
Although Dickens’ Charitable and Female Angels are, by virtue of their central role in
expressing the author’s beliefs, highly significant, they represent only part of the Angelic
host that populates Dickens’ fictional universe. In addition to there being around two
hundred and sixty separate references to ‘Angels’ in Dickens’ work there is an ‘Angelic’
presence in each one of his books. From their first appearance in Chapter II of ‘Our
Parish’ (1835),1 to the last in Chapter IX of Dickens’ final unfinished novel, The Mystery
of Edwin Drood (1870), 2 this widespread inclusion is in marked contrast to his cynical
treatment of the supernatural elsewhere in his work. In ‘Mr. Pickwick’s Tale’ (Master
Humphrey’s Clock), Dickens mocks demonic, occult activity.3 As previously noted, in
‘The Haunted House’(Christmas Stories), ‘Rather a Strong Dose’ and ‘Stories For The
First Of April’ (Miscellaneous Papers), 4 Dickens is satirically dismissive of Spiritualism.
This dismissiveness is further demonstrated in a letter to a Mrs Trollope: ‘I cannot have
the pleasure of seeing the famous “medium” to-night, for I have some theatricals at home.
But I fear I shall not in any case be a good subject for the purpose, as I altogether want
faith in the thing.’5
1
Charles Dickens, Sketches by Boz, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 7.
Charles Dickens, Miscellaneous Papers and The Mystery of Edwin Drood, London: Hazell, Watson
& Viney Ltd., N.D. p. 362.
3
Charles Dickens, Master Humphrey’s Clock and Child’s History of England, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1994, pp. 57-75.
4
Charles Dickens, Christmas Stories, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 226-228; Dickens,
Miscellaneous, pp. 283-288.
5
Georgina Hogarth and Mamie Dickens, (eds.), The Letters of Charles Dickens, London: Macmillan &
Co., 1893, p. 370. The letter was dated 19 June, 1855.
2
200
In ‘The Lamplighter’, both a play and a short story, he derides astrology. In addition,
as the pages of Pictures From Italy testify,6 the Roman Catholic church did not prove
immune to his opposition to superstition and the supernatural. Interestingly, beyond
Dickens’ ‘Angelic’ references, there appears to be only one other allusion to the presence
of God’s supernatural manifestation in all of Dickens’ books.7
In view of the pervasiveness of Dickens’ fictional ‘Angelic’ references and the central
role they play in communicating Dickens’ beliefs, it is surprising that they have been
largely overlooked by those who have written specifically on the subject of Dickens and
religion. The single ‘Angelic’ reference in McKenzie’s The Religious Sentiments of
Charles Dickens relates to The Old Curiosity Shop.8 In Kent’s Dickens and Religion,
there are only three discursive references.9 The first, interestingly, does hint at the extent
of Dickens’ ‘Angelic’ population, but Kent fails to explore this point further. In Procter’s
Christian Teaching in the Novels of Charles Dickens the only brief ‘Angelic’ reference
relates to Nell Trent.10 Pope’s Dickens and Charity11 contains no reference to ‘Angels’
whatsoever; whilst Walder’s Dickens and Religion provides only two brief ‘Angelic’
allusions.12
6
Charles Dickens, American Notes and Pictures From Italy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997,
pp. 271, 301, 332, 414, 415.
7
Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, contains Dickens’
only reference to the Holy Spirit (p.246).
8
Charles H. McKenzie, The Religious Sentiments of Charles Dickens, London: Walter Scott, 1884, p.13.
9
William Kent, Dickens and Religion, London: Watts & Co. 1930, pp. 30, 31, 39, 40, 117.
10
Reverend William C Procter, Christian Teaching in the Novels of Charles Dickens, London: 1930, pp.
53-54.
11
Norris Pope, Dickens and Charity, London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1978.
12
Dennis Walder, Dickens and Religion, London: Allen and Unwin Publishers Ltd., 1981. He refers to
Sam Weller’s description of Mr. Pickwick as being ‘an angel in tights and gaiters’ (p. 23). He also makes
reference to Florence Dombey being her father’s ‘better angel’ (p. 131); and Agnes Wickfield’s
etheralized status (page 147). In addition, Walder also describes four of Dickens’ ‘Female Angels’
(Agnes Wickfield, Esther Summerson, Rachael and Amy Dorrit), as being ‘semi-divine’ and ‘idealised’
(page 144).
201
In Charles Dickens Resurrectionist, Sanders’ acknowledgement of the Angelic within
Dickens’ fiction is restricted to a short discussion of Nell Trent within the wider context
of The Old Curiosity Shop.13 Although Larson’s Dickens and the Broken Scripture fails
to refer to the early novel ‘Angels’ examined in this thesis, the book does briefly allude
to Florence Dombey and Lizzie Hexam, two of Dickens’ later ‘Female Angels’.14 Reed’s
Dickens and Thackeray: Punishment and Forgiveness has only three ‘Angelic’
references;15 whilst Oulton’s Literature and Religion in Mid-Victorian England contains
two.16 Finally, Newey, in The Scriptures of Charles Dickens, identifies Milly Swidger
(The Chimes), Rose Mayle (Oliver Twist) and Agnes Wickfield (David Copperfield) as
being ‘Angels’.17
Referential ‘Angelic’ material is also, in the main, absent from the various Dickens
journals. In the Dickens Quarterly (1992-2006) there are no references. This is also the
case with regards to The Dickensian (1972-2006). Prior to 1972 the only ‘Angelic’
reference in the journal seems to be T.W Hill’s allusion to the ‘little round angels’ faces’
[my emphasis] in Chapter II of ‘Our Parish’.18 Dickens Studies Annual (1970-2006) does
provide slightly more material: Janet Larson’s article on Bleak House refers to Jo’s
‘guarding angel’ [my emphasis] ; Marilyn Georgas provides two further ‘Angelic’
references; and Garnett comes close, with reference to his comments on Rose Maylie, to
13
Andrew Sanders, Charles Dickens Resurrectionist, London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1982, pp. 67, 71,
72, 85, 88, 91.
14
Janet Larsen, Dickens and the Broken Scripture, Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1985, pp. 76,
110, 111, 296.
15
John Reed, Dickens and Thackeray: Punishment and Forgiveness, Athens: Ohio University Press, 1995,
pp. 109, 115, 191.
16
Carolyn Oulton, Literature and Religion in Mid-Victorian England, from Dickens to Eliot, Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan Ltd., 2003, pp. 81, 123.
17
Vincent Newey, The Scriptures of Charles Dickens: Novels of Ideology, Novels of the Self, Aldershot:
Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2004, pp. 92,109, 137, 154, 155.
18
T. W. Hill, ‘Notes on Sketches by Boz’, Dickensian, Vol. 46, 1950, p.207.
202
identifying Dickens’ ‘Female Angelic’ characters.19 In addition, the subject of Dickens
and ‘Angels’, seems to have been somewhat marginalised within various non-Dickens
contemporary Victorian journals of the last ten years or so.20
This introduction begins by considering Dickens’ ‘Charitable’ and ‘Female Angelic’
representations. This is followed by a discussion of the author’s fictional ‘Angelic’
typology. The chapter concludes by examining Dickens use of ‘Angelic’ illustrations and
his references to ‘Guardian Angels’.
Charitable angels and Female angels
Dickens’ ‘Charitable Angels’ and ‘Female Angels’ are in many ways congruent with
their biblical counterparts. Just as ‘Angels’ in the Old and New Testament perform the
role of messengers and ambassadors of God, so Dickens’ ‘Angels’ embody and
communicate his personal beliefs. The Bible’s association of ‘Angels’ with the
Resurrection (the four Gospels) and Judgement (Matthew and Revelation)21 is discussed
in the next two chapters with reference to Mr Brownlow, Charles Cheeryble and Nell
Trent.
Janet Larson, ‘Biblical Reading in the Later Dickens: The Book of Job According to Bleak House’,
Dickens Studies Annual, Vol. 13, 1984, p.43; Marilyn Georgas, ‘Little Nell and the Art of Holy Dying:
Dickens and Jeremy Taylor’, Dickens Studies Annual, Vol. 20, 1991, pp. 35, 51; Robert Garnett,
‘Dickens, the Virgin and the Dredger’s Daughter’, Dickens Studies Annual, Vol. 28, 1999, pp. 52-54, 56.
20
Having conducted a careful search it would appear that the following journals contain no reference to
Dickens’ ‘Angels’: Journal of Victorian Culture (2000 - Spring 2008), Victorian Literature and Culture
(1999 - March 2008), Victorian Review (1999 -Vol. 34, 2008), Nineteenth Century Contexts (1996 –
Vol. 29, 2007), Nineteenth Century Literature (1995 – Vol. 62, 2008), Victorian Periodical Review
(2005 – Vol. 41, 2008), Victorian Institute Journal (1996 - Vol. 35, 2007), Nineteenth Century Studies
(1996 – Vol. 21, 2006), Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century (2005 – Issue 6, 2008)
and Victorian Studies (1999 – Vol. 50, 2007). There is, in a somewhat earlier issue of the Victorian
Newsletter (1991), an article by Nanci Cervetti, ‘Dickens and Eliot in dialogue: Empty space, Angels
and Maggie Tulliver’, pp. 18-23.
21
Matthew XVI verse xxvii, Matthew XXIV verse xxxi; and Revelation Chapters VII and VIII.
19
203
Like the ‘Angels’ in the New Testament, Dickens’ ‘Angels’ are both human in form
and different from the people around them. But, whereas in the New Testament this
difference is marked by their clothing and attire (in Mark XVI, Luke XXIV and Acts I
the ‘Angels’ that appear are all wearing gleaming white clothing), 22 Dickens achieves
the same effect by the actions and attributes of his characters, which place them in direct
contrast to those around them. Mr Brownlow’s treatment of Oliver compared with that of
the parish officials is an excellent example of this. Dickens, as originally demonstrated in
‘Our Parish’, used his antithetical representation of false religious characters such as the
Miss Browns and Johnson Parkers in relation to ‘The Old Lady’ to enhance this
approach. Dickens’ most marked departure from Biblical orthodoxy is to be found in his
female representations of ‘Angels’ which will be discussed in the final chapter.
Although Dickens’ ‘Charitable Angels’ and ‘Female Angels’ have their own categoryspecific traits, all six share a series of common characteristics. Each, as will be discussed
at great length in the next two chapters, is identified by a specific textual reference. In the
case of the ‘Charitable Angels’ these references are relatively sparse and obscure. In
contrast, those relating to the ‘Female Angels’ are more numerous and direct. This
difference in referential approach can be accredited both to Dickens’ strategy of
differentiating his two ‘Angelic’ categories and his desire to reconcile the internal
‘Angelic’ beauty of his ‘Female Angels’ with their outward appearance. In addition, as
will be shown in the final chapter of this thesis, the ‘Angelic’ identities of Nell Trent,
Florence Dombey and Agnes Wickfield are reinforced by the use of illustrative cues.
22
Mark XVI verse v; Luke XXIV verse iv and Acts I verse x.
204
Another common trait is that all of Dickens’ ‘Charitable’ and ‘Female Angels’ are
deliberately distanced from both church and chapel.23 Whilst there is a nominal
relationship between Dickens’ ‘Angels’ and the Established Church no such relationship
exists with Dissent. No ‘Angel’ is recorded as attending a Dissenting chapel, or as having
any connection with Dissent. In part this can be explained by Dickens’ peripheral
portrayal of the church and chapel in his novels. Also, by wishing to show his ‘Angels’ as
attending church primarily on formal family occasions: christenings, marriages, funerals
and at Christmas, he determined his choice of the Established Church, synonymous with
such occasions.
It was the personal internalisation of religion and the manifestation of Christ-like
characteristics rather than acts of outward, formalised religion which Dickens sought to
promote. Mr Pickwick attends church on only three occasions - the marriage of Mr
Trundle to Isabella Wardle, Christmas Day and the marriage of his ward Mr Snodgrass to
Emily. In Oliver Twist Mr Brownlow is never recorded as attending church or chapel;
and there are no direct references to Rose Maylie being at a service, although we are led
to assume she is present with Oliver at the village church. Also, in the final substituted
illustration of the book, 24 she and Oliver are pictured gazing at Agnes Fleming’s
monument within a church.25 There is no mention of Madeline Bray or Charles Cheeryble
attending either church or chapel. Nell Trent is Dickens’ most conspicuous example of
his ‘Angelic’ church and chapel distancing strategy. Despite living in the confines of the
Whilst there is a nominal relationship between Dickens’ ‘Angels’ and the Established Church no such
relationship exists with Dissent. No ‘Angel’ is recorded as attending a Dissenting chapel or as having
any connection with Dissent. This is also true of his positive Christian characters. In part, this can be
explained by Dickens’ peripheral portrayal of the church and chapel in his novels. Also his portrayal
of ‘Angels’ attending church primarily on formal family occasions such as christenings, marriages,
funerals and at Christmas excluded Dissent.
24
The original idea for the final illustration was to show Rose seated by her fireside.
25
Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 238, 239, 414.
23
205
churchyard, her frequent nocturnal visits, her responsibilities for showing people around
the village church and for opening and closing the building for services, she is not
actually shown attending a service.26
Tom Pinch (Martin Chuzzlewit) although depicted often practising the organ in
church, is not found either attending or playing at a service.27 Florence Dombey only
attends church for sacramental purposes: the funerals of her mother and brother, the
baptism of her brother, the marriage of her father to Edith, and her own marriage to
Walter.28 Agnes Wickfield (David Copperfield) is recorded as being in church only on
the occasion of her own wedding and that of David and Dora.29 In Bleak House Esther
Summerson attends church only once.30 Rachael in Hard Times and Lizzie Hexam in Our
Mutual Friend do not go to church at all - Lizzie’s marriage to Eugene Wrayburn is
around his sick-bed.31 Finally, Amy Dorrit goes to St. George’s parish church on three
occasions: the first, her christening; the second for refuge (having followed Maggie home
to ensure her safety Amy is locked out of the Marshalsea) and lastly for her marriage to
Arthur.32
In fact, all of his ‘Angels’ are lay people. In his desire to differentiate between internal
piety and external religious observance Dickens excluded several qualifying Established
Church clergymen from his ‘Angelic’ ranks. An obvious example of this is the ‘greyheaded minister’ of a small West of England village, whose exemplary pastoral care for
his poor parishioners includes the provision of sporting facilities which he encourages
26
Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop, London: Hazell, Watson & Viney Ltd., N.D. pp. 334, 335.
Charles Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, London: Hazell, Watson & Viney Ltd., N.D. pp. 70, 71, 280, 281,
326.
28
Dickens, Dombey, pp. 21, 55-57, 240, 241, 442-445, 806-808.
29
Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 631,632, 864.
30
Charles Dickens, Bleak House, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 249.
31
Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 752, 753.
32
Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp.68, 176.
27
206
them to use on Sundays.33 Another example is the convivial, benevolent Dingley Dell
clergyman who appears in Chapter VI of The Pickwick Papers. Not only is he
commended by Dickens for his cheerfulness and faithfulness to his parishioners, but he
also shows remarkable kindness to a tragic mother and her convict son.34
The Reverend Stephen Roose Hughes, and his brother the Reverend Hugh Robert
Hughes, selflessly undertake the huge task of personally ministering to the friends and
families of those who died in the sinking of the trade and passenger ship the ‘Royal
Charter’. They also conduct each funeral service and painstakingly endeavour to identify
each body and to contact loved ones.35 The Reverend Frank Milvey (Our Mutual Friend)
is another potential candidate. The conscientiousness and self-sacrifice of this clergyman
who ministers within a deprived London parish is exemplified by his kind treatment of
both Betty Higden and Lizzie Hexam, and by his detailed knowledge of the plight of the
orphans within his parish. Finally, in The Mystery Of Edwin Drood, the Minor Canon,
Septimus Crisparkle, shows considerable kindness to the orphaned Landless twins,
Neville and Helena.
The final common characteristic shared by both the ‘Charitable Angels’ and the
‘Female Angels’ is the efficacious effect that they have upon others. As a result of Mr
Pickwick’s gracious benevolence Alfred Jingle and Job Trotter turn from their former
ways and become responsible citizens. Due to Mr Brownlow’s intervention Oliver gains
his inheritance and is restored to his aunt. Rose Maylie’s kindness and goodness cause
33
Charles Dickens, The Uncommercial Traveller and Reprinted Pieces, Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1996, pp. 658-661.
34
Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 71-81.
35
Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, pp. 3-17.
207
Nancy to offer up a prayer of repentance in her dying moments; 36 whilst Harry Maylie, in
seeking to win Rose’s hand, rejects a political career to become a clergyman. The
fortunes of the Nickleby family are transformed through their contact with Charles
Cheeryble. Also Madeline Bray finds her fortune and happiness restored through the
actions of Charles Cheeryble. Nell’s ultimate self-sacrifice has a profound effect on many
who witness it; and those who helped her on her travels are rewarded by her great uncle.
The homogeneity of Dickens’ ‘Charitable Angels’ represents a deliberate attempt by
Dickens to identify his characters with the ‘Osmosis Process’ described in Part One.
Samuel Pickwick, Mr Brownlow and Charles Cheeryble represent the profile of those
individuals within contemporary society who were most likely to effect the socioreligious change prescribed by the process. Their collective and individual ‘Angelic’
roles also influenced their gender specification. Mr Pickwick’s picaresque life style, his
comic adventures and confinement in the Fleet Debtors’ Prison were more generally
culturally compatible with that of a man. Also his relationship with Jingle and Trotter and
his other acts of charity and conviviality may have been less plausible had he been a lady.
Mr Brownlow’s role as an ‘Angel of Judgement’ would also have been compromised had
he been female. Charles Cheeryble’s relationship with Nicholas Nickleby, and his
depiction as a charitable employer would have been untenable had he been a lady. Also
his ‘Watching Angel’ role in relation to Ralph Nickleby would have been difficult to
maintain.
Dickens’ ‘Charitable Angels’ are, in terms of their age, appearance,37 marital, social
and financial status, identical. All three are middle-class, financially independent
36
37
Dickens, Twist, p. 362.
Reference to the respective illustrations of the three ‘Charitable Angels’, (Dickens, Pickwick, facing
208
bachelors in the autumn of their years. Not having a family of their own allowed the
‘Angels’, in accordance with the ‘Osmosis Process’, to exercise their benevolence in a
wider context. Mr Pickwick is the legal guardian of Mr Snodgrass, clears the debts of
Alfred Jingle and finances a new life for him in the West Indies. He also releases Mrs
Bardell from the Fleet Debtors’ Prison. Mr Brownlow, who has helped needy children in
the past, befriends and eventually adopts the orphan Oliver. Charles Cheeryble takes a
complete stranger, Nicholas, and his family under his wing. He also provides for his
nephew Frank, Madeline Bray, his employees and others loosely connected with his
business. Dickens leaves his middle-class readers in no doubt that should they imitate his
‘Angels’ the lives of the urban poor and needy would be transformed.
Dickens’ use of young women,38 whose physical beauty served as a metaphor for their
inner beauty, clearly signalled his intention to differentiate his ‘Female Angels’ from Mr
Pickwick, Mr Brownlow and Charles Cheeryble. Charity was to be replaced by the
Christ-like qualities of selflessness, self-sacrifice and atonement. This transformation also
enhanced their effectiveness, in that Dickens was able to represent these ‘Female
Angelic’ qualities within a relational, familial context. Rose Maylie, ‘not past
seventeen’,39 and described as being ‘pure and beautiful’,40 out of love for her adopted
aunt refuses to accept Harry Maylie’s proposal despite her love for him, on the basis that
she will harm his political prospects. Madeline Bray, who possess ‘a countenance of
page 5; Dickens, Twist facing page 95; and Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1998, facing page 481), show all three to be rotund gentlemen in the autumn of their
years.
38
There are among Dickens’ later ‘Female Angels’ two exceptions to this rule. Rachael (Hard Times) is
thirty-five years old; and although Harriet Carker’s exact age is not given in Dombey it exceeds that of
the teenage years of the other ‘Female Angels’.
39
Dickens, Twist, p. 212.
40
Ibid.
209
uncommon beauty’,41 is a young lady ‘scarcely eighteen years old’42 who, for several
years, has slaved away to support her undeserving, thankless father. Having done all this
she then willing agrees to make the ultimate sacrifice by consenting to marry the
grotesque, elderly miser Arthur Gride to clear her father’s debts. Nell Trent, ‘the pretty’43
fourteen-year-old girl, in her selfless quest to redeem her grandfather experiences
considerable suffering. Her personal sacrifice on his behalf eventually results in her
death.
Beyond his early novels this ‘Angelic’ pattern of self-sacrifice, selflessness and
atonement, expressed within a relational, familial setting continues. Florence Dombey
suffers appalling neglect at the hands of her father, culminating in her physical assault
and eviction from the family home. Despite this she continues to love him, and at the end
of the novel prevents his suicide, and takes him into her own home. Agnes Wickfield,
David Copperfield’s ‘Good Angel’, despite the pain of his romantic attachments to Miss
Shepherd, Miss Larkins and Dora, selflessly stands by him. Esther Summerson sacrifices
her beauty and risks her life in her care for Jo and Caddy Jellyby. Selflessly, she commits
herself to marry John Jarndyce rather than Allan Woodcourt. Rachael, despite her
demanding work at Bounderby’s factory and her domestic responsibilities, selflessly
nurses Stephen Blackpool’s drunken wife. Amy Dorrit selflessly provides for her family
whilst in the Marshalsea and sees her loss of fortune, which has completely unaffected
her, as the removal of a barrier between her and Arthur, who she has been nursing in
prison. Lizzie Hexam who, for his benefit, refuses Eugene Wrayburn’s proposal even
41
Dickens, Nickleby, p. 188.
Ibid.
43
Dickens, Curiosity Shop, pp. 10, 11.
42
210
though it would provide her with huge social advantages, also makes sacrifices to provide
for the education of her younger brother.
Dickens’ ‘Angelic’ typology
Beyond his ‘Charitable and Female Angels’ there are several other types of ‘Angels’
in Dickens’ fiction. The first are those ‘Angels’ which appear in his shorter works. These
six, in the fictional roles they perform, closely resemble the ‘Charitable and Female
Angels.’ ‘The Old Lady’ (‘Our Parish’), as discussed in Chapter Two, is Dickens’
original ‘Angel’. In terms of her care for the poor she is clearly identified as the
antecedent of the three ‘Charitable Angels’. Meg Veck (The Chimes), Milly Swidger
(The Haunted Man)44 and Alice, who appears in ‘The Five Sisters of York’, a short
narrative in Chapter VI of Nicholas Nickleby, mirror in age, appearance and qualities
they demonstrate Dickens’ ‘Female Angels’. In ‘The Seven Poor Travellers’ (Christmas
Stories), Major Taunton’s care of Richard Doubledick is reminiscent of the ‘Charitable
Angels’ treatment of those in need. Finally Lucy Atherfield,45 a child whose death and
resurrectional association has a profound affect on those adults around her, is identifiable
with Nell Trent. Stone and Slater suggest two additions to this list. The former proposing
Marion Jeddler (The Battle of Life),46 and the latter, Mrs Atherfield (Lucy’s mother)
from Dickens’ 1856 Christmas story ‘The Wreck of the Golden Mary.’47
The second type are character specific ‘Angels’. These are used by Dickens to denote
the virtue, or otherwise, of individuals. Agnes Wickfield, the ‘Female Angel’ in David
Newey, p. 109, also recognises Milly as an ‘Angel’.
Lucy appears in Dickens’ 1856 Christmas Story, ‘The Wreck of the Golden Mary’. Dickens, Christmas
Stories, pp. 133-160.
46
Harry Stone, Dickens and the Invisible World, London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1980, p. 132.
47
Michael Slater, Dickens and Women, London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1983, p. 369.
44
45
211
Copperfield, is referred to as being David’s ‘Good Angel’; whilst her antithesis, James
Steerforth, is David’s ‘Bad Angel’.48 In Dombey and Son, Harriet Carker, also a ‘Female
Angel’, is identified as being a ‘Solitary Angel’ to reflect her decision to selflessly stand
by her disgraced brother.49 In the same novel Alice Marwood, an embittered ex-convict
who has been ill-used by James Carker, is described as being the ‘Fallen Angel’.50 In
using this term Dickens not only refers to the cultural association of young women with
‘Angels’, a subject that will be discussed in chapter six of this thesis, but also alludes to
Alice Marwood’s redemption, which occurs during the closing stages of her life. Major
Taunton is described as being Richard Doubledick’s ‘Guardian Angel.’ 51 The same
phrase is used with reference to Agnes Wickfield’s relationship with David.52 Finally, in
the same novel, Jane and Edward Murdstone are identified as being ‘Destroying
Angels’.53
The next type of ‘Angels’ are those which appear in his Christmas fiction. In Dickens’
two Christmas collections, Christmas Stories and Christmas Books, there are at least
thirty-four ‘Angelic’ references. Principally, as in ‘The Christmas Tree (1850), ‘What
Christmas Is As We Grow Older (1850) and ‘The Seven Poor Travellers’ (1854), they
form part of the author’s depiction of the religious significance of the season.54
The fourth type of ‘Angels’ are linked to a collection of characters whose negative
portrayal is in direct contrast to Dickens’ ‘Charitable and Female Angels’. Barnaby
Rudge is noteworthy in that it contains a significant number of these negative ‘Angels’.
48
Dickens, Copperfield, pp. 366-367.
Dickens, Dombey, p. 473.
50
Ibid., pp. 473, 489. Dickens, Christmas Stories, used this term again in ‘Mrs Lirriper’s Legacy’ (p. 432)..
51
Dickens, Christmas Stories, p. 82
52
Dickens, Copperfield, p. 612.
53
Ibid., p. 52.
54
Dickens, Christmas Stories, pp. 11, 23-24, 93 - 94.
49
212
Their inclusion is clearly part of the book’s overall strategy of exposing the bigotry and
false religiosity connected with the Gordon Riots.
The first such ‘Angel’ is the sour, shrewish, flattering domestic servant Miggs 55 who,
with her mistress Martha Varden, is a supporter of the Gordon movement. Simon
Tappertit, Gabriel Varden’s self-deluded apprentice, who, in his pretentious role as the
self-styled Captain of the ‘Prentice Knights, actively participates in the Gordon Riots, is
the next ‘Angel’ to appear.56 Sir John Chester, a heartless father and unprincipled
gentleman, who is unsympathetically contrasted with the Catholic Geoffrey Haredale, is
the third.57 The fourth ‘Angel’ is Martha Varden. Although changed for the better
through the events of the story, at the time of the reference she is portrayed as being an
ill-tempered, vain and puritanical character who is taken in by the extremist cause.58
Finally, Lord George Gordon, instigator in chief and namesake of the notorious No
Popery Riots, is the last ‘Angel’ to appear in the novel. 59
Chronologically, the remaining negative ‘Angels’ that appear in Dickens’ work are
Mrs Bumble (Oliver Twist),60 Mrs Squeers (Nicholas Nickleby),61 Mr Pecksniff (Martin
Chuzzlewit),62 Edith Dombey and James Carker (Dombey and Son),63 Rosa Dartle
(David Copperfield),64 Miss Barbary (Bleak House),65 Madame Defarge (Tale of Two
55
Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p.73
Ibid., p. 486.
57
Ibid., p.211.
58
Ibid., p.104.
59
Ibid., p.312.
60
Dickens, Twist, p.199.
61
Dickens, Nickleby, p.94.
62
Dickens, Chuzzlewit, p.76
63
Dickens, Dombey, pp. 377, 757.
64
Dickens, Copperfield, p. 435.
65
Dickens, Bleak House, p. 15.
56
213
Cities)66 and finally Lavinia Wilfer in Our Mutual Friend.67 The only representative of
this group in Dickens’ shorter work is the toy-merchant Tackleton who appears in The
Cricket on the Hearth. 68 Of these, Mrs Bumble, representative of the parish
administration that cruelly failed Oliver; Pecksniff, the conniving hypocrite; and Miss
Barbary, Esther’s stern aunt who despite her impressive weekly church attendance never
smiles, are excellent examples of Dickens’ counterpoint strategy.
In addition to these types, Dickens’ fiction also contains a wealth of miscellaneous
‘Angelic’ references. Void of both symbolic and narrative significance the first of the two
miscellaneous categories relates to a body of peripheral characters. The cook in the
employee of the Dombey household;69 Sam and Mary’s Weller’s son70 and Alice in
Master Humphrey’s Clock;71 Sophia, Ruth Pinch’s spoilt thirteen year old pupil in Martin
Chuzzlewit, 72 and the Protestants of Suffolk in Barnaby Rudge73 are all good examples
of these character- specific miscellaneous ‘Angelic’ references.
The second non-character-specific miscellaneous category, liberally scattered
throughout Dickens’ work, can be typified by the following examples. In his description
of a pantomime in ‘Two Views of a Cheap Theatre’ (The Uncommercial Traveller)
Dickens makes reference to ‘Angels’ being among the fairies and knights. In another
piece from the same book, ‘Chatham Dockyard’, Dickens refers to ‘cherubic epaulettes’
66
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities and A Christmas Carol, London: Hazell, Watson & Viney Ltd.,
N.D. p.305.
67
Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, p. 677.
68
Dickens, Tale of Two Cities and Christmas Carol, p. 516.
69
Dickens, Dombey, p. 828.
70
Dickens, Master Humphrey’s Clock, p. 22.
71
Ibid., p.101.
72
Dickens, Chuzzlewit, p. 117.
73
Dickens, Rudge, p. 268.
214
in relation to a transport ship.74 In A Child’s History of England he refers to Dunstan, the
Abbot of Glastonbury, being shown around Glastonbury Church by an ‘Angel’. Later, in
the same book, he includes a rumour that ‘Angels’ spoke to Joan of Arc.75 In American
Notes he includes the term ‘Angels tears’ in his description of the Niagara Falls.76
Dickens: ‘Angelic’ illustrations and ‘Guardian Angels’
In my research, I have found representations of ‘Angels’ in at least fourteen77
illustrations of Dickens’ work. Four of these, which relate to Nell Trent, will be discussed
in detail in Chapter Six. Three Hablot K Browne illustrations, ‘Our Pew at Church’
(David Copperfield), [Figure Two]; ‘I am married’ (David Copperfield), [Figure Three];
and ‘The Little Church in the Park’ (Bleak House), [Figure Four],78 which are reproduced
on the next two pages, each contain matching pairs of naked child cherubs. Of
archaeological rather than symbolic significance, these architecturally florid Renaissance
-style figurines, as with Mr Tomkins’ monument in ‘Our Parish’,79 were typical of those
seen in the interiors of historical churches of the period.
74
Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller pp. 33, 266.
Dickens, Master Humphrey’s Clock, p.151, 323.
76
Dickens, American Notes, p. 200.
77
This figure does not include the numerous illustrations of Dickens’ ‘Charitable and Female Angels’.
78
Dickens, Copperfield, facing pages 11, 611; Dickens, Bleak House, facing page 257.
79
Dickens, Sketches, p. 7.
75
215
Figure Two: Our Pew at Church
* The cherubs are on the wall behind the clergyman.
216
Figure Three: I am married
* The cherubs are situated above the pulpit.
Figure Four: The Little Church in the Park
* The cherubs are circled above the clergyman’s head.
217
Three illustrations are used by Dickens to complement his depiction of a separate
‘Angelic’ category of ‘Guardian Angels’. These will be discussed at the end of this
section. Of the remaining illustrations, three appear in the frontispieces of Master
Humphrey’s Clock, Dombey and Son and The Haunted Man. The ‘Angels’ in George
Cattermole’s original 1840 frontispiece to Volume One of the first edition of Master
Humphrey’s Clock80 (see Figure Five below) appear to be dream-like images conjured up
by the sleeping club members. There is also a folklorish feel to their representation within
the context of the whole illustration.
Figure Five: Master Humphrey’s Clock frontispiece
80
Dickens, Master Humphrey’s Clock, frontispiece.
218
Dombey and Son’s frontispiece 81 [Figure Six], reproduced on the next page, unlike
Master Humphrey’s Clock introductory illustration, is closely connected with Dickens’
‘Angelic’ strategy. Hablot K. Browne’s illustration effectively represents a synopsis of
the book’s plot, a plot which contains two of Dickens’ ‘Female Angels’, Florence
Dombey and Harriet Carker. Also, as will be discussed in relation to Nell Trent in
Chapter Six, the novel, in the person of Paul Dombey, also explores the resurrection of
children as ‘Angels’. Careful examination of the illustration overleaf shows a pair of
‘Angels’ watching over Paul’s death-bed; a baby being transported to Heaven by two
‘Angels’; Florence redeeming her father and pleading with Edith in an attempt to save her
from herself. In addition, the female figure in the centre of the frontispiece, standing
behind the seated Florence and Paul in his invalid chair, is drawing the reader’s gaze
upwards toward the assembled ‘Angelic’ host. Interestingly, the free-flowing robes that
she, her companion, and the ‘Destroying Angel’ 82 on the left of the picture are wearing
are symbolic of ‘Angels’’ wings. The predominantly female representation of ‘Angels’ in
this illustration and elsewhere in Dickens’ work, will be considered in Chapter Six.
81
82
Dickens, Dombey, frontispiece.
The ‘Destroying Angel’ is seen passing judgment on one of the novel’s principal villains James Carker
who is killed by a train. On page 648 Dickens refers to the role of this particular ‘Angel’, a reference he
was to repeat in Copperfield (p. 52).
219
Figure Six: Dombey and Son frontispiece
John Tienniel’s title drawing for Dickens’ 1848 Christmas book, The Haunted Man83
[Figure Seven], reproduced on the next page, is the last of the three frontispieces to
contain an ‘Angelic’ representation. In common with Dombey and Son, the illustration
depicts the essence of the story. John Redlaw, a chemist, who makes a bargain with a
83
This illustration has been taken from Alexander Welsh’s book, The City of Dickens, Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1971, facing page 197.
220
ghostly spectre to enable him to forget the painful memories of his past, realises he has
made a terrible mistake. The effects of the bargain are principally reversed by the
intervention of the story’s ‘Angel’, Milly Swidger. Redlaw at the end of the narrative is,
as a result of his experience, and Milly’s influence, profoundly changed. To reflect the
book’s plot, Tiennel, as shown below, depicts a young child caught between a spectre and
an ‘Angel’.
Figure Seven: The Haunted Man frontispiece
‘Changes at Home’ 84 (Figure Eight overleaf), as with Dombey and Son’s frontispiece
[Figure Six] , connects Dickens’ representation of ‘Angels’ with death and subsequent
resurrection, especially with regards to children. This association will be discussed fully
84
Dickens, Copperfield, facing page 107.
221
in Chapter Six. In this Hablot K. Browne illustration the female ‘Angel’ figurine situated
directly opposite David’s mother is watching over her and the baby boy she is nursing.
Both are soon to die. This ‘Angelic’ symbol of hope and protection within the domestic
setting is in stark contrast to the household presence of the novel’s antithetical
‘Destroying Angels’, Edward and Jane Murdstone.
Figure Eight: Changes at Home
* The ‘Angel’, with head bowed, mirroring David’s mother Clara, is supporting the
mantle piece to Clara’s right.
222
The final illustration, entitled ‘A Stranger calls to see me’ 85 (see Figure Nine on page
225), relates to the ‘Female Angelic’ representation of Agnes Wickfield.86 As with Nell
Trent, Dickens used visual cues to reinforce Agnes’ ‘Angelic’ identity. The previously
discussed ‘I Am Married’ illustration (Figure Three page 217) provides an excellent
example of how Dickens combined illustrative and narrative detail to confirm Agnes’
‘Angelic’ status. In ‘I Am Married’ a stone statue of a winged female ‘Angel’ on a plinth
is prominently positioned above the church wedding party. Agnes, standing immediately
to the left of David, is clearly visible at the front of this party. Significantly the ‘Angelic’
statue is pointing upwards.
Eleven chapters after this illustration, Agnes, who has selflessly nursed David’s wife,
Dora, comes downstairs to tell him that Dora has died. She is described by David in the
following terms: ‘That face, so full of pity, and of grief, that rain of tears, that awful mute
appeal to me, that solemn hand upraised towards Heaven!’87 On two separate occasions
later in the narrative David returns to this point:
You remember, when you came down to me in our little room – pointing
upward, Agnes? Ever pointing upward, Agnes; ever leading me to something
better, ever directing me to higher things! Until I die, my dear sister, I shall
see you always before me, pointing upward! [ ...] Oh Agnes, oh my soul, so
may thy face be, by me when I close my life indeed; so may I, when realities
85
Ibid., facing page. 866.
Dickens’ choice of name, in relation to her ‘Angelic’ status, is interesting in that it closely resembles the
French word for Angel, anges.
87
Dickens, Copperfield, p. 768.
86
223
are melting from me like the shadows which I now dismiss, still find thee
near me, pointing upward! 88
‘A Stranger calls to see me’ (Figure Nine on the next page) depicts a scene of
domestic bliss. On the mantle piece, as can clearly be seen, stand two female ‘Angel’
figurines. These not only act as indicators of Agnes’ ‘Angelic’ status but reflect the
contemporary cultural representation of domestic ‘Angelic’ womanhood. These
representations will be considered in detail in Chapter Six. On two separate occasions in
the narrative Agnes is described as being David’s ‘Good Angel’. 89 In this role she
selflessly stands by him, offers wise counsel, watches over him and, at the time of his
greatest need, steps in. The two ‘Angels’ are symbolic of this. David’s marriage to his
‘Good Angel’ can only result in his peace and blessing as represented in the illustration.
The presence of the Cross, to the left of David, beneath the doll seated on a chair,
confirms the spiritual aspect of Agnes’ representation. Also there is, in terms of the
setting and the presence of David, a link with the ‘Changes at Home’ illustration (Figure
Eight page 222).
88
89
Ibid., pp. 843, 877.
Ibid., pp. 366-367.
224
Figure Nine: A Stranger calls to see me
Guardian angels
Whilst Agnes (David Copperfield) and Major Taunton (‘The Seven Poor Travellers’)
are directly referred to as being ‘Guardian Angels’,90 the term equally applies to several
other of his ‘Angelic’ characters. Dickens’ original ‘Angel’, ‘The Old Lady’ (Our
Parish), is commended for being a guardian of the poor. All of Dickens’ ‘Charitable
Angels’ demonstrate a degree of guardianship. Mr Pickwick provides for Sam Weller and
his ward Mr Winkle; Mr Brownlow watches over Oliver and ensures his future prosperity
and happiness; and Charles Cheeryble performs a similar role on behalf of Madeline Bray
and the Nicklebys. Of the ‘Female Angels’, other than Agnes (who is described as
fulfilling the role for both David and his first wife Dora Spenlow), the most noticeable
example is Nell Trent’s care and protection of her grandfather. Dickens’ belief in the
existence of ‘Guardian Angels’ was not purely a fictional one. In a letter to George
90
Ibid., p. 612. Dickens, Christmas Stories, p. 82.
225
Beadnell dated 19 December 1839, Dickens writes: ‘The air about us has been said to be
thick with guardian angels, [my emphasis] and I believe it, in my soul.’91
In addition to these ‘Angelic’ characters Dickens’ work contains three visual
depictions of ‘Guardian Angels’.92 In the Dombey and Son illustration, ‘Florence and
Edith on the Staircase’93 (Figure Ten on the next page) the two pictures above Edith
Dombey’s head contain a pair of winged female ‘Angel’ nursing, carrying and protecting
a small child. The poignancy of these images is considerably enhanced in that Florence
not only lost her mother as a child, and suffered neglect and virtual abandonment at the
hands of her father, but her subsequent hopes of finding a replacement mother in Edith
are soon to be shattered. Her fellow ‘Female Angels’ share her sufferings: Rose Maylie is
an orphan abandoned by a disgraced family; Esther Summerson is an illegitimate child
brought up by a stern aunt; Nell is parentless; Madeline Bray, Amy Dorrit and Lizzie
Hexam are all motherless.
91
Madeline House and Graham Storey, (eds.), The Letters of Charles Dickens, Oxford: The Clarendon
Press, (The Pilgrim Edition),Vol. I, p. 620.
92
Dickens, Dombey, p. 641; Dickens, Copperfield, p. 372; Dickens, Bleak House, p. 722.
93
Dickens, Dombey, facing page. 641.
226
Figure Ten: Florence and Edith on the Staircase
The second ‘Guardian Angel’ image appears in a David Copperfield illustration
entitled ‘Uriah persists in hovering near us, at the Dinner-Party’.94 As can be seen in the
illustration (Figure Eleven on the next page) a Female ‘Angelic’ figurine, protectively
standing over a small child, is strategically positioned directly above the seated Agnes. In
appearance it closely resembles the two female ‘Angels’ portrayed in ‘Florence and Edith
on the Staircase’. Agnes, as with Florence, has lost her mother, and, although her father
does not neglect her in the same way as Florence’s father does, he is, due to Uriah Heep’s
exploitation, unable to care for her effectively.
94
Dickens, Copperfield, facing page 372.
227
Figure Eleven: Uriah persists in hovering near us, at the Dinner-Party
The final ‘Guardian Angel’ illustration appears in Bleak House.95 ‘Shadow’(Figure
Twelve on the next page) contains a circular picture, visible through an archway, of a
winged Female ‘Angel’ cradling two infants. In appearance the ‘Angel’ is almost
identical to its counterparts in ‘Florence and Edith on the Staircase’ (Figure Ten previous
page). The connection with Esther and the ‘Guardian Angel’ is made through the
presence of her mother, Lady Dedlock, who abandoned her as a baby. Dickens’ exclusive
use of females in these three ‘Angelic’ representations, and elsewhere, will be discussed
in Chapter Six.
95
Dickens, Bleak House, facing page 722.
228
Figure Twelve: Shadow
Dickens’ inclusion of ‘Guardian Angels’ does, despite their female gender illustrative
bias, represent a concession to biblical orthodoxy, which is by no means common in his
work. The scriptural precedent for ‘Angels’ being charged with specific responsibility for
caring for individuals - especially children - is clearly established. Jacob, in the process of
blessing his son Joseph in Genesis XLVIII verse xvi, refers to the ‘Angel’ who has
‘redeemed me from all evil.’ Mr Brownlow in relation to Oliver; Nell with regards to her
grandfather; Harriet Carker in aiding Alice Marwood and Florence Dombey in rescuing
her father from himself, all demonstrate this ‘Angelic’ ministry. Psalm XCI verse xi
confirms the guardianship role afforded to ‘Angels’ by God. In this verse, and also in
Psalm XXXIV verse vii, and Acts XII verse xv, the emphasis is placed on ‘Guardian
Angels’ watching over those who are God’s servants and are instrumental in carrying out
his purposes. The connection between the three ‘Guardian Angel’ illustrations and
229
Florence, Agnes and Esther reflect this, as does Mr Brownlow’s guardianship of Oliver
who, as discussed in Chapter Five, is representative of the elect (those, who according to
Calvinistic teaching, are assured salvation).
The verse in Psalm XXXIV also makes reference to the proximity of the ‘Guardian
Angels’ to those they have been commissioned to help. On three separate occasions (Mr
Brownlow’s meeting with Oliver, Charles Cheeryble’s meeting with Nicholas Nickleby
and Harriet Carker’s meeting with Alice Marwood) Dickens emphasises the providential
nature of their first meeting. Although not connected by any family or societal ties (in
fact they are separated by a gulf of respectability) the ‘Angels’ are close to those they
have been sent to help. Finally, in Matthew XVIII verse x there is a reference to the
‘Angels’ who watch over children. I will explore Dickens’ representation of the
relationship between ‘Angels’ and children in Chapter Six. The three ‘Guardian Angel’
illustrations, and Mr Brownlow’s care of Oliver also portray this relationship.
230
CHAPTER FIVE: CHARITABLE ANGELS
Dickens primarily used his ‘Charitable Angels’, Mr Pickwick, Mr Brownlow and
Charles Cheeryble, to promulgate his personal belief that individuals and society have a
Christian responsibility to care for the poor and needy. In addition to promoting this
original principle, each individual ‘Angel’ performed the supplementary role of
introducing a further aspect of Dickens’ personal beliefs. Dickens connects conviviality
and good humour with genuine Christian expression through his ‘Angel of Light’, Mr
Pickwick. ‘The Angel of Judgement’, Mr Brownlow, embodies Dickens’ belief in Divine
Justice and Divine Providence. Charles Cheeryble, the ‘Watching Angel’, whilst
complementing Pickwick’s conviviality and supporting Brownlow’s portrayal of Divine
Judgement and Providence, is used by Dickens to represent the principle of God watching
and recording the deeds of men.
Dickens’ ‘Charitable Angels’ embody the compassionate interventionist spirit which
arose in England between 1830 and 1850.1 According to Cazamian, Dickens was a
leading interventionist, who was ‘at the same time both cause and effect of the process.’ 2
Interventionism, contrary to the self-centredness prompted by the contemporary climate
of individualism and laissez-faire government policy, sought to engender a sense of
personal philanthropic responsibility toward the disadvantaged and vulnerable members
of society.3
It can also be argued that Dickens’ ‘Charitable Angels’ are, in a way, symbolic of the
transition which took place in the Victorian theology of the period. In Nineteenth Century
Religion and Literature, Knight and Mason delineate this change within the context of
1
Louis Cazamian, The Social Novel in England 1830 -1850, London: Routledge & Paul Ltd., 1973, p.3.
Ibid., pp. 6, 61.
3
Ibid., pp. 3, 61.
2
231
two theological frameworks.4 The first, drawn from Boyd Hilton’s The Age of
Atonement,5 describes the transition in terms of a shift from Atonement Theology to
Incarnational Theology; the second, based on the categories devised by the theologian
Aubrey Moore, depicts a movement from Transcendence to Immanence. In both, the
subsequent shift of emphasis was manifested in a commitment to establish and extend the
Kingdom of God in the present. Society, in accordance with God’s will and presence
should be changed, and the poor represented the most obvious potential beneficiaries of
that change.
Dickens’ ‘Charitable Angels’, through their benevolence and other Christian qualities,
are early fictional examples of the Immanent/Incarnational shift.6 The Christianity they
represent is involved and concerned with the daily difficulties of life; they are agents of
change, who seek to demonstrate Biblical teaching through their actions. Dickens’ use of
Mr Pickwick, Mr Brownlow and Charles Cheeryble to represent Christianity within a
wider societal context is also identifiable with the theological shift. Frederick Denison
Maurice,7 a leading Victorian Churchman whose Incarnational convictions 8 led him to
become, along with John Malcolm Ludlow and Charles Kingsley, an influential figure in
the Christian Socialist movement, promoted, as part of his ‘New Catholicism’, the
principle of moving the Church out of the sanctuary and into society. This was very
much in line with Dickens’ personal views as expressed through Mr Pickwick’s
4
Mark Knight and Emma Mason, Nineteenth Century Religion and Literature, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2006, pp. 158, 161, 162, 164.
5
Boyd Hilton, The Age of Atonement, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988.
6
Although difficult to be exact, the shift appears to have taken place in the late 1850s.
7
Maurice, along with Dr. E. B. Pusey, inspired the ‘Ritualists’(also referred to as Sacramentalists). This
significant group within the Established Church clergy, along with their fellow ‘Slum-Priests’, sought to
minister to the physical and spiritual needs of the poor in London’s most deprived areas. The ‘SlumPriest’s’ are represented in Dickens’ work by the Reverend Frank Milvey in Our Mutual Friend.
8
In the late 1850s Maurice’s convictions led him to publicly oppose Transcendental Theology as
championed by Henry Mansel.
232
ministrations in the Fleet Debtors’ Prison and Charles Cheeryble’s treatment of his office
and warehouse employees.
In Pickwick, Brownlow and Cheeryble we find individuals who make a difference.
Those they help are completely dependent on their benevolent intervention. Alfred Jingle
(Pickwick Papers) will die a slow lingering death in the Fleet Debtors’ Prison; Oliver
Twist, whilst possibly being adopted by Mrs Maylie, will never receive the fortune to
which he was entitled; Madeline Bray’s thankless labour and depravation on behalf of her
father will be more severe, and she will be left a friendless, poor orphan upon the death of
her father. In the same novel the urban migrant Nickleby family will continue to struggle
to establish a respectable lifestyle.
In common with the ‘poor man’ in ‘Our Parish’, 9 who, with his family, is trapped in a
desperate downward cycle of poverty, those helped by the ‘Charitable Angels’ can
expect no relief from their respective parishes; charitable, ecclesiastical or government
agencies; or from family or friends. Instead they rely on strangers who are willing to defy
prevailing social norms and invest their time, energy, and resources in aiding those who
are powerless to help themselves. In addition, Dickens uses his ‘Charitable Angels’ to
call for the reform of those institutions which he believed were both abusing and failing
those in need. Mr Pickwick is used to depict the appalling conditions within Debtors’
prisons; Mr Brownlow exposes the daily legal injustices suffered by the poor within the
Police Magistrates’ Courts; and Charles Cheeryble, far from exploiting his workforce,
treats them with kindness and consideration.
9
Charles Dickens, Sketches by Boz, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 1.
233
Dickens’ ‘Charitable Angels’ are the fictional representatives of Mann’s ‘living
agents.’10 These characters clearly exemplify the author’s participation in the ‘Osmosis
Process’: the mobilisation of the church-going middle-class to take personal
responsibility for the physical and spiritual well-being of the urban lower classes. Bowen,
in describing the effective implementation of this ‘process’ as being the greatest
accomplishment of the Victorian Church, attributes its success to ‘the writing, teaching,
and preaching of its creative minority.’11 Dickens was part of this creative minority.
Mr Pickwick, Mr Brownlow and Charles Cheeryble are closely identified with those
middle-class individuals upon whom the effectiveness of the ‘process’ depended. All
three exemplars are financially independent gentlemen. Whilst Mr Brownlow’s previous
employment is undisclosed, Mr Pickwick’s former employment was connected with
shipping. Charles Cheeryble is a merchant. In the penultimate chapter of Pickwick
Papers, Mr Pickwick observes that ‘he has more money than he can ever need and more
than a man of his age can ever live to spend.’12 Although, at the beginning of his
adventures, he is lodging with Mrs Bardell in Goswell Street to accommodate his
explorative lifestyle, he proves the veracity of his statement by leasing and comfortably
furnishing a house with a large garden in Dulwich, complete with housekeeper and
servants.13 Mr Brownlow employs a housekeeper, can afford to travel to and from the
West Indies and at the end of the book buys a home in the richest county in England.14
10
Horace Mann, in his detailed analysis of the 1851 Census of Religious Worship, uses this term to
describe the middle-class laity through whom the Church could minister to the poor and labouring
classes. See Owen Chadwick, The Victorian Church (Part One), London: A & C Black Ltd., 1971,
p. 367.
11
Desmond Bowen, The Idea of the Victorian Church: A Study of The Church of England 1833-1889,
Montreal: McGill University Press, 1968, p. 258.
12
Charles Dickens, Pickwick Papers, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, p.785.
13
Ibid., p.796.
14
Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 76, 402.
234
Charles Cheeryble jointly owns a substantial property and a cottage. He also employs
several servants.
Dickens’ strategy of portraying the charitable acts of his three ‘Angels’ beyond the
confines of the church was congruent with the ‘Osmosis Process’ function of promoting
Christian values within a wider social context. Mr Pickwick’s benevolent actions toward
Jingle begin in the Fleet Debtors’ Prison. Mr Brownlow takes Oliver into his home
following the sham trial presided over by Fang in the Police Magistrate Court. Charles
Cheeryble meets Nicholas Nickleby outside a Register office in a busy London street, and
further demonstrates his benevolence both at home and at his place of work. Those they
benefit (the socially ostracised strolling actor Alfred Jingle; Oliver Twist the workhouse
orphan; the poor urban migrant Nickleby family, and the warehousemen and dockworkers helped by Cheeryble) represent those who could be helped by Dickens’
readership.
Bowen states that the first, and most crucial stage of the Established Church’s
‘Osmosis Process’, was the education of the middle classes as to the true condition of the
poor. Thomas Arnold, a prominent Victorian churchman greatly admired by Dickens,
provided contemporary support to Bowen’s supposition that ‘the great need of the age
was to open the eyes of the rich to the social misery of the nation.’15 Due to social
segregation, the majority of middle class people living in urban areas were ignorant of the
plight of the poor. Frederick Engels, in The Condition of the Working Class in England
(1845), describes how the street lay-out of Manchester prevented the wealthier residents
of the city from observing the dreadful living conditions endured by the poor.
15
Englishman’s Register, 4 June 1831, p. 65.
235
Dickens used the experiences of his ‘Angels’ to combat this ignorance. For example,
Mr Pickwick, who, as noted by Walder,16 is used to change the reader’s perspective, is
appalled by both what he observes as his coach is driven through Whitechapel and by the
conditions he witnesses in the Fleet Debtors’ Prison. In the final chapter of the novel he
confesses, on behalf of the contemporary middle-class which he represents, his ignorance
of the state of the poor, and how his exposure to their plight has proved a beneficial
experience: ‘I shall never regret having devoted the greater part of two years mixing with
different varieties and shades of human character. Nearly the whole of my previous life
having been devoted to business and the pursuit of wealth, numerous scenes of which I
had no previous conception have dawned upon me - I hope to the enlargement of my
mind, and the improvement of my understanding.’ 17
The charitable acts performed by Dickens’ ‘Angels’ are carefully scripted to
emphasize their conformity with Christian teaching. Indeed, on the last page of Oliver
Twist, Dickens reflects on the benevolence of God and mankind’s dependence upon it for
their happiness.18 The actions of the ‘Charitable Angels’ are prompted by a genuine
compassion for others. Mr Pickwick, overwhelmed by the suffering of those around him
in the Fleet is moved to tears, as is Mr Brownlow at the sight of Oliver as he is delivered
up to the police magistrates’ court. Far from being demonstrative in their charity, his
‘Angels’, in compliance with Matthew VI, verse iii-iv 19 do their best to conceal their
generosity. It is Pickwick’s solicitor Perker who, against his client’s will, publicises his
generosity toward Jingle; whilst Charles Cheeryble recruits Nicholas to act as his agent in
16
Dennis Walder, Dickens and Religion, London: Allen and Unwin Publishers Ltd., 1981, p. 21.
Dickens, Pickwick, pp. 796, 797.
18
Dickens, Twist, p. 415.
19
‘But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: That thine alms may
be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly. ’
17
236
supporting Madeline Bray. Both men are reluctant to accept praise or thanks. Dickens’
‘Angels’ are models of Christian charity in action. It was the author’s hope that his
readers would emulate them.
The genuineness of Dickens’ ‘Charitable Angels’ also acts as a counterpoint to the
false motives of those who sought to use charity as a means of self-promotion. The
actions of the Miss Browns and Johnson Parkers in ‘The Ladies’ Societies’, as considered
in the previous chapter, are a good example of this. In an earlier Sketches by Boz piece,
‘A Passage in The Life of Mr Watkins Tottle - Chapter The First’, Dickens suggests that
those who subscribe to church-based distribution societies do so to selfishly ensure their
names appear in print.20 This exposure of false charity continues throughout Dickens’
work. The final example appears in The Mystery of Edwin Drood where the genuine
kindness of the Reverend Septimus Crisparkle is contrasted with that of Luke
Honeythunder and his ‘Haven of Philanthropy’.
Mr Samuel Pickwick – Angel of Light
Dickens, in the opening sentence of The Pickwick Papers, immediately connects his
first ‘Charitable Angel’ with light: 21 ‘The first ray of light which illumines the gloom,
and converts into a dazzling brilliancy that obscurity in which the earlier history of the
public career of the immortal Pickwick would appear to be involved.’22 Hillis-Miller has
linked these words with the Genesis creation account, 23 equating the birth of light with
20
The reference occurs in a conversation that takes place between Gabriel Parsons and the Reverend
Timson. Dickens, Sketches, p. 438.
21
Esther Summerson, solely in relation to her name, is the only other ‘Angel’ to be connected with light
by Dickens.
22
Dickens, Pickwick p. 1.
23
J. Hillis Miller, Illustration, London: Reaktion Books, 1992, p. 97.
237
the appearance of Mr Pickwick.24 Indeed, the first paragraph of Chapter II, in which Mr
Pickwick sets out on his adventures begins: ‘That punctual servant of all work the sun,
had just risen, and begun to strike a light on the morning of the thirteenth of May, one
thousand eight hundred and twenty-seven, when Mr Samuel Pickwick burst like another
sun from his slumbers, threw open his chamber window, and looked out upon the world
beneath.’25 Ten chapters later, Mr Pickwick is described as having ‘a sunbeam of placid
benevolence’ playing upon his features’.26 This association with the sun continues
beyond the pages of the Pickwick Papers into Chapter III of Master Humphrey’s Clock.
The narrator, Master Humphrey, on meeting Mr Pickwick for the first time, notes how
the sun shines upon him.27
Hillis-Miller, in describing Mr Pickwick as ‘a human sun inexhaustibly radiating
benevolence’,28 argues that Hablot K. Browne’s illustrations support Dickens’ textual
representation of the link between Mr Pickwick and light:
Pickwick’s beaming face and shining spectacles make him another sun from
his round head to his round stomach. In plate after plate Pickwick’s globular
white stomach, with the tiny circle of his gold watch on his chain as focus,
not only command the centre of the composition, but functions as a secondary
source of illumination. A second sun. Light seems to radiate in all directions
24
Ibid.
Dickens, Pickwick, p. 6.
26
Ibid., p.155.
27
Dickens, Master Humphrey’s Clock, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994, pp. 52-53. The narrator,
Master Humphrey, on meeting Mr. Pickwick for the first time notes how the sun shines upon him.
28
Hillis Miller, p. 99.
25
238
from Pickwick’s stomach to bring into visibility objects and people in what
are often dark and enclosed interiors.’29
This association with light is symbolically used by Dickens to support his direct
textual references to Mr Pickwick’s ‘Angelic’ status. In the biblical accounts of the
Nativity and the Resurrection the appearance of ‘Angels’ is linked to light.30 Throughout
the Old and New Testament light is also used to characterise the nature of both God and
Christ; to symbolise the presence of the Godhead; and as an antithesis to the metaphor of
darkness (which represents sin and the works of the devil).31 Mr Pickwick, through his
association with light, is therefore clearly connected with the Divine. Dickens’
associative use of the term sun, a word-play on the Son of God, also intimates Pickwick’s
celestial nature. 32
Dickens also uses light as a metaphor to describe the ‘Angelic’ characteristics and
personality of Mr Pickwick. The most exuberant of his ‘Angels’, Pickwick positively
exudes cheerfulness and conviviality and, as such, is the chief apostle of Dickens’ ‘gospel
of geniality’.33 On the occasion of first hearing from Mr Winkle and Arabella of their
marriage, Mr Pickwick is found looking at them both ‘with as much delight depicted in
his countenance as warm-heartedness and kindly feeling can communicate to the human
29
Ibid., pp.103,104, 110,111.
Matthew XXVIII verse iii; Luke II verse ix, and XXIV verse iv.
31
For example see II Samuel XXII verse xxix; Psalm XXXVI verse ix, LXXVI verse iv, LXXXIX verse
xv, CIV verse ii; Isaiah II verse v, IX verse ii, XLII verse vi; Ezekiel I verse xxvii; Matthew XVII verse
ii; Mark IX verse iii; and Luke IX verse xxix. The last three references refer to Christ’s Transfiguration.
32
Malachi IV verse ii.
33
This term was used by George Stott in ‘Charles Dickens’, Contemporary Review, 1869, Vol. 10, January,
pp. 224 -225.
30
239
face.’34 Even in confronting Mrs Bardle’s villainous lawyer, Mr Dodson, Mr Pickwick is
unable ‘to call up a sneer for the first time in his life.’35
Neither, it seems, has retired life in Dulwich dampened Mr Pickwick’s exuberance. In
Chapter III of Master Humphrey’s Clock, Dickens reassures his readers that ‘Mr
Pickwick’s buoyancy of spirit, and indeed all his old cheerful characteristics, were wholly
unimpaired.’36 In the same chapter the narrator (Master Humphrey), commenting on his
first meeting with Mr Pickwick, records; ‘I never saw such a picture of good-humour and
happiness as he presented, from the top of his shining head down to very last button of
his gaiters.’37 In the next chapter Mr Pickwick is described as exuding ‘sprightly
cheerfulness and good humour’; and, on first attending a club meeting, he surveys the
members ‘with a most benevolent aspect and was taken with a fit of smiling full five
minutes long.’38
The conviviality of Mr Pickwick is apparent. Stone describes him as ‘embodying
goodness and genial fellow feeling.’39 In the final paragraph of Pickwick Papers we learn
that: ‘Every year, he repairs to a large family merry-making at Mr Wardle’s’40 - the
tradition having begun at Manor Farm, Dingley Dell.41 In the same chapter he proclaims
that his chief pleasure is promoting the happiness of others.42 Throughout the novel,
which covers nearly two years of Mr Pickwick’s life, there are numerous instances of him
enjoying social gatherings: the card party at Manor Farm; his attendance at the cricket
34
Dickens, Pickwick, p.664.
Ibid., p.750.
36
Dickens, Master Humphrey’s Clock, p. 55.
37
Ibid., p. 56.
38
Ibid., pp. 82, 83.
39
Harry Stone, Dickens and the Invisible World, London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1980, pp. 71, 72.
40
Dickens, Pickwick, p.801.
41
Ibid., Chapter XXVIII.
42
Ibid., p.796.
35
240
match between Dingley Dell and Muggleton, and the post-match celebrations at ‘The
Blue Lion Inn’; Mrs Leo Hunter’s Fancy- Dress gathering; Mr Bob Sawyer’s ill-fated
bachelor’s party; the ball at the Assembly Rooms in Bath; Dinner at the Adelphi; and
finally, Mr Snodgrass and Arabella’s wedding breakfast.43 In addition, due to his
picaresque lifestyle, he is a serial frequenter of inns and hotels.44
In no other ‘Angel’ do we see Dickens placing such emphasis on the ‘merry heart and
cheerful countenance’ of true religion.45 To accentuate these qualities he is imbued with a
childlike, youthful quality. For example, on the occasion of Mr Winkle’s clandestine
meeting with Arabella Allen, in Clifton, Samuel Weller, commenting on Mr Pickwick’s
role as look-out observes: ‘“Bless his old gaiters. He’s a keepin’ guard in the lane with
that ‘ere dark lantern, like an amiable Guy Fawkes! I never see such a fine creetur in my
days. Blessed if I don’t think his heart, must ha’ been born five-and-twenty year after his
body, at least!”’46 Marcus attributes Pickwick’s youthful exuberance to his
characterisation having been partly based on Robert Surtees’ Jorrocks,47 an ‘elderly
cherub without wings.’48 Dickens’ antithetical strategy of using Mr Pickwick’s
cheerfulness and conviviality to expose ill-tempered false religiosity will be examined
later on in this chapter.
Dickens’ initial reference to Mr Pickwick’s ‘Angelic’ status is, in its subtlety,
congruent with his allusion to ‘The Old Lady’ in ‘Our Parish’.49 Having discovered
43
Ibid., Chapters VI,VII, XV, XXXII, XXXV and LVI.
The Bull, Rochester; The Leather Bottle, Cobham; Magpie and Stump; The Great White Horse, Ipswich;
White Hart, Bath; George and Vulture; The Bell at Berkley Heath; Hop Pole, Tewkesbury; Old Royal
Hotel, Birmingham; Saracen’s Head, Towcester; and The Angel, Bury St. Edmunds.
45
Proverbs XV verse 13.
46
Dickens, Pickwick, p.556.
47
Steven Marcus, Dickens: from Pickwick to Dombey, London: Chatto and Windus Ltd., 1965, pp. 24- 27.
48
Robert S. Surtees, Jorrocks’s Jaunt and Jollities, London: J. M Dent & Sons Ltd., 1951, p.20.
49
As described in the previous chapter, Dickens obscurely uses ‘the little round angels’ faces on Mr
44
241
Alfred Jingle at Mrs Leo Hunter’s fancy dress garden party, he pursues him to Bury St.
Edmunds. At Bury St. Edmunds, he stays at ‘The Angel Hotel’.50 The two remaining
‘Angelic’ references both occur in a conversation which takes place between Sam Weller
and Job Trotter in the Fleet Debtors’ Prison:
And now we’re upon it, I’ll let you into another secret besides that,’ said
Sam, as he paid for the beer. ‘I never heard, mind you, nor read of in storybooks, nor see in picters, any angel [my emphasis] in tights and gaiters - not
even spectacles, as I remember, though, that may ha’ been done for anything I
know to the contrairey - but mark my words, Job Trotter, he’s a reg’lar
thoroughbred angel [my emphasis] for all that; and let me see the man as
ventures, to tell me he knows a better wun.51
In addition to using light to signal Mr Pickwick’s ‘Angelic’ identity, Dickens
supports the above references through his choice of Christian name, Samuel,52 which
means ‘name of God’ or ‘heard of God’; and by starting his adventures on a Sunday at
the ‘Golden Cross’. As will be seen, this weight of referential material confirming Mr
Pickwick’s ‘Angelic’ status is not repeated for either Mr Brownlow or Charles
Tomkins’ monument and ‘The Old Lady’s’ care for the poor to identify his original ‘Angel’. Dickens,
Sketches, pp. 7, 11.
50
Dickens, Pickwick, pp. 206, 210, 224, 242. Dickens, whilst reporting on a Parliamentary election
stayed there in 1835. The hotel is situated on Angel Hill, near to a sixteenth century church, which since
Dickens’ time has become St. Edmundsbury Cathedral.
51
Dickens, Pickwick, p.642.
52
Dickens, in other instances carefully selected the Christian names of his ‘Angels’: Amy Dorrit, Amy
being the Greek for love, combined with her initials gives Love A.D; Agnes is both an anagram of anges
the French for ‘Angels’, and is close to the term Angus Dei, the Lamb of God.
242
Cheeryble. This may well be attributable to Pickwick being the first of Dickens’
‘Charitable Angels’.
Mr Pickwick’s exuberance can also be clearly seen in his ‘innate benevolence’.53
Whereas Mr Brownlow’s benevolence focuses on Oliver, and Charles Cheeryble supports
Madeline Bray as a result of a former family connection, Mr Pickwick’s philanthropy
knows no bounds. In his role as the ‘incarnation of benevolence,’54 as Steven Marcus puts
it, Mr Pickwick personally helps a significant number of his fellow Fleet prisoners who
only a few weeks previously were totally unconnected with him. On the day of his release
from the Fleet we read that he ‘made his way, as well as he could, through the throng of
debtors who pressed eagerly forward to shake him by the hand. In all the crowd of wan,
emaciated faces, he saw not one which was not the happier for his sympathy and
charity.’55 To reinforce this sense of general philanthropy, Dickens details specific acts of
kindness to individual prisoners: his compassion for a husband, woman and young child;
his kindness to the Cobbler and ‘The Chancery Prisoner’; and his payment of Mrs
Bardell’s £150 legal fees to secure her and her son Tommy’s release from the Fleet,
despite the fact that she was responsible for his imprisonment in the first place.56
The light of Mr Pickwick’s benevolence also shines on those more immediately
connected with him. Prior to his incarceration, he informs his valet, Sam Weller, of his
plans to provide for him, including finding him an alternative position and continuing to
pay his wages whilst in prison.57 Later in the book, Mr Pickwick reveals his plans to
53
John Hillis Miller, Charles Dickens The World of His Novels, London: Oxford University Press, 1958,
p. 25.
54
Marcus, pp. 24-27.
55
Dickens, Pickwick, p. 666.
56
Ibid., pp.579 -580, 593-594, 626, 661- 662, 666-667.
57
Ibid., pp. 599-600.
243
establish Sam and his wife in business.58 Sam, in recognition of his master’s kindness and
benevolence to himself and others, displays unshakeable loyalty to Mr Pickwick which
even includes conspiring with his father to be imprisoned in the Fleet with his master. He
is also Mr Snodgrass’ legal guardian and, in the absence of Mr Winkle’s father’s support
of his marriage, proposes to support the newly married couple.59 In the final paragraph of
the book we learn that following his retirement to Dulwich, Mr. Pickwick has continued
in his benevolence to the poor: ‘He is known by all the poor people about, who never fail
to take their hats off, as he passes, with great respect. The children idolise him, and so
indeed does the whole neighbourhood.’ 60 Beyond the pages of The Pickwick Papers we
learn that on his reappearance in Master Humphrey’s Clock he is still seeking to help
others, in this case the minor Pickwickian character Bamber.61
Mr Pickwick’s most significant charitable acts are, however, directed toward his two
antagonists, the strolling actor Alfred Jingle and his servant Job Trotter. Through his
dealings with these two disreputable characters, both of whom would normally be
ostracized by respectable society due to their lowly social status, Dickens not only
emphasises Mr Pickwick’s benevolence, but also his other Christ-like qualities of
compassion, grace and mercy. At the hands of Jingle, and his devious servant Trotter, Mr
Pickwick suffers a series of comic misadventures throughout the novel. These result in
placing him in various compromising situations which lead to considerable personal
inconvenience, and his contracting rheumatic fever. The two most noticeable incidents
occur at ‘Westgate House Establishment for Young Ladies’ (Chapter XVI) and the ‘Great
58
Ibid., p. 788.
Ibid., pp. 740,782, 797.
60
Ibid., p. 701.
61
Dickens, Master Humphrey’s Clock, pp. 85 - 86.
59
244
White Horse Inn’ at Ipswich (Chapter XXII).62 Jingle and Trotter’s schemes also cause
considerable distress to Mr Pickwick’s friends.63
Following his misadventures in Ipswich, Mr Pickwick loses track of Jingle and
Trotter. He next meets them in greatly reduced circumstances, destitute and hopeless in
the poor side of the Fleet Debtors’ prison. On the occasion of this prison meeting Dickens
encourages his readers to consider all that Mr Pickwick has suffered at their hands, and to
anticipate his reaction:
‘Here Job; where is that fellow?’ ‘Here, sir,’ cried Job ‘Come here, sir,’ said
Mr Pickwick trying to look stern, with four large tears running down his
waistcoat. ‘Take that, sir.’ Take what? In the ordinary acceptation of such
language, it should have been a blow. As the world runs, it ought to have
been a sound, hearty cuff; for Mr Pickwick had been duped, deceived, and
wronged by the destitute outcast who was now wholly in his power. Must we
tell the truth? It was something from Mr Pickwick’s waistcoat-pocket, which
chinked as it was given into Job’s hand, and the giving of which, somehow or
other imparted a sparkle to the eye, and a swelling to the heart, of our
excellent old friend as he hurried away.64
62
In the former incident Mr Pickwick is tricked by Trotter into believing that Jingle is planning to elope
with one of the young ladies from Westgate House. In an attempt to prevent the elopement Mr Pickwick
takes up position in the school grounds. His presence is detected and he is suspected of plotting some
foul deed. In addition to a tarnished reputation he contracts rheumatic fever and is bed-ridden for two
days. At the Great White Horse Inn in Ipswich, Pickwick, having come to town to frustrate Jingle’s next
scheme, mistakenly enters the bedroom of Miss Witherfield. Peter Magnus, her fiancé, challenges him
to a duel, and Mr Pickwick is arrested as a result.
63
Mr Winkle, having been mistaken for Jingle, narrowly avoids taking part in a duel with Dr.
Slammer. At Manor Farm, Dingley Dell, Mr Jingle tricks Rachael Wardle into eloping with him to
London. As a result he is able to extort £120.00 from her brother.
64
Dickens, Pickwick, p.598.
245
Later we read of Mr Pickwick kindly supporting Jingle by the arm as he struggles to
walk; and Sam learns from Job Trotter that Mr Pickwick has been buying them food, and
has paid for them to have their own room in the prison.65
It is not until much later on in the narrative, however, that the full extent of Pickwick’s
beneficence to Jingle and Trotter is revealed. In Chapter LIII we learn from Mr Perker,
his attorney, that Mr Pickwick has settled with Mr Jingle’s creditors; redeemed his
belongings from the pawnbrokers and secured a position for Job Trotter at Mr. Perker’s
office at a salary of eighteen bob a-week. In addition to settling Jingle’s past debts he also
makes provision for his future. Having remembered his past allusions to Demerara, Mr
Pickwick has paid for his passage and, using his previous business connections and
excellent reputation, secured work for him there on a plantation. When he learns of Job
Trotter’s firm resolution to go with his master, he extends the plantation job offer to
include him, and also makes a contribution to the cost of his voyage.66
Dickens supports Mr Pickwick’s charitable connection with a series of textual
references. On several occasions he is identified as being ‘the benevolent gentleman’,67
and on one occasion ‘our benevolent old friend.’68 He is also described as having a
‘characteristic expression of benevolence’ and a benevolent smile.69 These references,
however, are also used for the additional purpose of associating Mr Pickwick with the
Dingley Dell parish clergyman. This ‘benevolent clergyman’,70 the first positively
represented member of the Established Church clergy to appear in Dickens’ novels, is
65
Ibid., pp. 639-642.
Ibid., pp.742 -746.
67
Ibid., pp.124,137.
68
Ibid., p. 639.
69
Ibid., pp. 90, 99.
70
Ibid., p. 386.
66
246
clearly identified with Mr Pickwick when he is introduced as being ‘a bald-headed old
gentleman, with a good-humoured benevolent face.’71 He is also, at a later date, described
as being the ‘benevolent old gentleman.’72 The Dingley Dell clergyman also shares Mr
Pickwick’s pleasure in the company and happiness of others.73
Dickens, as previously mentioned, used the cheerfulness and conviviality of his
‘Angel of Light’ to counterpoint the ill-tempered negativity and gloominess of false
religion. As early as page fourteen of Sketches by Boz Dickens established his enduring
associative principle between ill-temperedness and false religion.74 In the opening
passage of another Sketch, ‘The New Year’, Dickens pours scorn on the Puritanical
outlook of false religionists: ‘Next to Christmas Day, the most pleasant annual epoch in
existence is the advent of the New Year. There are a lachrymose set of people who usher
in the New Year with watching and fasting, as if they were bound to attend as chief
mourners at the obsequies of the old one.’75 Finally, in ‘The Bloomsbury Christening’,
we read of Nicodemus Dumps:
a bachelor, six feet high and fifty years old: cross, cadaverous, odd, and illnatured. He was never happy but when he was miserable; and always
miserable when he had the best reason to be happy. The only real comfort of
his existence was to make everybody about him wretched - then he might be
truly said to enjoy life [...] he adored King Herod for his massacre of the
71
Ibid., p. 67.
Ibid., p. 134.
73
Ibid., p. 71. Dickens describes the clergyman taking pleasure in the happy faces around him as he enjoys
a party at Manor Farm.
74
Dickens, Sketches, with reference to the eldest Miss Willis states that she ‘grew ill-tempered and
religious – the four Miss Willises were ill-tempered and religious directly’ (p. 14).
75
Dickens, Pickwick, p.225.
72
247
innocents; and if he hated one thing more than another, it is a child [...] He
subscribed to the ‘Society for the Suppression of Vice’ for the pleasure of
putting a stop to harmless amusements; and he contributed largely to the
support of two itinerant Methodist parsons, in the amiable hope that if
circumstances rendered any people happy in this world, they might perchance
be rendered miserable by fears of the next.76
Through his characterisation of Tony Weller’s wife Susan, Dickens continues his
theme in Pickwick Papers. Having fallen under the influence of false religion in the form
of the hypocritical deputy-shepherd Stiggins, Mrs Weller, on her death-bed, confesses to
her husband how she has neglected his well-being and exchanged cheerfulness and
happiness for idleness and self-indulgence.77
Mr Brownlow - Angel of Judgement
Used in the novel as an agent of Divine Justice, Mr Brownlow is Dickens’ ‘Angel of
Judgement’.78 Vehemently opposed to injustice, he personally brings judgement upon
the perpetrators of evil and, where appropriate, seeks through mercy to bring redemption.
He is also instrumental in restoring the fortunes of the innocent Oliver. Dickens’
portrayal of Mr Brownlow is congruent with the biblical representation, especially within
the apocalyptic teaching of Revelation, of ‘Angels’ acting as the vehicle of God’s
76
Dickens, Sketches, p. 468.
Dickens, Pickwick, pp. 732-733.
78
Carolyn Oulton, Literature and Religion in Mid-Victorian England from Dickens to Eliot, Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan Ltd., 2003, suggests that the severity of Dickens’ fictional judgement is linked
with his having been influenced by Evangelicalism (p. 2).
77
248
righteous judgment upon mankind.79 Contrary to Garnett’s claim, the Divine Judgement
of evil-doers and the reward of the righteous is a recurring theme throughout Dickens’
fiction. 80 This point is duly acknowledged by Reed in Dickens and Thackeray:
Punishment and Forgiveness.81 Sally Ledger, in Dickens and the Popular Radical
Imagination (2007), chooses to de-spiritualise Dickens’ fictional use of judgement and
reward. In her discussion of Oliver Twist these two themes are linked with paternalism
and melodrama.82
In Nicholas Nickleby, Arthur Gride, the elderly miser who tries to ensnare Madeline
Bray into marriage to secure the benefits of her grandfather’s will, is murdered in his
home. Walter Bray, Madeline’s father, who is willing to sell his daughter in marriage for
financial gain to Gride, dies on the wedding morning. Squeers is imprisoned. Wackford
Junior, Fanny and Mrs Squeers receive summary punishment from the scholars at
Dotheboys Hall. Sir Mulberry Hawk, having killed Lord Verisopht in a duel, is forced to
leave the country, and eventually dies in prison. However, Dickens reserves the severest
punishment for the novel’s chief agent of evil, Ralph Nickleby who, having been
tormented by a spectre, hangs himself. Conversely, the positive characters - Nicholas,
Kate, Tim Linkinwater, Frank Cheeryble, Madeline Bray, Miss La Cheevy, and Newman
Noggs - are all rewarded for their goodness.
79
For example see Genesis Ch. 3 v 24; 2 Samuel Ch. 24 v 15 -17; Matthew Ch. 13 v 39, 49 and 16 v 27;
Revelation Ch. 1v 1-3,Ch. 8 v 5, 6-13, Ch. 9 v 1, 13-15, Ch.10 v 5-7,Ch. 12 v 7-9, Ch.14 v 6 -12,14 -20,
Ch.15-17.
80
Robert Garnett, ‘Dickens, The Virgin, and the Dredger’s Daughter’, Dickens Studies Annual, Vol. 28,
1999, argues that Divine Judgement had no place in Dickens’ personal perspective of God (p. 47).
81
John R. Reed, Dickens and Thackeray: Punishment and Forgiveness, Athens: Ohio University Press,
1995, ‘Dickens was deeply interested in seeing cruelty and vice punished, and arranged his narratives so
that this retribution was almost always accomplished’ p. 230).
82
Sally Ledger, Dickens and the Popular Radical Imagination, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2007, pp. 103-105.
249
In The Old Curiosity Shop Daniel Quilp dies, and is reported to be buried ‘with a
stake through his heart in the centre of four lonely roads.’83 Sampson Brass, the attorney
who, with his sister Sally, conspires with Quilp, is imprisoned, transported, and his name
erased from the attorney’s roll. His sister, homeless and destitute, resorts to scavenging
food and living in the recesses of St. Giles. Even the minor villains - Isaac List, Jowl, Mr.
James Groves and Frederick Trent - are all apprehended by ‘the long and strong arm of
the law.’84 By contrast Kit Nubbles, Dick Swiveller, Mr and Mrs Garland, the Bachelor
and Mr. Marton are all left in favourable circumstances. In addition, we are told that
Nell’s great uncle retraced her steps and rewarded all those who helped her.85
In Barnaby Rudge the same pattern arises. Hugh and Dennis are deservedly hung for
their part in the Gordon Riots, whereas the child-like Barnaby is granted a last minute
reprieve. Sir John Chester is killed by Geoffrey Haredale in a duel. Barnaby’s father, who
had murdered Reuben Haredale and his gardener, is executed. Lord George Gordon is
arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London on a charge of high treason. Simon
Tappertit, although escaping prison, looses both his legs as a result of his involvement
with the riots. Again, all the positive characters - Gabriel Varden, Joe Willett, Edward
Chester, Emma Haredale and Dolly Varden - are rewarded. The theme of the judgement
of the wicked continued in Dickens’ later work. The most notable examples being James
Carker’s suicide and the collapse of Mr Dombey’s business and marital affairs in
Dombey and Son; James Steerforth’s death in David Copperfield; and Bradley
Headstone’s and Roger Riderhood’s shared fate in Our Mutual Friend.
83
Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop, London, Hazell, Watson and Viney Ltd., N.D. p. 443.
Ibid., p. 446.
85
Ibid., pp. 446-447.
84
250
In contrast to Mr Pickwick’s comic attempts to catch Alfred Jingle and Job Trotter, Mr
Brownlow, in his role as ‘Angel of Judgement’, skilfully oversees the process through
which the guilty are apprehended and punished. It is at his instigation that Monks, Sikes,
Fagin and Mr and Mrs Bumble are caught, convicted and punished. He is also solely
responsible for restoring Oliver’s embezzled fortune. From his first meeting with Rose at
his Craven Street home (when she informs him of Nancy’s visit); to preventing the rash
intervention of Mr. Losberne; to the formulation and management of an action
‘committee’ (Rose, Mrs Maylie, Harry Maylie, Mr Grimwig, Mr Losberne and Mr
Grimwig); to the skilful management of negotiations with Nancy; and to the successful
abduction of Monks, Mr Brownlow effectively and skilfully plans and executes the
course of justice.
On meeting with Nancy he gleans sufficient information to identify Monks as being
Edward Leeford (an individual with whom, due to previous connections, he is well
acquainted). Having apprehended him for the purpose of conducting a private interview,
Mr Brownlow demonstrates all the skills of a highly proficient prosecutor. During the
interview he unnerves Monks by demonstrating that he has a detailed knowledge of not
only his past misdemeanours but that of his mother’s too. Mr Brownlow also reveals his
awareness of Leeford’s father’s will and Monks’ attempts to disinherit Oliver by forcing
him to commit a crime. Monks is further discomfited when he discovers that his
prosecutor is aware of his secret conversations with Fagin. Threatened with public
exposure and confounded by the detailed knowledge of his examiner Monks agrees to
sign a document which reinstates Oliver as the sole beneficiary of Edwin Leeford’s will.
251
Through his involvement with Nancy and Monks, Mr Brownlow becomes involved in
the apprehension of Sikes. On hearing from Mr Losberne that the murderer is soon to be
apprehended Mr Brownlow immediately offers an additional reward of £50.00. Despite
the presence of a baying mob and the unpleasant surroundings associated with Jacob’s
Island, he insists on personally being present at Sikes’ capture. On his arrival he
encourages the pursuers and at the exact moment that the tortured Sikes accidentally
hangs himself, his voice could be heard warning of the villain’s possible escape.
Mr Brownlow’s judicial dealings with Fagin, described by Hillis-Miller as the
‘embodiment of all the evil in the novel’,86 are of particular significance in that Dickens
connects the latter with the devil. In Chapter XIX, as Fagin moves through the dark
London streets in the direction of Sikes’ dwelling in Bethnal Green, Dickens describes
him as being ‘like some loathsome reptile, engendered in the slime and darkness.’87 Upon
his arrival Sikes says to his dog ‘Don’t you know the devil when he’s got a great-coat
on?’ 88 Seven chapters later, Monks, entering Fagin’s lair, comments upon it being ‘as
dark as the grave.’89 Fagin’s attempted corruption of the innocent Oliver, and his evil
corruption of others, including Monks in his youth, Charley Bates, Noah Claypole, John
Dawkins, Nancy, Tom Chitling, Barney and ‘those street children he has lost’, 90 is
indicative of his satanic association. These textual references are, as noted by both Larson
and Dellamora,91 supported by George Cruikshank’s illustration, ‘Oliver introduced to
the respectable old gentleman’ (Figure Thirteen on the next page).92
86
Hillis-Miller, Dickens The World of His Novels, p. 66.
Dickens, Twist, p.135.
88
Ibid., p.136.
89
Ibid., p.192.
90
Ibid., p.141.
91
Janet Larson, Dickens and the Broken Scripture, Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1985, p. 60;
Richard Dellamora, ‘Pure Oliver or Representation without Agency’ in John Schad’s (ed.), Dickens
87
252
Figure Thirteen: Oliver introduced to the respectable old gentleman
In the illustration Fagin is seen holding a trident and standing over a fire. Both these
images are associated with popularised representations of the devil which were familiar
to Dickens’ contemporaries.
In the penultimate chapter of the book, Mr Brownlow takes Oliver to see Fagin in the
condemned cell at Newgate Prison. It is the night before he is to be executed. When
challenged by a turnkey as to the wisdom of bringing a boy to such a place, Mr
92
Refigured: Bodies, Desires and other Histories, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996, p. 68.
Dickens, Twist, facing page 56.
253
Brownlow responds by commenting on the necessity of Oliver to witness at first hand the
consequences of evil and the certainty of judgement.93 The depraved appearance of
Fagin, whose ‘countenance was more like that of a snared beast than the face of a man’,94
and the brokenness of his mind, provide ample evidence of the former; whilst the
presence of ‘the hideous apparatus of death’ testifies to the latter.95 This final meeting
between Fagin and Mr Brownlow can also be interpreted as a symbolic representation of
the judgement of Satan as depicted in Revelation Chapter XX.
The ‘Angel of Judgement’s’ final act relates to Mr and Mrs Bumble, who conspired
with Monks to conceal Oliver’s true identity. When, after having initially questioned
them both in the presence of Monks and the ‘committee’, they lie, he produces two
witnesses to testify against them. Despite Mr Bumble’s pleas for leniency, prompted by
his hopes of retaining his parochial position as beadle, Mr Brownlow’s judgement results
in their not only paying for their deceit and conspiracy, but also for their years of cruelty
and neglect toward those in the care of the parish. Both are pauperized and become
inmates in the very workhouse where once they reigned as tyrants.
The novel’s theme of judgement also impacts upon other individuals who are not
directly linked to Mr Brownlow’s judicial process. Mr Limbkins, the chairman of the
Board, who is in part responsible for Oliver’s cruel neglect at the hands of the parish,
dies. Noah Claypole, tormentor of Oliver whilst he was at Sowerberry’s, and Fagin’s spy,
leads a miserable life as an informer. John Dawkins is convicted and transported for
stealing a silver snuff box. Toby Crackit, Tom Chitling and Kags are captured at Jacob’s
Island as a consequence of the mob pursuing Sikes. Of Fagin’s associates, only Charley
93
Ibid., p. 409.
Ibid.
95
Ibid., p. 411.
94
254
Bates, who assisted in the attempted apprehension of Sikes, escapes judgment. For his act
of goodness we read of his being able to turn away from his past and, after much hard
work and suffering, he becomes ‘the merriest young grazier in all Northamptonshire.’96
The divine qualities of grace and mercy, a feature of Mr Pickwick’s dealings with
Jingle and Trotter, are also apparent in Mr Brownlow’s performance of his ‘Angelic’
duties. Although Oliver is legally entitled to receive all the remaining proceeds of his
father’s estate, around six thousand pounds, Mr Brownlow persuades Oliver to release
half the amount to Monks in the hope that he will redeem himself and pursue an honest
career. He also offers Monks sanctuary from the authorities at his Craven Street home.
Several years previously he also, despite his revulsion of her actions, assisted Monks’
mother in an attempt to recover her son. However, unlike Jingle, Monks is beyond
reform, and ends up dying in a prison in the New World.97
With regards to Nancy, despite her role in abducting Oliver and her criminal
associations, Mr Brownlow, during his fatal meeting with her on London Bridge,
earnestly attempts to persuade her to accept his offer of a new life and a fresh start:
‘What can I do to serve you?’ ‘Nothing,’ replied Nancy. ‘You will not persist
in saying that,’ rejoined the gentleman, with a voice and emphasis of kindness
that might have touched a much harder and more obdurate heart. ‘Think now.
Tell me.’ ‘Nothing, sir,’ rejoined the girl, weeping. ‘You can do nothing to
help me. I am past all hope, indeed.’ ‘You put yourself beyond its pale,’ said
the gentleman. ‘The past has been a dreary waste with you, of youthful
96
97
Ibid., p. 414.
Ibid., p. 412.
255
energies mis-spent, and such priceless treasures lavished, as the Creator
bestows but once and never grants again, but, for the future, you may hope. I
do not say that it is in our power to offer you peace of heart and mind, for that
must come as you seek it; but a quite asylum, either in England, or, if you
fear to remain here, in some foreign country, it is not only within the compass
of our ability but our most anxious wish to secure you. Before the dawn of
morning, before this river wakes to the first glimpse of daylight, you shall be
placed entirely beyond the reach of your former associates, and leave, as utter
an absence of all trace behind you, as if you were to disappear from the earth
this moment.’98
Mr Brownlow’s vehement opposition to injustice is shown in his court-room
confrontation with Fang. 99 Duped by Fagin, and sent out on a criminal expedition with
the Dodger and Charley Bates, Oliver is falsely arrested in connection with the Dodger’s
theft of Mr Brownlow’s handkerchief. He is taken to a ‘very notorious Metropolitan
Police Office’,100 where he is brought before the aptly named magistrate, Fang. Dickens
leaves the reader in no doubt about the quality of justice Oliver will receive:
Mr Fang was a lean, long-backed, stiff-necked, middle-sized man, with no
great quantity of hair, and what he had, growing on the back and sides of his
head. His face was stern, and much flushed. If he were really not in the habit
of drinking rather more than was exactly good for him, he might have brought
98
Ibid., pp. 353, 354.
Larson points out that Dickens had visited Police Courts during his time as a reporter (page 63).
100
Dickens, Twist, p. 69.
99
256
an action against his countenance for libel, and recovered heavy damages.
Now, it so happened that Mr Fang was, at that moment, perusing a leading
article in a newspaper of the morning, adverting to some recent decision of
his, and commending him, for the three hundred and fiftieth time, to the
special and particular notice of the Secretary of State for the Home
Department. He was out of temper; and he looked up with an angry scowl.101
From the commencement of Oliver’s trial Mr Brownlow’s aversion to Fang and the
representation of false justice he depicts is immediately apparent. The instant they meet,
animosity ensues: ‘“Who are you?” said Mr Fang. The old gentleman pointed, with some
surprise, to his card. “Officer!” said Mr Fang, tossing the card contemptuously away with
the newspaper. “Who is this fellow?” “My name, sir,” said the old gentleman, speaking
like a gentleman, “my name, sir, is Brownlow. Permit me to inquire the name of the
magistrate who offers a gratuitous and unprovoked insult to a respectable person, under
the protection of the bench.”’102
As the case continues Fang cautions Mr Brownlow: ‘“Hold your tongue, sir!” “I will
not, sir!” replied the old gentleman. “Hold your tongue this instant, or I’ll have you
turned out of the office!” said Mr Fang. “You’re an insolent, impertinent fellow. How
dare you bully a magistrate! ”’103 Only the thought of prejudicing Oliver’s position
prevents Mr Brownlow giving vent to his indignation and sense of injustice. Mr
Brownlow, moved by compassion for Oliver, then goes on to plead for leniency. Despite
this, Fang, who describes the accused as being a ‘young vagabond’ and a ‘hardened
101
Ibid., p. 71.
Ibid., p. 72.
103
Ibid., pp. 71-72.
102
257
scoundrel’, informs the clerk of the court that he will commit Oliver to three months hard
labour. This, in view of the state of his health, as evidenced by his fainting in the dock,
was the equivalent of a death sentence.104 Only the timely intervention of the book-stall
keeper, which is grudgingly permitted by Fang, saves Oliver from the sentence.
Following the evidence of the book-stall keeper, and the discharge of Oliver, Mr
Brownlow is unable to contain his anger: ‘“D-n me!” cried the old gentleman, bursting
out with outrage […] he then leaves the court ‘in a perfect phrenzy of rage and
defiance.’105
Whilst critics have often commented upon Dickens’ use of the ‘Parable of the Good
Samaritan’ in Oliver Twist, I argue here that it is Mr Brownlow’s central participation in
its allegorization, and Dickens use of this to emphasize his joint role as ‘Angel of
Judgement’ and ‘Charitable Angel’ that is key. Describing the fundamental aim of the
novel as ‘to move us [...] into sympathy and charity for the poor’,106 Walder uses the
Parable, which begins with the charitable question, ‘Who is my neighbour?’107 within the
wider context of his discussion on charity and the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834.
Larson, unlike Walder, carefully examines how Dickens weaved the detail of the
Parable into his narrative. Commenting on Dickens’ dual allegorical use of Pilgrim’s
Progress108 (the alternative title of the novel was ‘The Parish Boy’s Progress’) and the
Parable in Oliver Twist, Larson promotes the relative importance of the latter: ‘If his
readers are challenged at all to more active critical reading of themselves and the world it
104
Ibid., pp. 73-74.
Ibid., p.75.
106
Dennis Walder, Dickens and Religion, London: Allen & Unwin Publishers Ltd., 1981, p. 42.
107
Luke X verse xxix.
108
Larson points out that in the 1867 edition of the novel the running headline, ‘The Young Pilgrim’s
Progress’, was added to Chapter Eight (p. 48).
105
258
is not through the Bunyan fable but the Parable of the Good Samaritan.’109 Rather than
considering Mr Brownlow’s central role within the Parable - she does describe him and
Mrs Maylie as ‘respectable samaritans’- 110 Larson, instead, focuses on Nancy and
Fagin’s involvement.111 Reed limits his reference to the Parable by alluding to the
depiction of the Good Samaritan on the parochial seal of the parish charged with caring
for Oliver.112
Whilst the Parable of the Good Samaritan appears relatively frequently in Dickens’
fiction (Martin Chuzzlewit, Pictures From Italy, Hard Times, Little Dorrit and Our
Mutual Friend),113 in Oliver Twist it occupies a far more central position because it
contextualises the key religious content of the book.114 Mr Brownlow, in keeping with his
‘Charitable Angelic’ role in relation to Oliver, is cast as the ‘Good Samaritan’.
Dickens provides two direct references to the Parable within Oliver Twist. The first
relates to the parish featured in the first seven chapters of the book, where Oliver is born
and spends his childhood years before running away to London. The ‘Good Samaritan’
healing the sick and bruised man, the parish’s adopted seal, is depicted on the parish
beadle’s coat buttons.115 The second reference, noted by both Larson and Walder,116 is to
109
Ibid., p. 54.
Ibid., p. 58.
111
Ibid., pp. 54-62.
112
Reed, p. 76.
113
Charles Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, London: Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ltd., N. D. p.676; Charles
Dickens, American Notes and Pictures From Italy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 275-276;
Charles Dickens, Sketches by Boz and Hard Times, London: Hazell, Watson & Viney Ltd., p. 652;
Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 364; Charles Dickens, Our
Mutual Friend, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 506, 510-511. Andrew Sanders, Charles
Dickens Resurrectionist, London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1982, also connects Dickens’
representation of Jo in Bleak House with the Good Samaritan (p. 158).
114
Jennifer Gribble in her article, ‘Why the Good Samaritan was a Bad Economist: Dickens’ Parable for
Hard Times’, Literature and Theology, Vol. 18, No. 4, December 2004, pp. 427-441, argues the same
point in Hard Times.
115
Dickens, Twist, p. 24.
116
Walder, facing page 59; Larson, p. 58.
110
259
be found in George Cruikshank’s illustration entitled ‘Oliver recovering from Fever’
(Figure Fourteen below).117 The illustration shows Oliver recovering from his court
ordeal at Mr Brownlow’s home. Whilst Oliver and Mrs Bedwin’s eyes are fixed upon Mr
Brownlow he is gazing intently at a picture of the ‘Good Samaritan’ comforting the
injured traveller.
Figure Fourteen: Oliver recovering from Fever
117
Dickens, Twist, facing page 95.
260
Dickens uses two strategies to identify Mr Brownlow as the ‘Good Samaritan’. Firstly,
his readership recognised the huge socio-cultural gulf that existed between the victim and
his rescuer. Oliver, the workhouse orphan, whose social position is such that even Noah
Claypole, the charity-boy apprenticed to Sowerberry, the parish undertaker, sees fit to
deride, 118 is helped by a wealthy, elderly bachelor who could reasonably be expected to
be completely disconnected from such a social pariah.
The second strategy adopted by Dickens was that of contrasting Mr Brownlow’s
treatment of Oliver with the failings of two social agencies which, it was presumed, were
responsible for his well being and protection: the parish (representative of the Priest in
the parable) and the justice system (representative of the Levi). Dickens begins this
process by differentiating Mr Brownlow from the Priest and the Levi. In keeping with
Dickens’ overall ‘Angelic’ strategy, of which Mr Brownlow is a notable example, there is
no record of his attending church nor is there any evidence of his involvement in
parochial affairs. He has no association with the parish whatsoever. In the first seven
chapters of the book, which, in their criticism of the parish administration are closely
linked to ‘Our Parish’, Dickens uses the term ‘Philosopher and Philosophy’ (a direct
reference to Utilitarianism119 ) to characterise the ethos behind the abuses and failings
suffered by Oliver at the hands of the parochial system for the first nine years of his life.
The first use of the term appears in Chapter II. Of Mrs Mann, who runs the ‘farm’ for
babies - young children considered too young for the workhouse - Dickens writes:
118
119
Ibid., pp. 31, 40.
See Vincent Newey, The Scriptures of Charles Dickens: Novels of Ideology, Novels of the Self,
Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2004, p. 63.
261
Everybody knows the story of another experimental philosopher [my
emphasis] who had a great theory about a horse being able to live without
eating, and who demonstrated it so well, that he got his own horse down to a
straw a day, and would unquestionably have rendered him a very spirited and
rampacious animal on nothing at all, if he had not died, four-and-twenty
hours before he was to have had his first comfortable bait of air.
Unfortunately for the experimental philosophy [my emphasis] of the female
to whose protecting care Oliver Twist was delivered over, a similar result
usually attended the operation of her system.120
A few pages later when Oliver, having reached his ninth birthday, is brought before
‘The Parochial Board’ we read:
The members of this board were very sage, deep, philosophical [my
emphasis] men; and when they came to turn their attention to the workhouse,
they found out at once, what ordinary folks would never have discovered –
the poor people liked it! It was regular place of public entertainment for the
poorer classes […] ‘Oho!’ said the board, looking very knowing; ‘we are the
fellows to set this to rights; we’ll stop it all, in no time’. So they established
the rule, that all poor people should have the alternative (for they should
compel nobody, not they), of being starved, by a gradual process in the house,
or by a quick one out of it.121
120
121
Dickens, Twist, p. 4.
Ibid., p.11.
262
Five chapters later Mr Bumble describes the members of the board as being practical
philosophers [my emphasis].122
In Chapter IV Mr Bumble, in conversation with Sowerberry, lambastes the jury at the
inquest of the death of ‘a reduced tradesman’ for daring to question whether the parish
had adequately provided for the man. He concludes by contemptuously clicking his
fingers and saying: ‘They haven’t no more philosophy [my emphasis] nor political
economy about ‘em than that.’123 On the occasion of Mrs Sowerberry, the wife of the
parochial undertaker, instructing her servant Charlotte to give Oliver some scraps of meat
intended for their dog, Dickens observes:
I wish some well-fed philosopher, [my emphasis] whose meat and drink turn
to gall within him; whose blood is ice, whose heart is iron; could have seen
Oliver Twist clutching at the dainty viands that the dog had neglected. I wish
he could have witnessed the horrible avidity with which Oliver tore the bits
asunder with all the ferocity of famine. There is only one thing I should like
better; and that would be to see the Philosopher [my emphasis] making the
same sort of meal himself, with the same relish.124
Mr Brownlow, in his role as the ‘Good Samaritan’, is clearly disassociated from the
Philosophers, who, along with the parish officials who failed Oliver, are connected with
the Priest in the parable:
122
Ibid., p. 46.
Ibid., p. 24.
124
Ibid., p. 28.
123
263
Now the old gentleman came in as brisk as need be; but, he had no sooner
raised his spectacles on his forehead, and thrust his hands behind the skirts of
his dressing-gown to take a good long look at Oliver, than his countenance
underwent a very great variety of odd contortions. Oliver looked very worn
and shadowy from sickness, and made an ineffectual attempt to stand up, out
of respect to his benefactor, which terminated in his sinking back into the
chair again; and the fact is, if the truth must be told, that Mr Brownlow’s
heart, being large enough for any six ordinary old gentlemen of humane
disposition, forced a supply of tears into his eyes by some hydraulic process
which we are not sufficiently philosophical [my emphasis] to explain.125
Dickens, as examined earlier on, used Mr Brownlow’s confrontation with Fang to
differentiate him from the justice system.
On the last page of Chapter XI Oliver, the innocent victim who ‘has fallen among
thieves’,126 is robbed of his dignity, health and hope, and is found lying ‘on his back on
the pavement with his shirt unbuttoned, and his temples bathed with water; his face a
deadly white; and a cold tremble convulsing his whole frame.’127 The ‘Priest’ and the
‘Levi’ – the same order as they appear in the parable - have not only ignored him but are
responsible for his current desperate state. ‘The Good Samaritan’, finding Oliver in this
appalling condition, has him picked up and placed in a coach; taken to his home, Oliver is
nursed back to health. All that has been taken from him is eventually restored.
125
Ibid., p. 80.
Walder cleverly includes this ‘Good Samaritan’ phrase from Luke Chapter X verse xxx in
describing Oliver’s involvement with Fagin and his gang (p. 45).
127
Dickens, Twist, p.75.
126
264
Mr Brownlow is also the focal point for the novel’s representation of Divine
Providence.128 Vargish, in The Providential Aesthetic in Victorian Fiction (1985),
concludes that of ‘the several concerns that seemed of central importance to literate
Victorians the action of God’s will in the world was the most transcendent.’129
Swinburne, in Providence and the Problem of Evil (1998), identifies two schools of
contemporary Providential thought: ‘General’ and ‘Special’. The former he describes as
being ‘goods arising from the general structure of the world, the natural order of things;
which, if there is a God, clearly he will bring about.’ Special Providence he differentiates
as ‘God intervening in the natural order of things to facilitate his dealings with particular
individuals, not based on any general formula but in response to their particular needs
and requests.’ 130 Of these, Dickens’ position in Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby and The
Old Curiosity Shop appears to be more congruent with Special Providence.131
Of the five incidences of direct providential intervention which appear in the novel
two relate directly to Mr Brownlow and Oliver.132 One involves Mr Brownlow’s pivotal
first appearance in the novel. Oliver, unwittingly sent out on a pick-pocketing mission by
Oulton refers to the role of Dickens’ ‘Angels’ as ‘mediators of direct providential intervention’ (p. 123).
On a personal note, Walder records that Dickens frequently sensed a providential guiding hand upon his
own life (p. 7).
129
Quoted in Mark Knight, ‘Little Dorrit and Providence’, Dickens Studies Annual, Vol. 32, 2002, p. 180.
130
Ibid.
131
Knight, in his article, argues that in Martin Chuzzlewit (in relation to Pecksniff) and Tale of Two Cities
(in relation to Mrs Cruncher’s praying) Dickens reveals a distrust of Special Providence (p. 181). With
reference to Little Dorrit he further suggests that on ‘closer examination’ the event which provides the
climax to the novel [the sudden collapse of Mrs Clennam’s house] ‘subverts the allusion to special
providence by using the language of general providence.’ (p. 181). Knight concludes that the
relative nineteenth shift away from Special Providence (Elisabeth Jay, The Religion of the Heart:
Anglican Evangelicalism and the Nineteenth Century Novel, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979, p. 98,
associates the implicit belief in Special Providence with the early Evangelicals) was partly attributable
to the rise of science, and its ability to account for natural phenomena which had once been seen as
evidence of God’s intervention (p. 182).
132
Of the remaining three, the first relates to Oliver avoiding being apprenticed to Gamfield, the cruel
chimney- sweep. Dickens, Twist pp. 20-21. The second involves Oliver’s providential introduction to
Mrs Maylie and Rose; and finally Rose’s meeting with Mrs Maylie.
128
265
Fagin, follows Dawkins and Charley Bates to a narrow court not far from the open square
at Clerkenwell. Once there Dawkins spots a potential victim, Mr Brownlow. From this
point on Mr Brownlow is inextricably linked with the fate of Oliver. The providential
nature of this opening encounter is later accentuated when Dickens reveals that the
villainous Monks first spots Oliver at the exact same time.133
The second involves Oliver, who, whilst out for a walk, spots Mr Brownlow outside
his Craven Street home.134 Having lost all contact with Mr Brownlow, due to his having
left London for the West Indies to find out some information regarding the Leeford
family, Oliver’s providential appointment crucially occurs the day after Rose has
received a clandestine visit from Nancy. At the very point of Oliver reporting his
discovery, Rose, uncertain what to do, is in the process of writing to Harry Maylie. The
resulting meeting between Rose and Mr Brownlow determines not only the fate of Oliver
but also, as has been described, the fate of the novel’s evil characters.
The two references which Dickens uses to identify Mr Brownlow as an ‘Angel’ are,
despite their obscure nature, much in keeping with ‘The Angel Hotel’ reference used for
Mr Pickwick. The first occurs during Oliver’s ordeal at the hands of Fang. Dickens uses
this scene to launch an attack on police magistrates’ courts and, in particular, their
treatment of the poor and needy. In this passage he includes the following observation:
‘Within such walls enough fantastic tricks are daily played to make the angels blind with
weeping [my emphasis].’135 Mr Brownlow, who, at first hand witnesses Oliver’s courtroom ordeal and the effects that this, and the whole episode has had upon the boy,
133
Ibid., p. 65.
Ibid., p. 309.
135
Ibid., pp. 69, 70-75.
134
266
weeps.136 The second reference relates to the location of Mr Brownlow’s home.
Following the timely intervention of the book-stall keeper, Oliver is acquitted. However,
due to the neglect and trauma he has suffered, he collapses outside the court. Mr
Brownlow comes to his aid and places him in a carriage. During the course of the journey
to Mr Brownlow’s home the only landmark referred to by Dickens is the Angel at
Islington [my emphasis].137
In addition to these narrative cues, Dickens uses Mr Brownlow’s special relationship
with Oliver to further confirm his ‘Angelic’ status. Oliver is one of God’s elect: chosen,
according to Calvinistic predestinationism, to inherit salvation. In his characterisation,
this accounts for both his innocence and his incorruptibility. Fagin, who, as previously
discussed, is symbolically linked to the devil,138 is powerless to corrupt Oliver. Oliver’s
heavenly inheritance, as with his earthly inheritance which, under the terms of his
father’s will, is dependent on his honesty and integrity, is guaranteed. 139 Mr Brownlow’s
protection and care of the predestined Oliver qualifies him for ‘Angelic’ status as defined
in Hebrews Chapter I, verse xiv. The Authorised Version of this verse identifies ‘Angels’
as being ‘ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of
salvation.’ His relationship to Oliver also identifies him with the ministry of ‘Guardian
Angels’ as described in the last chapter.
136
Ibid., p.80.
Ibid., p. 76. This is a reference to the Angel Inn which is in the general vicinity of Mr Brownlow’s
home.
138
Cruikshank’s illustration (Dickens, Twist on facing page 56) has, with Fagin standing over a fire with
fork in hand, imagery associated with representations of the devil in popular culture. In Chapter XIX
Dickens likens Fagin to ‘a loathsome reptile’ who is ‘engendered in the slime and darkness’ (p.135).
On the next page Sikes describes him as being ‘the devil in a great coat’. Monks, on visiting Fagin,
describes his dwelling as being as ‘dark as the grave’ (p. 192).
139
Dickens, Twist, p. 396.
137
267
The relatively narrow scope of Mr Brownlow’s charitable activity, in relation to both
Mr Pickwick and Charles Cheeryble, is linked to his character portrayal. (Jenny Bourne
Taylor’s ‘Received a Blank Child’ provides a possibly source for Dickens’
characterisation of Mr Brownlow).140 Stripped of the exuberance, cheerfulness and
conviviality of his two fellow ‘Charitable Angels’, Mr Brownlow is shown to be a
conservative, serious, somewhat private and withdrawn person. He appears to have only
one friend, Mr Grimwig, who, even by his own admission, is a ‘strange creature.’141 This,
with the exception of his house-keeper, Mrs Bedwin, is the only company he keeps.
Dickens uses his absence of a Christian name; his tendency to reflect on the past; and the
emotional trauma he has suffered;142 along with his close connection with books to
reinforce his personality traits.143
Mr Brownlow, who is described as having a ‘heart large enough for six ordinary old
gentlemen of humane disposition’,144 demonstrates an exceptional degree of benevolence
toward Oliver. Although, undoubtedly influenced by Oliver’s connection with the
Leeford family, his philanthropic commitment and energy is remarkable. Rose Maylie, on
the first occasion of the two ‘Angels’ meeting, commends Mr Brownlow for his great
benevolence and goodness toward the child.145 As in the case of Mr Pickwick, who is
Jenny Bourne Taylor, ‘Received a Blank Child: John Brownlow, Charles Dickens and the London
Foundling Hospital’, Nineteenth Century Literature, Vol. 56, No. 3, December 2001, pp. 293 – 363.
141
Dickens, Twist, p. 316.
142
On page 96 Mr Brownlow reveals to Oliver that ‘he has suffered great pain and sorrow [...] The
persons on whom I have bestowed my dearest love, lie deep in their graves[...] the happiness and
delight of my life lie buried their too’. On page 373 he reveals the identity of these people to be Edwin
Leeford and her sister, who died on the morning she was to be married to Mr Brownlow.
143
Mr Brownlow’s first appearance in the novel is outside a book-sellers. Later on in the narrative he
receives a parcel of books from the same book seller. Oliver is abducted by Nancy and Sikes on an
errand regarding books. A little back room in his house is packed with books and he and Oliver have a
lengthy book based discussion. Ibid., pp. 65, 95, 100 and Chapter XV.
144
Ibid., p. 80.
145
Ibid., pp. 310-311.
140
268
discomfited by Perker’s disclosure of his many kindnesses to Alfred Jingle, Mr
Brownlow tries to conceal his charitable acts.146
He rescues Oliver from the pavement outside the police magistrates’ court, takes him
into his home, and speaks honestly and openly to Oliver to reassure him of his
philanthropic intentions. In the face of Grimwig’s accusations he defends Oliver’s
integrity, and demonstrates his trust in Oliver by sending him on an errand with £5.00.
Upon his disappearance Mr Brownlow, refusing to doubt Oliver’s honesty, places an
advertisement in a London newspaper offering a reward of five guineas in the hope of
establishing his whereabouts. In an attempt to discover Oliver’s true identity he leaves
London and sails to the West Indies. On being providentially reunited with Oliver, Mr
Brownlow, through careful planning and skilful execution, is able to not only confirm
Oliver’s history and identity, but also to secure his fortune. Finally, he formally adopts
him as his son; personally educates him; and sets up home in the vicinity of those Oliver
loves. The charity of Mr Brownlow has transformed Oliver’s life.
Charles Cheeryble - The Watching Angel
Dickens uses his final ‘Charitable Angel’ to propagate the view that ‘Angels’ are
involved in the judicial process of watching and recording the actions of men. The
‘Watching Angel’ role bestowed upon Charles Cheeryble (ostensibly demonstrated in
relation to the novel’s principal villain Ralph Nickleby) is symbolically linked with the
books that appear in verse twelve of Revelation XX. These books detail the lives and
actions of those who have died, and are used to determine each person’s eternal fate.
146
Dickens, Pickwick, pp. 744-745; Dickens, Twist, pp. 310-311.
269
Interestingly, Dickens throughout his early work identified his writing with this watching
and recording ‘Angelic’ role. In Chapter IX of Barnaby Rudge he reflects upon how
‘Chroniclers147 are privileged to enter where they list, to come and go through keyholes,
to ride upon the wind, to overcome in their soarings up and down, all obstacles of
distance, time, and place.’148 In a slightly later Christmas piece, The Battle of Life
(1846), Dickens laments the absence of an ‘earthly chronicle’ to record the ‘quiet
victories and struggles, great sacrifices of self, and noble acts of heroism, [...] done every
day in nooks and corners, and little households, and in men’s and women’s hearts.’149 In
contrast, the heavenly chronicles have recorded every detail. There are, beyond Charles
Cheeryble, four further brief references to this ‘Watching Angelic’ role in Dickens’
fictional work.150
In the opening paragraph of Chapter XLIV Dickens, in condemning the avarice and
greed of Ralph Nickleby and his like, provides a clear reference to his prescribed
‘Watching Angel’ role within the Divine Judgement process:
There are some men, who, living with the one object of enriching themselves,
no matter by what means, and being perfectly conscious of the baseness and
rascality of the means which they will use every day towards this end, affect
nevertheless - even to themselves - a high tone of moral rectitude, and shake
their heads and sigh over the depravity of the world. Some of the craftiest
147
In Sketches, p. 13 and Curiosity Shop, p. 279 Dickens describes his narrators as chroniclers.
Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 69.
149
Charles Dickens, Tale of Two Cities and A Christmas Carol, London: Hazell, Watson & Viney Ltd.,
N.D. pp. 586-587.
150
Dickens, Chuzzlewit, p. 408; Charles Dickens, Bleak House, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998,
pp. 440, 555; Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, p. 506.
148
270
scoundrels that ever walked this earth, or rather - for walking implies, at least,
an erect position and the bearing of a man - that ever crawled and crept
through life by its dirtiest and narrowest ways, will gravely jot down in
diaries the events of every day, and keep a regular debtor and creditor account
with Heaven, which shall always show a floating balance in their favour.
Whether this is a gratuitous (the only gratuitous) part of the falsehood and
trickery of such men’s lives, or whether they really hope to cheat Heaven
itself, and lay up treasure in the next world by the same process which has
enabled them to lay up treasure in this – not to question how it is. And,
doubtless, such book-keeping (like certain autobiographies which have
enlightened the world) cannot fail to prove serviceable, in the one respect of
sparing the recording Angel [my emphasis] some time and labour.151
In the first of the three meetings which takes place between Charles Cheeryble and the
evil Ralph Nickleby, the ‘Watching Angel’ makes it clear that his chief wrongs have been
recorded and are soon to be revealed: ‘“What you are, Mr Nickleby, I will not say; but
what you have done, I know. Now, sir, when you go about the business in which you
have recently engaged, and find it difficult of pursuing, come to me and we’ll explain it
for you - and come soon, or may be too late, and you may have it explained with a little
more roughness.”’152 During the course of the second encounter Cheeryble demonstrates
to Nickleby his knowledge of all his evil schemes: his conspiring with Snawley and
Squeers with regards to Smike; his part in Gride’s devious plan to marry Madeline Bray;
151
152
Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 567.
Ibid., p. 767.
271
and his exploitation of Newman Noggs are all detailed.153 In the final meeting which
takes place between the two, the ‘Watching Angel’ reveals that his knowledge of
Nickleby’s wrong doing extends beyond the present to the detailing of his dissolute past.
The conversation culminates with the revelation that Smike, whom he had hounded, and
was now dead, was his son.154 Two chapters later Ralph Nickleby rejects repentance in
favour of exhorting the devil to help him.155 Immediately afterwards he hangs himself.
In common with Mr Brownlow’s dealings with Monks, Cheeryble, in representing
Nickleby’s guilt, offers him mercy in the hope that he will repent and live a reformed life.
At their first meeting the ‘Watching Angel’ describes his purpose as being ‘an errand of
mercy’;156 - a point which is clearly supported by his encouraging Nickleby to meet with
him again soon to avoid prosecution by the authorities. At the conclusion of the second
interview Cheeryble, having detailed the extent of Nickleby’s wicked schemes, offers to
warn him of any impending arrest in the hope that he will take the opportunity to atone
for his wrongs and ‘become a better man.’157 Following the final meeting, such is his
concern for Nickleby, who has just learned that Smike was his son, that Cheeryble sends
a messenger late at night to his house to check on his well-being.158 Having been
reasonably reassured of the answer he received he retires, only to discover the next day
that Nickleby has committed suicide.
Ibid., pp. 772 –778.
Ibid., pp. 784 –789.
155
Ibid., pp. 805-806.
156
Ibid., p.767.
157
Ibid., p.777.
158
Ibid., pp. 790, 806.
153
154
272
Dickens also uses Charles Cheeryble to reinforce his Pickwickian association between
cheerfulness, conviviality and genuine Christianity. From the moment he first appears the
connection is firmly established:
But what principally attracted the attention of Nicholas, was the old
gentleman’s eye, - never was such a clear, twinkling, honest, merry, happy
eye as that [...]with such a pleasant smile playing about his mouth, and such a
comical expression of mingled slyness, simplicity, kind-heartedness, and
good humour lighting up his jolly old face, that Nicholas would have been
content to have stood there, and looked at him until evening, and to have
forgotten, meanwhile that there was such a thing as a soured mind or a
crabbed countenance to be met in the whole wide world [...] Grafted upon the
quaintness and oddity of his appearance, was something so indescribably
engaging and bespeaking so much worth, and there were so many little lights
hovering about the corners of his mouth and eyes, that it was not a mere
amusement, but a positive pleasure and delight to look at him.159
Such is his singular visage that Nicholas feels able to confide in him, despite the fact
that he is a complete stranger: ‘Your kind face and manner - both unlike any I have ever
seen - tempted me into an avowal, which, to any other stranger in this wilderness of
London, I should not have dreamt of making.’160 A few pages later, on first seeing the
twin brothers together, Nicholas observes: ‘As they shook each other by the hand the face
159
160
Ibid., pp. 448, 449.
Ibid., p.450.
273
of each lighted up by beaming looks of affection, which would have been most delightful
to behold in infants, and which, in men so old, was inexpressibly touching.’161 In the
same chapter Charles is also described as being ‘earnest and guileless’ and having a
‘radiant countenance’.162
The delight he takes in the company and happiness of others is also soon made
apparent. Only two chapters after his introduction to the narrative, he is enjoying the
company of his friends and employees at Tim Linkinwater’s birthday party.163 Several
chapters later he, in the company of his nephew Frank, visits the Nickleby household in
Bow for Sunday afternoon tea.164 In Chapter LXIII the Nickleby family, with the
addition of Miss La Creevy, Tim Linkinwater and Newman Noggs, are invited to his
home for dinner. In the following chapter he takes obvious delight in bringing Frank,
Kate, Nicholas and Madeline together; and his earnest desire to promote the happiness of
others is confirmed in Dickens’ final remark about the brothers: ‘Who needs to be told
that they were happy? They were surrounded by happiness of their own creation, and
lived but to increase it.’165
In addition, Dickens used Charles Cheeryble to restate his belief in Special
Providence. Nicholas Nickleby, having returned to London, and in desperate need of
work, revisits the General Agency Office.166 Whilst standing outside the office looking in
at the vacancies he meets Charles Cheeryble. The setting of this providential meeting is
significant in that it occurs at the same place where Nicholas first meets the novel’s
161
Ibid., p.453.
Ibid., p.451, 455.
163
Ibid., pp. 474 -478
164
Ibid., pp. 565-566.
165
Ibid., p. 829.
166
Ibid., pp. 448, 449.
162
274
‘Female Angel’, Madeline Bray. This meeting, as with that between Mr. Brownlow and
Oliver, proves a seminal moment in the lives of both Nicholas and his family, and all the
novel’s major characters.
Interestingly, the reference which confirms Charles Cheeryble’s ‘Angelic’ status does
not appear until six chapters before the end of the novel. This is far later than those used
in relation to the other two ‘Charitable Angels’. Although this could be linked to the
introduction of the new dominant ‘Angelic’ prototype, Rose Maylie, in the previous
novel, it is more likely attributable to his not having actually met the Grant brothers upon
whom he based the Cheerybles until around nine months after he started the novel.167
This point is supported by the fact that Charles Cheeryble does not actually first appear
until Chapter XXXV, over half-way through the novel.
Beyond Dickens’ clever use of his name,168 which sounds like a combination of
‘cheery’ and ‘cherub’, there are three direct references to Cheeryble’s ‘Angelic’ status in
his initial meeting with Ralph Nickleby. In the first, Nickleby accredits him with the
‘Angelic’ attribute of being able to ‘appear in men’s houses whether they will or no, and
pour out speech into unwilling ears.’169 In the next, as discussed previously, he is
identified as an ‘Angel’ through his demonstration of mercy toward Nickleby.170 The
final reference involves Cheeryble attempting to deny that he is an ‘Angel’. 171 Dickens
was to repeat this strategy some years later with regards to Rachael in Hard Times. 172
167
According to Edgar Johnson, Charles Dickens: His Tragedy and Triumph, Harmondsworth: Penguin
Books, 1986, Dickens first met William and Daniel Grant at Gilbert Winter’s Manchester home
in the late autumn of 1838 (p. 142).
168
Whilst as Johnson rightly points out the name was inspired by the workplace used by the Grant
brothers: Cheeryble House, its ‘Angelic’ connection can not, surely, be a coincidence (p. 142).
169
Dickens, Nickleby, p. 767.
170
Ibid., p. 767 Cheeryble himself identifies mercy as an Angelic quality.
171
Ibid.
172
Dickens, Sketches by Boz and Hard Times, p.566.
275
During the course of this meeting Dickens also provides three additional ‘Angelic’
cues. Nickleby, in describing him as being ‘truth itself’,173 identifies Cheeryble with the
Divine.174 The mutual aversion between the agents of good and evil is also apparent.
Cheeryble was ‘one of the last men alive whom Nickleby wished to meet at any time;
but, now [...] he would rather have seen a spectre.’175 The ‘Watching Angel’ responds
with his own antipathetic remark: ‘I have never been in this house before; and, to speak
my mind, sir, I don’t feel at home or easy in it, and have no wish ever to be here again.’
176
Finally, although Cheeryble admits that he has come ‘against his will, sorely and
grievously against his will’,177 his presence is indicative of his determination to perform
his Divine ‘Angelic’ commission.
Charles Cheeryble who, in terms of the exuberance of his benevolence, is allied with
Mr Pickwick, is specifically used by Dickens to demonstrate the operation of charity
within the workplace and the domestic setting. Whereas Dickens’ other two ‘Charitable
Angels’ are both retired, Charles, along with his twin brother Edwin, owns a thriving
merchant house, which they run from their offices close to Threadneedle Street. He views
his business and domestic arrangements as an opportunity to further his charitable work.
Dickens also recognised that the employer-employee relationship played a key role in the
effectiveness of the ‘Osmosis Process’. Employers had a moral and spiritual
responsibility for their employees. Although representative of the urban lower classes
who absented themselves from church and chapel attendance Cheeryble’s employees,
173
Dickens, Nickleby, p. 766.
For example see John XIV verse vi, Christ describes himself as being the truth: John XVI verse xiii, the
Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of truth; and in Psalm XXXI verse v God is described as the God of truth.
175
Dickens, Nickleby, pp. 765-766.
176
Ibid.,
177
Ibid., p. 766.
174
276
through the treatment they receive at work, witness at first hand the practical virtues of
true religion. Dickens also clearly represents the benefits that his ‘Angel’ receives at
work and at home as a result of his actions.
On first visiting his offices it becomes apparent that the scope of his work-based
benevolence extends beyond the boundaries of his own business premises. Mr Trimmers,
who is introduced to Nicholas as being one of Charles’ ‘best friends’,178 regularly calls
upon Cheeryble to inform him of the wider needs of individual dock-workers,
warehousemen and their families. The frequency of these visits, and the extent of the
charitable response they receive, is revealed in Charles’ comment to Nicholas: ‘He makes
a thousand cases known to us that we should never discover for ourselves.’179 On this
particular occasion Trimmers informs Cheeryble of the desperate need of the family of a
man killed that morning in the East Indian Dockyard.180 His immediate response is to
make a donation of £20.00.181
When Nicholas is taken on a tour around the business premises, he notices that:
‘Among the shipping-announcements and steam-packet lists which decorated the
counting-house walls, were designs for alms-houses, statements of charities, and plans for
new hospitals.’182 He is further struck by the healthy, cheerful appearance of all the
warehouse-men and porters employed by the firm, and the respect they show
Cheeryble.183 There can be no doubt that this is due to the kindness of their employers, a
point confirmed several pages later on the occasion of their chief clerk’s birthday.
178
Ibid., p. 452.
Ibid., p.452.
180
Ibid.
181
Ibid.
182
Ibid., p. 470.
183
Ibid., pp. 451, 470.
179
277
Following the birthday toast, ‘the sturdiest and jolliest subordinate’ in a brief speech
commends Charles and his brother for their benevolence and kindness: ‘We’re allowed to
take a liberty once a year, gen’lemen, and if you please we’ll take it now [...] What we
mean to say is, that there never was such noble, excellent, free, generous spirited masters
as them [...] And here’s thanking of em’ for all their goodness as is so constancy a
diffusing of itself over everywhere.’184
Charles Cheeryble’s workplace benevolence is exemplified by his treatment of the
firm’s long-time chief clerk, Tim Linkinwater. Linkinwater, who has worked for
Cheeryble for forty-four years, is treated more like a friend than an employee. At the end
of the novel he is persuaded to become a partner of the firm. On the occasion of his
birthday the brothers not only buy him ‘a costly gold snuff-box, including a bank-note
worth more than its value ten times fold;’185 but also, as mentioned, host a birthday
celebration for him at their own home. He is not the only employee of the firm to
attend.186 Such hospitality and generosity not only contradicted the accepted business
norm of the period but also, with the exception of Mr Fezziwig and the regenerated
Scrooge, contradicted the behaviour of some of Dickens’ other employers. It would be
inconceivable to imagine Dombey, Murdstone, Fledgeby or Bounderby entertaining their
employees in such a way. The occasion of Stephen Blackpool visiting the latter serves as
an example of the absurdity of such a suggestion.187
184
Ibid., p. 477.
Ibid., p. 473.
186
Four other employees, porters and warehousemen are also present. Ibid., p. 477.
187
Stephen Blackpool, in his desperation to find a way to divorce his drunken wife, visits Bounderby at his
home; the disdain and condescension shown by the employer, and the relative superior and subservient
positions adopted by both, illustrate this point. Dickens, Sketches by Boz and Hard Times, pp. 554 –
558.
185
278
In addition to his benevolent treatment of his work-based employees, those employed
within his home, the butler, housekeeper, cook and housemaid, are also afforded the same
treatment. Each attend Tim Linkinwater’s party;188 and the cordial, respectful relationship
that Charles enjoys with his elderly butler, David, who has been in his service for many
years, typifies the relationship he has with all his domestic staff. The treatment and
respect that he receives from David is in marked contrast to the experiences endured by
Merdle and Dombey at the hands of their respective butlers.
It is not only the employees of Cheeryble that benefit from his exuberant charitable
activity. The fortunes of the urban migrant Nickleby family are transformed by his
benevolent intervention in their lives. On meeting Nicholas for the very first time and
learning of his family’s difficulties, Cheeryble takes him to his offices and employs him
at a very generous salary in the position of clerk. He then provides a home to the family.
Initially, to save Nicholas’ pride, the cottage in Bow is offered on a monthly rental basis,
but it becomes clear that Cheeryble is planning to reimburse the rent at a later stage. A
‘loan’ is also arranged to furnish the cottage.189 The enduring and consistent nature of his
benevolence toward the family is expressed both through his gifts to Kate, and through
his provision of ‘various little presents to Mrs Nickleby, always of the very things most
required, tended in no slight degree to the improvement and embellishment of the
cottage.’190
The next beneficiary of Cheeryble’s benevolence is the novel’s ‘Female Angel’,
Madeline Bray, who describes him as being her ‘dear friend and benefactor’.191 Her
188
Dickens, Nickleby, p. 477.
Ibid., pp. 451- 457.
190
Ibid., p. 639.
191
Ibid., p.698.
189
279
mother, having rejected him and chosen instead to marry the dissolute Walter Bray,
appealed to him for help a year before she died. Though Cheeryble was generous in his
initial response, such was Bray’s profligacy that he was called upon frequently to provide
further sums. Upon the death of her mother he looses track of Madeline. However, such
is her desperation she is forced to seek him out. On recounting this meeting to Nicholas,
Cheeryble reveals the fervency of his charitable feelings: ‘“If I had been poor”, said
brother Charles, with sparkling eyes “If I had been poor, Mr Nickleby, my dear sir, which
thank God I am not, I would have denied myself the commonest necessaries of life, to
help her.”’192 In response to Madeline’s plea, and mindful of the nasty, malicious nature
of her father, Cheeryble, through his agent Nicholas, secretly provides for her. His final
benevolent act toward Madeline is to become her guardian and to see her happily married
to Nicholas. Frank Cheeryble, Charles’ nephew, Newman Noggs and Smike also benefit
from Cheeryble’s kindness.
192
Ibid., p. 600.
280
CHAPTER SIX: FEMALE ANGELS
Rose Maylie’s first appearance in Chapter XXVIII of Oliver Twist marks a seminal
moment in Dickens’ fictional expression of his personal beliefs.1 Strongly influenced by
the death and subsequent canonisation of Mary Hogarth, the introduction of Rose, his
‘Female Angel’ prototype, signalled a fundamental shift in the author’s use of his
‘Angels’. Described by Garnett as ‘the pattern for all the later icons of Dickens’
religion’,2 Rose is not only differentiated from the ‘Charitable Angels’ in terms of age
and gender, but also in relation to her ‘Angelic’ qualities, and the context in which they
are expressed. Within a familial, relational setting the ‘Angelic’ attributes of his
‘Charitable Angels’ are superseded by Rose’s Christ-like qualities of atonement, selfsacrifice and selflessness.3
Rose, as will be shown, is heartbroken by her selfless decision to refuse Harry
Maylie’s proposal of marriage. This pattern continues in relation to Rose’s ‘Female
Angelic’ successors. Madeline Bray, having slaved away to support her dissolute father,
nearly dies; Nell Trent’s premature death is a result of the physical depravation and
mental anguish she suffers on behalf of her grandfather. Beyond the early ‘Female
Angels’, Florence Dombey endures both emotional and physical pain at the hands of her
father and, in the same novel Harriet Carker, in choosing to live with her disgraced
1
In Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, Rose is introduced to the
narrative on the opening page of Chapter XXIX (page 212).
2
Robert Garnett, ‘Dickens and the Virgin and the Dredger’s Daughter’, Dickens Studies Annual, Vol. 28,
1999, pp. 52, 53.
3
The enduring nature of these qualities as sole determinants of ‘Female Angelic’ status is confirmed by
Dickens in his final work. Rosa Budd, although referred to as an ‘Angel’ by the evil John Jasper, fails to
accept an atonemental, self-sacrificing opportunity to save Neville Landless, the twin brother of her
closest friend Helena. Jasper informs her that unless she marries him he will provide the authorities with
evidence to convict Neville, already a suspect, for the murder of Edwin Drood. Despite her physical and
circumstantial similarities to Dickens’ other ‘Female Angels’, her refusal to accept Jasper’s terms,
expressed in her informing her guardian Grewgious of his secret proposal, excludes her from acquiring
‘Angelic’ status. Charles Dickens, Miscellaneous Papers and The Mystery of Edwin Drood, London:
Watson and Viney Ltd., N.D., pp. 464-476.
281
brother, shares his depravation. Agnes Wickfield, despite her love for David, selflessly
supports him in his romantic entanglements and eventual marriage to Dora. Her love for
her father also exposes her to the unwanted advances of Heep. Esther Summerson
contracts small-pox as a result of her kindness to Jo; Amy Dorrit sacrifices her childhood
and youth to care for her thankless father and resentful brother and sister; and Lizzie
Hexam, mindful of her low social status, denies her own feelings in an attempt to protect
Eugene Wrayburn’s reputation.
Such was Dickens’ determination to maintain the exclusivity of his ‘Female Angels’
in his subsequent work that two early characters, Mr. Marton (The Old Curiosity Shop)
and Gabriel Vardon (Barnaby Rudge), are denied ‘Angelic’ status. Both these characters,
the latter bearing the name of an ‘Angel’, demonstrate genuine Christian charity to those
in need, most notably to Nell Trent and Mary and Barnaby Rudge, and, as such, could
have readily been added to the existing number of ‘Charitable Angels’.
Interestingly, the only male ‘Angel’ to appear in Dickens’ novels after Charles
Cheeryble was Tom Pinch in Martin Chuzzlewit. Whereas his sister Ruth would have
been the obvious character to carry on the ‘Female Angel’ line, Dickens’ choice may
have been influenced by his desire to position his ‘Angel’ in proximity to the novel’s
religious hypocrite, Seth Pecksniff. Although representative of a gender shift, Tom is still
used in the ‘Female Angelic’ context to promote the Christ-like qualities of atonement,
self-sacrifice and selflessness in a relational setting. Tom, despite secretly loving Mary,
agrees to act as a go-between in her clandestine relationship with his close friend Martin
Chuzzlewit. Through his conscientious, selfless fulfilment of his commission he suffers
282
at the hands of Pecksniff, is forced to leave his home and loses the woman he loves to
another.
The cultural context of Dickens’ ‘Female Angels’
Dickens’ use of young women, in preference to elderly bachelors, perfectly suited the
author’s purpose of representing Christ-like qualities within a family, relational setting.
In their varying roles as daughters, sisters, grand-daughter and future wives the ‘Female
Angels’ provided Dickens with ample opportunity to explore the Christian virtues of selfsacrifice, selflessness and atonement. As well as providing Dickens with an excellent
means of expressing his personal beliefs, his ‘Female Angels’ also enabled the author to
tap into the period’s cultural perception of women. In particular Rose, and her successors,
were linked with the Victorian idolised imagery of domestic womanhood, ‘which
combined the perfection of purity, spirituality, love and beauty.’4
Dickens’ earliest female ‘Angelic’ references, which appear in Sketches By Boz and
Pickwick Papers, are, with the exception of ‘The Old Lady’, little more than a casual
acknowledgement of the contemporary representation of the ‘Angelic’ nature of
womanhood.5 For example, Michael Slater, with reference to Victorian gender ideology,
observes how Dickens, in common with Tennyson, Ruskin, Thackeray and many other
writers of the period, propagated the view that women were spiritually superior to men.6
Hogan, Bradstock and Wilson, with specific reference to Patmore’s ‘Angel in the House’,
Siv Jansson, ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: Rejecting the Angel’s Influence’ in Anne Hogan and Andrew
Bradstock (eds.), Women of Faith in Victorian Culture: Reassessing the Angel in the House, Basingstoke:
Macmillan Press Ltd., 1998, p. 31.
5
William Crimsworth’s impression of the young ladies at Mademoiselle Reuter’s seminary in Charlotte
Bronte’s The Professor, London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1995, pp. 73, 80, 91 is a good example of this type
of representation.
6
Michael Slater, Dickens and Women, London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1983, p. 305, 306.
4
283
reiterate this point.7 Slater also notes that the role of women as ‘angelic ministers’ was an
established male stereotype of the period. 8
In ‘A Passage in the Life of Mr Watkins Tottle - Chapter the First’, chronologically
the first ‘Angel’ reference to appear in Dickens’ published fictional work, the cynical
Gabriel Parsons, in reply to the Reverend Timson’s toast ‘Let us drink to the ladies’,
responds: ‘I remember when I was a young man [...] how I used to think every woman
was an angel.’[my emphasis].9 In ‘Chapter The Second’ Miss Lillerton is designated an
angel [my emphasis]10 for no other apparent reason than being the only noticeable female
character to appear in the sketch. In ‘Horatio Sparkins’, which originally appeared in The
Monthly Magazine (1834), Dickens makes a passing reference to a poet by the name of
Montgomery.11 T.W. Hill identifies him as being the Reverend Robert Montgomery who,
in 1833, published a poem entitled ‘Woman, the Angel of Life’.12
Dickens continues this theme in Pickwick Papers. As early as Chapter VIII, Rachael
Wardle, in response to Tracy Tupman calling her an ‘Angel’, replies: ‘All women are
angels [my emphasis] they say.’13 Two chapters later, Alfred Jingle refers to Rachael as
being the ‘dearest of angels [my emphasis]’,14 and Tony Weller, in conversation with his
son, who is sending a valentine card to Mary, questions the value ‘o’ callin’ a young
‘ooman a angel [my emphasis]’.15 In ‘Somebody’s Luggage’ (Dickens’ Christmas Story
Hogan and Bradstock, p. 1; Linda Wilson, ‘Nonconformist Obituaries: How Stereotyped was their View
of Women’, in Bradstock and Hogan, p. 151.
8
Slater, p. 240.
9
Charles Dickens, Sketches by Boz, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 439. The sketch first
appeared in the Monthly Magazine (January 1835).
10
Ibid., p. 462.
11
Ibid., p.358.
12
T.W. Hill, ‘Notes on Sketches by Boz’, Dickensian, 1952, Vol. 48, p.32.
13
Charles Dickens, Pickwick Papers, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 97.
14
Ibid., p.122.
15
Ibid., p. 453.
7
284
of 1863) women are described as being ‘the angelic [my emphasis] sex.’16 Finally, in
Chapter IX of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Dickens demonstrates the enduring nature
of this type of ‘Angelic’ representation.17
In Dombey and Son Dickens adopts a far more serious tone in referring to the cultural,
literal association between women and ‘Angels’. With reference to Alice Marwood, who
has recently returned from her transportation, he writes:
Lost and degraded as she was, there was a beauty in her face and form,
which, even in its worst expression, could not but be recognised as such by
any one regarding her with the least attention. As she subsided into silence,
and her face which had been harshly agitated, quieted down; while her dark
eyes, fixed upon the fire exchanged the reckless light that animated them, for
one that was softened by something like sorrow; there shone through all her
way-worn misery and fatigue, a ray of the departed radiance of the fallen
angel [my emphasis].18
Dickens’ ‘Female Angels’, linked by Slater to the ‘angelic’ heroines of the late
eighteenth century Gothic novels,19 were compatible with ‘a generalised concept of
woman as domestic angel.’20 In 1852 the influential Birmingham Congregationalist John
Angell James wrote: ‘There are few terms in the language around which cluster so many
16
Charles Dickens, Christmas Stories, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 398.
Mr Grewgious, on visiting Rosa at Miss Twinkleton’s Academy, refers to the young ladies of the
establishment as being ‘Angels’ (Dickens, Miscellaneous, p. 361).
18
Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p.489.
19
Slater, p. 234.
20
Henrietta Twycross-Martin, ‘The Drunkard, The Brute and the Paterfamilias: The Temperance Fiction of
the Early Victorian Writer Sarah Stickney Ellis’ in Bradstock and Hogan, note 1, pp. 25, 26.
17
285
blissful associations as that delight of every English heart, the word HOME [...] One of
the most hallowed, and lovely, and beautiful sights in our world is, woman at home.’21
According to Wolffe virtually all Christian and Jewish writers of the period agreed with
this sentiment.22
Indeed, as noted by Alexander Welsh, 23 Dickens’ initial description of Rose Maylie
immediately connects her with home and the ‘temple of the hearth’.24 In first introducing
Rose to his readers Dickens describes her ‘cheerful, happy smile’ as being ‘made for
Home and fireside peace and happiness.’25 In the final chapter of the novel she is
described as ‘the life and joy of the fireside circle’ and is commended for her ‘smiling
untiring discharge of domestic duties at home.’26
Through the introduction of Rose Maylie, and her ‘Female Angel’ progeny, Dickens
demonstrated his ability to tap into the period’s angelic idealization of domestic
womanhood. ‘Constructed and fortified from many sources: artistic representations,
pamphlets, articles, magazines, advice and conduct manuals, letters, autobiography and
fiction’,27 the image was epitomized by Coventry Patmore’s immensely popular
homiletic verse narrative ‘The Angel in the House’ (1854-1863) - a term used by Dickens
21
John Wolffe, (ed.), Religion in Victorian Britain, Volume V Culture and Empire, Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1997, p. 26.
22
Ibid.
23
Alexander Welsh, The City of Dickens, London: Oxford University Press, 1971, p. 150.
24
This phrase, as noted by Vincent Newey, The Scriptures of Charles Dickens: Novels of Ideology, Novels
of the Self, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2004, p. 277, was used by John Ruskin in his 1865 essay
entitled ‘Of Queen’s Gardens’.
25
Dickens, Twist, p. 212.
26
Ibid., p. 414. As referred to previously, Dickens originally planned that the final illustration of Oliver
Twist would show Rose seated by her fireside at home.
27
Siv Jansson, p. 31.
286
ten years prior to the poem’s publication to describe Meg Veck in The Chimes 28 - and
by John Ruskin’s essay ‘Queen’s Gardens’ (1865).
Paul Schlicke links the contemporary rise of domestic ideology to the advent of the
Industrial Revolution and its subsequent impact on family life. 29 Whilst Elizabeth
Langland notes the contemporaneous influence of Queen Victoria’s accession to the
throne in 1837; and her embodiment of the contradictory roles of self-reliant monarch
and dependent wife upon the emergence of the powerful ‘Angel in the House’ icon.30
Both authors also make reference to the importance of Victoria’s marriage to Albert in
1840, which they describe as ‘the domestication of the British monarchy’, and her
subsequent motherhood in the same year.31
Langland further substantiates her view of the influence of Queen Victoria on the rise
of the ‘Angel in the House’ icon by identifying the use of the Queen metaphor in the two
contemporary works most closely identified with the motif: Patmore’s ‘Angel in the
House’ and Ruskin’s ‘Queen’s Garden’s’ essay. Wolffe refers to a lecture of the period in
which the speaker ‘dwelt upon the ‘queenliness’ of the ordinary woman at home,
describing her as ‘a real queen in her cottage, nay her palace.’32 Sandra Gilbert and
Susan Gubar describe the ‘Angel in the House’ transmogrification of ‘the eternal type of
female purity’ literary tradition as having been necessitated by ‘the more secular nature
of the nineteenth century.’33
28
Charles Dickens, Tale of Two Cities and A Christmas Carol, London: Hazell, Watson & Viney, N.D.
p. 483.
29
Paul Schlicke, (ed.), The Oxford Reader’s Companion to Dickens, Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1999, p. 189.
30
Elizabeth Langland, Nobody’s Angels, New York: Cornell University Press, 1995, p. 62.
31
Schlicke, pp. 88, 89; Langland, p. 62.
32
Wolffe, pp. 26, 27. The lecture referred to was given by George Stringer Bull in 1854.
33
Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic, New Haven: Yale University Press,
2000, p. 20.
287
Patmore, through his heroine Honoria, the beautiful young daughter of a country dean,
sought to portray the attendant ‘Angelic’ virtues necessary to live out the Victorian
domestic ideal. These virtues of unselfishness, grace, gentleness, simplicity and
selflessness, also appeared in eighteenth-century conduct books for young ladies. Indeed,
Gilbert and Gubar trace the origins of ‘The Angel in the House’ motif to the medieval
representation of the Madonna, citing writers such as Dante, Milton and Goethe as
playing a part in the transition from religious icon to ‘domestic angel’.34 Interestingly,
Carol Marie Engelhardt’s discussion of the image of the Virgin Mary, which she
describes as being both ‘highly visible’ and ‘symbolically important’ to the Victorians,
includes a consideration of the similarities and differences between the image and what
she describes as the ‘Angel in the House myth’.35 Dickens’ ‘Female Angels’, in terms of
age, physical appearance, countenance and attendant virtues, are, with the exception of
Harriet Carker (Dombey and Son) and Rachael (Hard Times),36 compatible with Honoria.
Gilbert and Gubar suggest that ‘Honoria’s essential virtue is that her virtue makes her
man great.’37 Henrietta Twycross-Martin, in referring to the popular conduct books of
Sarah Stickney Ellis (The Women of England (1839), The Daughters of England (1842)
and The Mothers of England (1843)), notes the writer’s careful representation of women
as ‘relative creatures who exist in and for their men folk.’38 All of Dickens’ ‘Female
Angels’ effect a positive change in the lives of their chosen men. Harry Maylie, inspired
by his love for Rose, abandons the political career arranged for him by the influential
34
Ibid.
Carol Marie Engelhardt, ‘The Paradigmatic Angel in the House: The Virgin Mary and Victorian
Anglicans’ in Hogan and Bradstock, pp. 159-171.
36
Dickens’ initial description of Harriet, on p. 473 of Dombey, suggests that, with Rachael, she is
somewhat older than Honoria.
37
Gilbert and Gubar, p. 22.
38
Twycross-Martin, p. 8.
35
288
members of his family, and, in accordance with his own wishes, becomes a clergyman.
Harriet Carker’s loyalty to her disgraced brother sustains him; and Nicholas Nickleby,
Walter Gay, David Copperfield, Arthur Clennam and Allan Woodcourt all benefit as a
result of their relationships with their respective ‘Angels’. Stephen Blackpool, although
unable marry Rachael, still acknowledges her as the only positive influence in his life.
Finally, in Dickens’ last completed novel (Our Mutual Friend), the dissolute, purposeless
Eugene Wrayburn finds meaning and direction in his life through his love for Lizzie
Hexam, and their subsequent marriage.
Gilbert and Gubar draw on Chapter XI of Welsh’s earlier work, The City of
Dickens,39 to connect Dickens’ ‘Female Angels’ with the ‘Angel in the House’ motif. In
Welsh’s chapter Florence Dombey and Agnes Wickfield are labelled ‘Angels of Death’
[my emphasis]. Although, in common with other Victorian fictional heroines (for
example Jane Eyre,40 Mary Garth and Margaret Hale), the two are present at deathbed
scenes,41 Welsh, in restricting their role to that of mere ‘familiars of death’,42 fails to take
into account their status as ‘Angelic’ messengers of the resurrection.
Florence and Agnes are not the only ‘Female Angels’ used by Dickens for this
purpose. Rachael at the scene of Stephen Blackpool’s death, Amy Dorrit at the death of
her father and uncle, Lizzie Hexam, the agent of Eugene Wrayburn’s resurrection, Mr
39
Welsh, pp. 180-195.
There is a noticeable similarity between Bronte’s characterisation of Jane and Dickens’ ‘Female Angels’.
In Chapter XXIII Edward Rochester describes her as being ‘a very angel’ ; whilst three Chapters later he
refers to her as ‘my good angel’. – David Copperfield uses the exact phrase to describe Agnes. Charles
Dickens, David Copperfield, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 366. In her willingness to
accompany St. John Rivers on his missionary work in India, her attitude of forgiveness toward Mrs
Reed, her work in the parish school, generosity to her new found family, abstinence from church and
chapel attendance, with the exception of her aborted marriage to Rochester, and her return and care for
Rochester, Jane demonstrates many of the qualities associated with Dickens’ ‘Female Angels’.
41
Florence at the death of her mother and brother, and Agnes at the death of Dora.
42
Welsh, p. 26.
40
289
Brownlow at the death of his fiancé, Edwin Leeford’s sister, Mr Pickwick at the death of
the ‘Chancery Prisoner’ in the Fleet Debtors’ Prison infirmary, Harriet Carker at the
death of Alice Marwood, Esther Summerson at the death of Richard Carstone and Rose
Maylie, who is in Nancy’s dying thoughts, all perform the same role. However, it is in his
representation of Nell Trent, covered later in this chapter, that Dickens makes his most
conspicuous connection between his ‘Angels’ and the Resurrection.
Langland suggests that Dickens connects his ‘Female Angelic’ characters with ‘the
presiding hearth angel of Victorian social myth’43 by virtue of their domestic
competence. In Chapter Four of her work, ‘Charles Dickens’ Angels of Competence’,
Esther Summerson (described by Fred Kaplan as an ‘Angel of Competence’), 44 Agnes
Wickfield (described by Langland as a domestic hearth angel) 45 and Amy Dorrit are held
up as paragons of household management: Esther Summerson is given the moniker
‘Dame Durden’ by Richard Carstone and Ada Clare in recognition of her house-keeping
prowess and her household tutoring of Caddy Jellyby; Amy, from a young age, takes
responsibility for her father, brother and sister; and Agnes, on her introduction to the
narrative, is described by her father as being his ‘little housekeeper’- this is symbolically
confirmed by her possession of the household keys.46
Similarly, had Langland extended the scope of her investigation to include Dickens’
earlier work she could have added Madeline Bray and Nell Trent to her ‘Angels of
Competence’: Madeline Bray, although only a young woman, manages all the domestic
affairs of her undeserving father; whilst Nell, thirteen at the commencement of the novel,
43
Langland, p. 8.
Fred Kaplan, Dickens: A Biography, New York: William Morrow, 1988, p.302.
45
Langland, p. 87.
46
Dickens, Copperfield, pp. 222, 223.
44
290
is described by her grandfather as being his ‘housekeeper’.47 Later, to repay Mr Marton’s
kindness, she efficiently performs various household duties within his cottage, having
done so she employs herself with needle-work.48 On a further occasion, having moved
next-door to Mr Marton, she takes domestic responsibility for both dwellings. Such is her
proficiency that ‘the bachelor’ remarks on the ‘great improvement’ she has made to
both.49 In addition, the term ‘domestic angel’ is used by Hilary Schor to describe
Florence Dombey.50
According to Susan Casteras ‘the ‘Angel in the House’ was a commanding figure in
Victorian art particularly in the 1850s.’51 Commenting specifically on narrative and genre
paintings of the period, she identifies Charles West Cope’s ‘Prayer Time’ (1860) as an
example of ‘the iconology of Victorian womanhood.’52 Described by Casteras as ‘a
microcosm of domesticity and socially endorsed femininity’,53 the painting depicts a
seated mother watching over her kneeling, praying daughter.54 The tastefully appointed
nature of the room, and its furnishings; and the proximity of both the fireside and a bible
are used by the painter to enhance the mother’s symbolic status as ‘guardian of the
hearth.’55
Ten years prior to Cope’s ‘Prayer Time’, in ‘A Stranger calls to see me’ (the final
illustration of David Copperfield (1850) Figure Nine page 225), Hablot K Browne, under
47
Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop, London: Hazell, Watson & Viney Ltd., N.D. p. 13.
Ibid., p. 151.
49
Ibid., p. 318.
50
Hilary Schor, Dickens and the Daughter in the House, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999,
p. 51.
51
Susan Casteras, ‘The Victorian Lady’s Domestic Threat: The Good, the Bad and the Indifferent Female
Adversary in Contemporary Art’ in Hogan and Bradstock, p. 189.
52
Ibid., p. 186. The painting is reproduced by Casteras on p. 187.
53
Ibid., p. 186.
54
Cope modelled his two subjects on his wife and daughter.
55
Casteras, p. 186.
48
291
the direction of Dickens, clearly connects Agnes with the ‘Angel in the House’ motif. In
the illustration Daniel Peggotty, who has unexpectedly returned from Australia, enters
upon a scene of domestic family bliss. Agnes, Dickens’ ‘Female Angel’, is seated with
her husband beside the fireside, one of her daughters is at her side, hiding from the
visitor, the youngest child is crawling under her father’s chair, whilst the third is
welcoming Daniel. In the foreground a cross is clearly visible; and, on the mantelpiece
next to Agnes, there are two female angelic statuettes. As with Cope’s painting the room
is tastefully decorated and appointed.
In keeping with contemporary artistic imagery (for example: William Bouguerau’s
‘An Interesting Annunciation’, ‘Regina Angelorum’ and ‘A Soul Brought to Heaven’;
William Blake’s ‘Christ in the Sepulchre’; J. M Stradwick’s ‘The Ramparts of God
House’ and J. H. S Mann’s ‘Guardian Angels’), the illustrative depictions of Angels in
Dickens’ work are predominantly female. In fact, of all the the ‘Angelic’ illustrations,
some of which contain multiple ‘Angelic’ images, only one, the title drawing of The
Haunted Man 56 (Figure Fifteen below), contains a male representation of an ‘Angel’.
Even here, as can be seen, two ‘Female Angels’ are present.
56
This illustration is the frontispiece from Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities and A Christmas Carol.
292
Figure Fifteen: Frontispiece The Haunted Man
All the four ‘Angels’ that appear in the Master Humphrey Clock frontispiece are
female (see Figure Five page 218). All twenty ‘Angels’ in the Dombey and Son
frontispiece are female (see Figure Six page 220); in addition, the illustration for
‘Florence and Edith on the Staircase’ also depicts female angels (Figure Ten page 227).
In four of the David Copperfield illustrations featured in this thesis the ‘Angels’ are
female. 57 ‘Shadow’, Bleak House, (Figure Twelve page 229) also contains a depiction of
a female angel. 58 Noticeably, and in keeping with the domestic household ‘Angelic’
57
58
Figure Three page 217, Figure Eight page 222, Figure Nine page 225 and Figure Eleven page 228.
Figure Twelve page 229.
293
imagery of the period, all the illustrations which represent ‘Guardian Angels’ watching
over children contain ‘Female Angels’.59
In both the Old and New Testament ‘Angels’ are portrayed as being male. With
reference to the Resurrection and Ascension, the terms used to identify the attendant
‘Angels’ are ‘His’, ‘young man’, ‘two men’ and ‘two men dressed in white’; and in the
Nativity narrative we have the archangel Gabriel. In the Old Testament book of Daniel,
the archangel Michael appears in both Chapters X and XII. There are also references to
‘male Angels’ in two other Old Testament books, Numbers Chapter XXXI and Genesis
Chapter XVIII. Although biblical references do occur where no actual gender reference is
given (e.g. Luke II verses viii-xv, ‘the Shepherds and the Angels’) there are none which
specifically describe ‘Angels’ as being female. Whilst contrary to biblical and Hebraic
angelology, Dickens’ depiction of ‘Female Angels’ was, as has been shown, compatible
with the period’s cultural, literal and artistic representations.
Rose Maylie
The sound of the ‘sweet female voice’, heard at the top of the stairs in Mrs Maylie’s
Chertsey home, marks a seminal moment in Dickens’ ‘Angelic’ representations. 60 The
appearance of his ‘Female Angelic’ prototype, Rose Maylie, eighteen chapters after Mr
Brownlow first appeared, effectively signalled the end of the ‘Charitable Angels’. This
physical transmogrification from elderly rotund bachelor to beautiful young woman
symbolised a significant shift in the emphasis of Dickens’ ‘Angels’. The original tenet of
charity was superseded by the outward manifestation of the internalised Christ-like
59
60
The relevant illustrations can be found toward the end of Chapter Four.
Dickens, Twist, p. 210.
294
qualities of selflessness, self-sacrifice and atonement. The ‘Female Angels’, as with ‘A
Lady at One House’ and ‘William’ from ‘Our Parish’, were all to suffer on behalf of
those they loved.
Rose’s possession of these new ‘Angelic’ qualities is first revealed in Chapter XXXV
of the novel. Following her recovery from a sudden, life-threatening illness, Harry
Maylie, the twenty-five-year-old son of her benefactor Mrs Maylie, passionately declares
his love for her.61 Rose, knowing of Harry’s prospects for a promising Parliamentary
career - prospects greatly enhanced by influential family members - sacrifices her own
love for him to avoid jeopardizing his career. She realises that if he were to marry an
orphan, whose mother had had a scandalous affair, his position would be compromised.
She felt also that by accepting his proposal, his mother, whom she loved, would be
disappointed. Hilary Schor, whilst acknowledging that ‘most readers have taken her
[Rose’s] rejection of her (adopted) cousin’s love as pure Victorian selflessness’,62 argues
that Rose’s response was also prompted by a second motive: her love for her ‘mothers
(her own dead mother, and Harry’s, the woman who raised her).’ 63
The initial cost to Rose of this selfless act is revealed the following morning when
Harry leaves the cottage: ‘And there was one looker-on, who remained with eyes fixed
upon the spot where the carriage had disappeared, long after it was many miles away […]
Tears are signs of gladness as well as grief; but those which coursed down Rose’s face, as
she sat pensively at the window, still gazing in the same direction, seemed to tell more of
sorrow than joy.’64 Five chapters later, when she is contemplating contacting Harry
61
Dickens, Twist, pp. 260, 261.
Schor, p. 26.
63
Ibid.
64
Ibid., p. 266.
62
295
Maylie following Nancy’s visit, the deep pain she is experiencing following her decision
is evident: ‘If it be painful to him to come back here, how painful it will be to me […]
here Rose dropped the pen, and turned away, as though the very paper which was to be
her messenger should not see her weep.’65
Towards the end of the narrative, following Monks’ biographical description of
Rose’s past, Harry Maylie reappears and again restates his proposal to her. In repeating
her refusal Rose again reveals her virtue and the personal cost of her determination:
‘“The same reasons which influenced me then, will influence me now, if I ever owed a
strict and rigid duty to her [Harry’s mother], whose goodness saved me from a life of
indigence and suffering, when should I ever feel it, as I should to-night? It is a struggle,”
said Rose, “but one I am proud to make, it is a pang, but one my heart shall bear.”’ In
response to Harry Maylie’s suggestion that she is hardening her heart against him Rose
bursts into tears and states: ‘“I wish I could, and spare myself this pain.’”66 Only when
Rose realises that Harry has turned his back on his worldly prospects in favour of an
ecclesiastical living does she feel able to follow her heart’s desire and marry him.
Rose’s characterisation, and the highly significant ‘Angelic’ shift it represents, is
inextricably linked to Dickens’ sister-in-law Mary Hogarth, who died suddenly on
Sunday 7 May 1837 - eighteen months prior to the completion of Oliver Twist. A number
of critics have highlighted this link. House describes Rose Maylie as being ‘an idealized
portrait of Mary.’67 Garnett concludes that ‘her death was the catalyst for an earnest,
ardent myth making, which began immediately with the creation of Rose Maylie.’68
65
Ibid., p. 309.
Ibid., p. 402.
67
Ibid., p. vii.
68
Garnett, pp. 48-49.
66
296
Johnson and Garnett do not restrict Mary’s influence to Rose Maylie, suggesting her
likeness appears in Ruth Pinch, Florence Dombey, Agnes Fleming, Amy Dorrit and Nell
Trent.69 Marcus refers to her influence on Nell, and, with her younger sister Georgina,
links her to the sisters in ‘The Battle of Life’ - Mary (Marion) and Georgina (Grace);70
whilst Sanders connects Mary to Dickens’ ‘fulsome tribute to female angels in ‘A Child’s
Dream of a Star.’71
Rose, seventeen, upon her introduction to the novel, is the same age as Mary when she
died. Also, as with Mary, Rose is struck down by a sudden, serious illness which comes
upon her unexpectedly at night.72 Johnson and House both claim that Rose Maylie’s
resurrection - Dickens’ original plan was for her to die of a sudden illness - was as a
direct result of Mary’s death.73 Certainly the tone and content of Rose Maylie’s
introductory description closely resembles Dickens idealization of Mary; and his
perception of her subsequent ‘Angelic’ translation, as expressed in his tombstone
inscription: ‘God in his Mercy Numbered Her with His Angels [my emphasis] at the
Early Age of Seventeen.’
The impact of Mary’s death upon Dickens was profound. Following the funeral, grief
stricken, he withdrew with his wife to a cottage in rural Hampstead for two weeks.
During this period neither the end of the May number of Pickwick Papers or the June
instalment of Oliver Twist appeared. Whilst there, he confided to his friend Thomas
Beard: ‘Thank God she died in my arms, and the very last words she whispered were of
69
Edgar Johnson, Dickens: His Tragedy and His Triumph, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd., 1986,
pp. 128, 132-135; Garnett, p. 54.
70
Steven Marcus, Dickens: from Pickwick to Dombey, London: Chatto & Windus, 1965, p. 291.
71
Andrew Sanders, Charles Dickens Resurrectionist, London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1982, p. 56.
72
Dickens, Twist, pp. 240, 241.
73
Ibid., p. vii; Johnson, p. 127.
297
me […] The first burst of grief has passed, and I can think and speak of her calmly and
dispassionately. I solemnly believe that so perfect a creature never breathed. I knew her
inmost heart and her real worth and value. She had not a fault.’74 The following March he
named his first daughter after her.
Johnson suggests that ‘It is impossible to exaggerate the significance of this early
sorrow for Dickens. His devotion to Mary was an emotion unique in his entire life, not
only enduring and unchanging, but one that touched his being in a way no other did.’75
Certainly the intensity and longevity of Dickens’ recorded grief, which Marcus connects
with his secret childhood experiences in London,76 seems to justify Johnson’s claim. In
May 1843, six years after Mary’s death, Dickens wrote in a letter to Mary’s mother:
After she died, I dreamed of her every night for many months - I think for the
better part of a year - sometimes as a spirit, sometimes as a living creature,
never with any of the bitterness of my real sorrow, but always with kind of
quiet happiness, which became so pleasant to me that I never lay down at
night without a hope of the vision coming back in one shape or other. And so
it did. I went down into Yorkshire,77 and finding it still present to me, in a
strange scene and a strange bed, I could not help mentioning the circumstance
in a note I wrote home to Kate. From that moment I have never dreamed of
her once, though she is so much in my thoughts at all times (especially when I
74
Walter Dexter, Thomas Hatton, Arthur Waugh, and Hugh Walpole (eds.) , The Letters of Charles
Dickens, (Nonesuch Edition), London: Nonesuch Press Ltd., 1938, Vol. I, p. 108.
75
Ibid., pp. 128, 129.
76
Marcus, pp. 132-133.
77
Dickens visited Yorkshire with Hablot K. Browne to investigate local boarding schools for Squeers’
Dotheboys Hall in Nicholas Nickleby.
298
am successful, and have prospered in anything) that the recollection of her is
an essential part of my being, and is inseparable from my existence as the
beating of my heart is.78
Despite Dickens informing his mother-in-law of the cessation of Mary’s dream
appearances, a year later, in October 1844, whilst Dickens was staying with his family in
Genoa, she once again made a dramatic and profound intervention into his dreams:
In a state of emotional agitation and creative sterility Mary reappears:
In the dream he was in a vague place of light with a spirit draped in blue like
one of Raphael’s Madonna’s. Although he could not make out the face, he
knew that it was Mary’s spirit. Weeping with delight, he stretched out his
arms, calling it “Dear”. In an agony lest the vision leave him he asked
questions: “Give me some token that you have really visited me!” and then,
desperate that it might vanish, “What is the True Religion?’’ The spirit
hesitated. Dickens suggested that perhaps the forms of religion did not greatly
matter, “if we try to do good?” - or perhaps, he added, “the Roman Catholic is
the best?” “For you”, it said, with a heart-breaking tenderness, “for you, it is
the best!” Then he awoke with tears streaming down his face.79
78
Georgina Hogarth and Mamie Dickens (eds.), The Letters of Charles Dickens, London: Macmillan and
Co., 1893, pp. 91-92.
79
Johnson, p. 277. At the time of the dream Dickens was struggling to find inspiration for his second
Christmas story, ‘The Chimes’.
299
Eleven years later, in May 1848, he was still marking the anniversary of Mary’s loss. 80
Dickens’ earnest desire to be buried alongside Mary, as expressed in his letter to John
Forster, dated 11 December 1837,81 and elsewhere, further indicates Dickens’ deep
affection and grief. In October 1841 a double tragedy struck his wife’s family: her
maternal grandmother, Mrs George Thomson, and her twenty-year-old brother George
both died. As a result, Dickens felt honour bound to surrender his ambition to be buried
next to his ‘better angel’, 82 Mary. Writing to his mother-in-law he concedes: ‘I had
always intended to keep poor Mary’s grave for us and our dear children, and for you. But
if it will be any comfort to you to have poor George buried there, I will cheerfully arrange
to place the ground at your entire disposal. Do not consider me in any way. Consult only
your own heart.’83 One day later, despite his selfless, concessionary tone, Dickens
revealed in a letter to John Forster the true intensity of his feelings upon the subject:
It is a great trial to me to give up Mary’s grave; greater than I can possibly
express. I thought of moving her to the catacombs, and saying nothing about
it; but then I remembered that the poor old lady [Catherine Hogarth’s
grandmother] is buried next her at her own desire, and could not find it in my
heart, directly she is laid in the earth, to take her grandchild away. The desire
to be buried next to her is as strong upon me now, as it was five years ago;
and I know (for I don’t think there ever was love like that I bear her) that it
80
Ibid., p.128.
Madeline House and Graham Storey (eds.), The Letters of Charles Dickens, (The Pilgrim Edition),
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965, Vol. I, p. 341.
82
According to Slater, Dickens used this term in a letter to Henry Longfellow five years after Mary’s death
(p. 92).
83
Hogarth and Dickens, pp. 49, 50.
81
300
will never diminish [...] I can not bear the thought of being excluded from her
dust. 84
Dickens, in introducing Rose, immediately differentiates her from his ‘Charitable
Angels’. Her ‘Angelic’ status, straight away confirmed, is not based on somewhat
obscure references to travelling inns, court rooms or landmarks, but rather it is revealed
by her ethereal countenance. Whereas, with reference to the physical appearance of his
‘Charitable Angels’, there is no doubt that they are ‘Angels’ in disguise, with Rose the
readers are invited, on their first consideration of her character, to visualize how an
‘Angel’ in human form would appear:
The younger lady was in the lovely bloom and spring-time of womanhood, at
that age, when, if ever angels [my emphasis] be for God’s good purposes
enthroned in mortal forms, they may be, without impiety, supposed to abide
in such as hers. She was not passed seventeen. Cast in so slight and exquisite
a mould; mild and gentle; so pure and beautiful; that earth seemed not her
element, nor its rough creatures her fit companions. The very intelligence that
shone in her deep blue eye, and was stamped upon her noble head, seemed
scarcely of her age, or of the world ; and yet the changing expression of
sweetness and good humour, the thousand lights that played about the face,
and left no shadow there; above all the smile, the cheerful happy smile.85
84
Madeline House and Graham Storey, (eds.), The Letters of Charles Dickens, Oxford: Clarendon Press,
The Pilgrim Edition, Vol. II, 1969, p. 410. The letter is dated 25 October 1841.
85
Dickens, Twist, p. 212.
301
Garnett, commenting on this original descriptive passage of Rose, concludes that:
‘Although in appearance a beautiful young woman, Rose is, in essence, ethereal, not of
earth or flesh. Her lovely body is only a concession to her temporary sojourn among the
“rough creatures” of mortality.’ 86
In the final chapter of the novel, Dickens, in describing the irradiating nature of
Rose’s beauty, confirms the symbolic relationship between her physical appearance and
inner qualities: 87
I would show Rose Maylie in all the bloom and grace of early womanhood,
shedding on her secluded path in life soft and gentle light, that fell on all who
trod it with her, and shone into their hearts. I would paint her the life and joy
of the fire-side circle and the lively summer group; I would follow her
through the sultry fields at noon, and hear the low tones of her sweet voice in
the moonlit evening walk; I would watch her in all her goodness and charity
abroad, and the smiling untiring discharge of domestic duties at home.88
The second ‘Angelic’ identificatory reference is used by Dickens to confirm this
relationship. Harry Maylie, following Rose’s recovery from her life threatening illness,
describes her as being ‘a creature as fair and innocent of guile as one of God’s own
86
Garnett, p. 53.
Dickens repeatedly used this approach with Rose’s ‘Female Angel’ successors. Madeline Bray has ‘a
countenance of most uncommon beauty’, Florence Dombey, Agnes Wickfield and Esther Summerson
are all described as being ‘beautiful’; whilst Lizzie Hexam is said to be ‘handsome’. Charles Dickens,
Nicholas Nickleby, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p.188; Dickens, Dombey, pp. 283,423,435,
507, 509; Dickens, Copperfield, pp. 232, 268, 568; Charles Dickens, Bleak House, Oxford: Oxford
Univerity Press, 1998, pp.16, 632, 833; Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, pp. 236, 282.
88
Dickens, Twist, p. 414.
87
302
angels’ my emphasis].89 Nancy, on the occasion of the fatal meeting which is to lead to
her death at the hands of Sikes, both refers to Rose’s complementary physical and
spiritual qualities, and uses them to differentiate her from false religionists: ‘“haughty
religious people would have held their heads up to see me as I am to-night, and preached
of flames and vengeance,’’’ cried the girl. ‘“Oh, dear lady, why ar’n’t those who claim to
be God’s own folks as gentle and as kind to us poor wretches as you, who, having youth,
and beauty, and all that they have lost, might be a little proud instead of so much
humbler?”’90 Elsewhere reference is made to Rose’s ‘loveliness and virtue’ and her
‘beauty and goodness.’91
Dickens provides ample evidence of Rose’s personal qualities in her conduct toward
Oliver and Nancy.92 Her compassion and care for Oliver following his shooting is
exemplary: ‘The younger lady glided softly past, and seating herself in a chair by the
bedside, gathered Oliver’s hair from his face. As she stooped over him, her tears fell upon
his forehead […] Oliver’s pillow was smoothed by gentle hands that night; and loveliness
and virtue watched him as he slept. He felt calm and happy, and could have died without
a murmur.’93 Rose also pleads with Mrs Maylie and Mr Losberne on Oliver’s behalf; and
defends him when in conversation with Mr Grimwig.94
Nancy, who in the final ‘Angelic’ reference refers to Rose as being her ‘dear, sweet
angel [my emphasis] lady’,95 is immediately touched by Rose’s kindness and
89
Ibid., p. 260.
Ibid., p. 350.
91
Ibid., pp. 259, 260.
92
For an interesting discussion on the similarities between Rose and Nancy see Schor, p. 27.
93
Ibid., pp. 216, 219.
94
Ibid., pp. 217, 311.
95
Ibid., p. 305.
90
303
consideration toward her, which is in marked contrast to the treatment she receives at the
hands of the hotel employees: 96
“I am very sorry if any one has behaved harshly to you,” replied Rose [...]
The kind tone of this answer, the sweet voice, the gentle manner, the absence
of any accent of haughtiness or displeasure, took the girl completely by
surprise, and she burst into tears. “Oh, lady, lady!” she said, clasping her
hands passionately before her face, “If there was more like you, there would
fewer like me, - there would - there would!” “Sit down,” said Rose, earnestly.
“If you are in poverty or affliction I shall be truly glad to relieve you if I
can.”
97
Six chapters later, during the course of her second clandestine meeting with Rose on
London Bridge, Nancy again refers to her contrasting kindness.98 Such is the positive
impression that Rose has made upon her that Nancy, in her dying moments, clutches a
keepsake from Rose.99 Dickens also makes reference to her many acts of charity within
the village, which is evidenced by the numerous enquiries made by the villagers during
her illness.100
96
Ibid., pp. 298-300. Rose in her kind, compassionate and non-judgmental treatment of Nancy,
demonstrates, along with Mr. Pickwick’s treatment of Alfred Jingle and Mr Brownlow’s treatment of
Oliver, a willingness to transcend traditional social barriers. Esther Summerson’s relationship with the
brick-maker’s wife and Jo and Harriet Carker’s kindness to Alice Marwood are later examples of this
enduring ‘Angelic’ trait.
97
Ibid., pp. 301, 302.
98
Ibid., p. 350.
99
Ibid., p.362.
100
Ibid., pp. 239, 246.
304
Dickens also uses Rose’s relationship with Nancy to demonstrate the redemptive
power of his first ‘Female Angel’. In her dying moments, this fallen woman, as a direct
result of Rose’s influence, prays to ‘her Maker for mercy.’101 Harriet Carker’s redemption
of Alice Marwood, who, on her death-bed murmurs ‘the sacred name that had been read
to her,’102 and Florence Dombey’s redemption of her father 103 are subsequent examples
of Rose’s original salvatory role. Whilst the ‘Charitable Angels’ transform personal and
financial circumstances, Rose, Florence and Harriet bring about a spiritual redemption in
those they help. Rose’s fervent endeavours to redeem Nancy begin at the close of their
very first meeting:
‘Oh!’ said the earnest girl folding her hands as the tears coursed down her
face, “Do not turn a deaf ear to the entreaties of one of your own sex; the first
- the first, I do believe, who ever appealed to you in the voice of pity and
compassion. Do hear my words, and let me save you yet, for better things.”
‘Lady’, cried the girl, sinking on her knees, ‘dear, sweet, angel [my
emphasis] lady, you are the first that ever blessed me with such words as
these [...] but it is too late, it is too late!’ ‘It is never too late’, said Rose, “for
penitence [my emphasis] and atonement ” [my emphasis] ‘Stay another
moment’, interposed Rose, as the girl moved hurriedly towards the door.
‘Think once again on your own condition, and the opportunity you have of
escaping from it. You have claim on me: not only as the voluntary bearer of
101
Ibid., p. 362.
Dickens, Dombey, p. 827.
103
Ibid., pp. 843-844.
102
305
this intelligence, but as a woman lost almost beyond redemption [my
emphasis].’ 104
What is particularly interesting in this salvatory conversation is Rose’s use of three
specific Evangelical terms: ‘penitence’, ‘atonement’ and ‘redemption’. No other ‘Angel’
uses such overtly religious phraseology. As with all of Dickens’ ‘Angels’, Rose is
distanced from the external expressions of formalised religion.105 The inference of her
using such language is that she is familiar with the Evangelical tracts and literature of the
period. Dickens cleverly used these terms to accentuate Rose’s spiritual redemptive role
in relation to Nancy. Six chapters after this initial meeting Rose, in the company of the
‘Charitable Angel’, Mr Brownlow, again meets with Nancy. Unbeknown to them both
this was to be the last occasion they would meet.
Whereas Mr Brownlow uses the occasion to tighten the net around Monks and Fagin,
Rose, despite the apparent fruitlessness of her attempts, continues her salvatory pleading
with Nancy until the last possible moment.106 The efficacy of Rose’s actions can be seen
in Nancy’s dying moments: ‘raising herself, with difficulty, on her knees, drew from her
bosom a white handkerchief - Rose Maylie’s own – and holding it up, in her folded
hands, as high towards Heaven as her feeble strength would allow, breathed one prayer
for mercy to her Maker.’ 107
104
Dickens, Twist, pp. 304-306.
The only direct reference to Rose being present at either a church or chapel is to be found in the book’s
closing illustration. This shows her standing in her husband’s church gazing at a monument to her
sister. Ibid., facing page 414.
106
Ibid., pp. 354, 355.
107
Ibid., p. 362.
105
306
Whilst Dickens’ subsequent ‘Female Angels’ bear the imprint of Rose,108 she does
differ from her successors, and, indeed the ‘Charitable Angels’, in that she exists within a
predominantly rural setting. Madeline Bray, Florence Dombey, Harriet Carker, Lizzie
Hexam, Amy Dorrit, Esther Summerson, Mr Brownlow, Charles Cheeryble and Mr
Pickwick, despite his picaresque lifestyle, are all associated with London. Outside of
London, Agnes lives within the thriving cathedral city of Canterbury and Rachael in a
newly industrialised town. Rose, however, ‘springing from an edenic rural setting’, 109
lives a quarter of a mile outside the ‘little town’ of Chertsey; spends a considerable time
in a cottage in the country and takes up married life in a rural community. The only time
in the narrative in which she visits London is when she stays in a family hotel in a quiet,
but handsome street near Hyde Park.110
Dickens partly used Rose’s pastoral symbolic association to connect her ‘Angelic’
beauty with creation: ‘There were tears in the eyes of the gentle girl, as these words were
spoken; and when one fell upon the flower over which she bent, and glistened brightly in
its cup, making it more beautiful, it seemed as though the outpouring of her fresh young
heart, claimed kindred naturally, with the loveliest things in nature.’111 Also, as in the Old
Curiosity Shop, the tranquillity and peacefulness of the country is used in contrast to the
darkness, and dangers of the city. It is in the idyllic rural setting that Dickens’ two
pilgrims, Oliver and Nell, find restoration. Dickens’ use of the pastoral metaphor will be
108
Madeline Bray, Nell Trent, Florence Dombey, Agnes Wickfield, Esther Summerson, Amy Dorrit and
Lizzie Hexam are all of a similar age to Rose. Madeline, Nell, Florence, Esther, Agnes and Lizzie share
Rose’s beauty. As with Rose, Lizzie, Harriet Carker, Amy, Florence, Madeline and Esther all find
husbands during the course of their respective novels. Esther and Nell, like Rose, are both orphans;
whilst Lizzie loses her second parent early on in Our Mutual Friend. Also Florence, Madeline, Amy and
Agnes are all without mothers.
109
Garnett, p. 57.
110
Dickens, Twist, p. 298.
111
Ibid., p. 260.
307
further examined with reference to the final ‘Female Angel’ examined in this chapter,
Nell Trent.
Madeline Bray
‘An incarnation of supreme good’,112 Madeline, in both her suffering and willingness
to sacrifice herself to redeem her father, epitomizes Dickens’ ‘Female Angelic’ qualities.
Whereas Rose’s self-sacrifice is demonstrated in her relationship with Harry and his
mother, Dickens uses Madeline’s relationship with her father to detail her selflessness
and suffering. This father-daughter relationship, used by Dickens on four further
occasions (David Copperfield, Little Dorrit, Our Mutual Friend, and, most significantly,
Dombey and Son), was to prove a significant source of ‘Female Angelic’ material.
Dickens cleverly accentuates Madeline’s attendant ‘Female Angelic’ virtues by
depicting the undeserving nature of her father. Walter Bray is, due to his dissolute,
impetuous nature, solely responsible not only for Madeline’s suffering, but also for the
premature death of her mother. To fund his previously extravagant, indulgent lifestyle he
borrowed substantial sums of money from both Arthur Gride and Ralph Nickleby. His
failure to repay these debts results in himself, and Madeline, being confined to the
auspices of the King’s Bench Debtors’ Prison. His health, now deteriorated in a reflection
of his dissolute lifestyle, has lead to Madeline working day and night to support him. Not
only is her father oblivious to all her efforts, but he treats her appallingly, thinking only
of himself and failing to acknowledge all her efforts on his behalf.
112
This term is used by Sybil Thorndike in her excellent introduction to Dickens, Nickleby, (p. xiii).
308
Dickens, in his introductory description of Walter Bray, leaves the reader in no doubt
as to the nature of the man.113 In the same chapter, during the dialogue that immediately
follows Nicholas conducting the Cheerybles’ charitable business with Madeline, his
selfishness, avarice and total disregard for the well-being of his daughter is revealed.114 In
the following chapter, during a conversation between Arthur Gride and Ralph Nickleby,
he is described as ‘the dashing man, who used his handsome wife so ill.’115 As Gride
discusses his depraved plan to offer to clear Bray’s debt in return for Madeline’s hand in
marriage he reflects on her father’s selfish nature: ‘Even taking it for granted that he
loved her in return with the utmost affection of which he was capable, yet he loved
himself a great deal better.’116 On the occasion of his consenting to sacrifice his daughter
in marriage to Gride to clear his debts, he is described as being ‘the debtor proud and
mean by turns, and selfish at all times.’117
Dickens, in his initial introductory description of Madeline, provides his first subtle
allusion to her suffering: ‘She raised her veil, for an instant, while she preferred the
inquiry, and disclosed a countenance of most uncommon beauty, though shaded by a
cloud of sadness, which, in one so young, was doubly remarkable [...] She was neatly, but
very quietly attired; so much so, indeed, that it seemed as though her dress, if it had been
worn by one who imparted fewer graces of her own to it, might have looked poor and
shabby.’118 At a later point in the narrative Charles Cheeryble provides a more direct
description of Madeline’s self-sacrifice and suffering on account of her father:
113
Dickens, Nickleby, p. 605.
Ibid., pp. 605, 606.
115
Ibid., p. 614.
116
Ibid., p. 615.
117
Ibid., p. 620.
118
Ibid., p. 188.
114
309
This young girl had struggled alone and unassisted to maintain him by the
labour of her hands. That through the utmost depths of poverty and affliction
she had toiled, never turning aside for an instant from her task, never wearied
by the petulant gloom of a sick man sustained by no consoling recollections
of the past or hopes of the future; never repining for the comforts she had
rejected, or bewailing the hard lot she had voluntarily incurred. That every
little accomplishment she had acquired in happier days had been put into
requisition for this purpose, and directed to this one end.119
In seeking to provide for her undeserving father, Madeline is forced to take on a variety
of jobs which not only involve arduous work but also expose her to numerous indignities:
That, for two long years, toiling by day and often too by night, working at the
needle, the pencil, and the pen, and submitting as a daily governess, to such
caprices and indignities as women (with daughters too) too often love to
inflict upon their own sex when they serve in such capacities, as though in
jealousy of the superior intelligence which they are necessitated to employ –
indignities, in ninety-nine cases out of every hundred, heaped upon persons
immeasurably and incalculably their betters, but outweighing in comparison
any that the most heartless blackleg would put upon his groom.120
119
120
Ibid., p. 599.
Ibid.
310
This description of Madeline’s work-related hardships and suffering is supported by
events observed by Nicholas at the ‘General Agency Office.’121
In choosing to stand by her father, Madeline not only voluntarily accepts a life of
neglect and suffering, but also isolates herself from those who would help her.122 Charles
Cheeryble, during the course of a conversation with Nicholas, reveals that for a number
of years, Madeline has ‘proudly resisted all offers of permanent aid and support, from her
late mother’s friends, because they were made conditional on her quitting her father.’123
The Cheeryble brothers also pleaded with her to leave her father and benefit from their
protection and provision, but she resolutely refused. We learn that Madeline, due to her
self-sacrificial decision, not only ostracised herself from her mother’s friends, but also
from her maternal grandfather who was in a position to offer her a most comfortable life.
It also transpires that had Madeline left her father and entrusted herself to his care, she
would have become aware that she was the sole beneficiary of his will, and, that upon his
death, she was to inherit a substantial fortune of £12,000.124
Having selflessly suffered for two years Madeline demonstrates the full extent of her
Christ-like qualities by consenting to sacrifice herself in marriage to redeem her father.
Gride, to whom her father owes money, has agreed to clear all his debts and to provide a
new life for him elsewhere in exchange for his daughter’s hand. The personal cost of this
atonement is accentuated by the nature of her elderly intended husband. Newman Noggs
describes the miser Gride as being ‘a hoary wretch - a devil born and bred, and grey in
121
On meeting Madeline for the first time Nicholas overhears that the lady she is going to work for will
treat her badly. Ibid., pp.188-189.
122
Harriet Carker in Dombey makes a similar decision with regards to her disgraced brother John.
123
Dickens, Nickleby, p. 599.
124
Gride’s knowledge of Madeline’s inheritance is the driving force behind his wicked scheme to entrap
her. Ibid., p. 611.
311
devil ways?’125 Nicholas considers that her decision to marry Gride will cause her
‘unspeakable misery’ and perhaps even lead to her ‘untimely death.’126
Nicholas, on learning of Gride’s wicked scheme, resolves to confront Madeline’s
father and dissuade Madeline from sacrificing herself. On entering Bray’s home, he is
struck by the ‘change in the lovely girl before him which told him, in startling terms, how
much mental suffering had been compressed into that short time.’127 In response to
Nicholas’ passionate plea for her not to marry Gride, she declares that it is ‘her duty’ to
do so; and, ‘with the help of Heaven’ she will, of her ‘own free will’, pursue the path
which will redeem her father’s debt.128 When pressed by Nicholas further she reveals in
part her suffering and her selfless, noble motive for pursuing her sacrificial course:
I will not disguise from you - though perhaps I ought - that I have undergone
great pain of mind, and have been nearly broken-hearted since I saw you last.
I do not love this gentleman. The difference between our ages, tastes, and
habits, forbids it […] By accepting, and by that step alone, I can release my
father who is dying from this place; prolong his life, perhaps for many years;
restore him to comfort - I may almost call it affluence; and relieve a generous
man [Charles Cheeryble] from the burden of assisting one, by whom, I grieve
to say, his noble heart is little understood. Do not think so poorly of me as to
believe that I feign a love I do not feel […] If I cannot, in reason or in nature,
love the man who pays this price for my poor hand, I can discharge the duties
125
Ibid., p. 678.
Ibid., p. 680.
127
Ibid., p. 694.
128
Ibid., p. 698.
126
312
of a wife: I can be all he seeks in me, and will […] I do not repent, nor am I
unhappy. I am happy in the prospect of all I can achieve so easily. I shall be
more so when I look back upon it, and all is done. 129
Madeline’s sacrificial decision to marry Gride was also used by Dickens to connect
her with Mary Magdalen. On two occasions Mrs Nickleby ‘mistakenly’ refers to
Madeline as ‘Miss Magdalen’ and ‘this Magdalen’.130 It would also appear to be no
coincidence that the French word for maudlin is Madeleine.131 Although these two
references in Nicholas Nickleby represent the only specific mention of Mary Magdalen in
his novels, her hagiographic representation ‘as a reformed prostitute, a repentant female
sinner, elevated to sanctity by repentance, by faith’, [O.E.D] can be seen in three of
Dickens’ characters: Nancy (Oliver Twist) Alice Marwood, (Dombey and Son) and
Martha Endell (David Copperfield).132 Reed, in particular, notes that in the illustration
depicting Martha pleading with Emily for help in leaving Yarmouth, a picture of Christ
forgiving Mary Magdalen is positioned directly above her.133
Nancy, who from childhood has lead a depraved life - associating with, and aiding
criminals, and immorally living with Sikes - is so painfully aware of her sinful state, that,
in common with Martha, she considers drowning herself in the Thames. However, in her
act of kindness to Oliver, and through her contact with Rose, she is redeemed. Alice
129
Ibid., p. 699.
Ibid., p.722.
131
According to the O.E.D ‘Maudlin’ refers to a penitent resembling Mary Magdalen, and alludes to
pictures of the Magdalen weeping. Also, in relation, to Agnes Wickfield Dickens makes use of the
same strategy with Anges being the French for ‘Angel’.
132
Sally Ledger, Dickens and the Popular Radical Imagination, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2007, also suggests that Lilian Fern (The Chimes) is a Magdalen figure (p. 126).
133
John Reed, Dickens and Thackeray: Punishment and Forgiveness, Athens: Ohio University Press, 1995,
notes that both Martha and the Magadalen figure are both kneeling (p. 195). The illustration referred to
can be seen on Dickens, Copperfield, facing page 365.
130
313
Marwood, the fallen angel, [my emphasis]134 having be used by James Carker and her
own mother, ends up being transported. She is redeemed through the goodness of Harriet
Carker. As with Nancy, she calls out to the Lord with her dying breath.135
Martha, an orphan, and a school-friend of Emily, is, as a result of her indiscretions,
forced to leave Yarmouth, and ends up as a prostitute in London. When found by Daniel
Peggotty and David by the banks of the river Thames contemplating suicide, she tells
them ‘I am bad, I am lost […] How can I go on as I am, a solitary curse to myself, a
living disgrace to every one I come near!’136 However, the commission given to Martha
by Daniel Peggotty to find Emily, and so rescue her from her own fate becomes, on its
successful fulfilment, a salvatory journey for Martha.
In the penultimate chapter of the book we learn that Martha, following her emigration
to Australia with Emily and Mr Peggotty, has started a new life as a happily married
woman. Dickens’ concern for the fate of ‘fallen women’, and their subsequent
redemption, went beyond the pages of his fiction. For twelve years, between 1846 - the
time of his Alice Marwood characterisation - and 1858, in association with Miss Burdett
Coutts, Dickens was intimately involved in the inauguration, funding and management of
Urania Cottage, a reformatory for fallen women in Shepherd’s Bush.137 The author
publicised the reformatory, and the plight of some of its inmates, in his Household Words
article, ‘Home for Homeless Women’ (April 1853).138 As was the case in his fictional
134
Dickens, Dombey, p. 489.
Dickens, Twist, p. 362; Dickens, Dombey, p. 827.
136
Dickens, Copperfield, pp. 682, 683.
137
The possibility of darker motives surrounding Dickens’ involvement with Urania Cottage has prompted
considerable critical speculation.
138
Charles Dickens, ‘Home for Homeless Women’, Household Words, 7, 23 April 1853, pp. 169 -175.
135
314
depiction of Martha, Dickens believed that emigration assisted in the rehabilitation of the
fallen women in his care.
Dickens’ association of the ‘Angelic’ Madeline with Mary Magdalen is therefore an
interesting one. Although confronted by suffering and difficulty Madeline, through purity
of heart and purpose, maintains her moral integrity. However, it is conceivable that Mrs
Nickleby, having misinterpreted Madeline’s actions in relation to her marriage to Arthur
Gride, believed her to be selling herself for financial gain. Indeed, the occasion when Mrs
Nickleby mistakenly refers to Madeline as ‘Miss Magdalen’ occurs immediately after
Nicholas and Kate have been discussing her plight.139
Madeline, made in the image of Rose Maylie,140 is again used by Dickens to connect
external beauty with internal virtue. On her first appearance in the narrative she is
described as being ‘a young lady who could be scarcely eighteen, of very slight and
delicate figure, but exquisitely shaped, who, walking timidly up to the desk, made an
inquiry, in a very low tone of voice, relative to some situation as governess, or
companion to a lady. She raised her veil, for an instant, while she preferred the inquiry,
and disclosed a countenance of most uncommon beauty.’141 Dickens, much later in the
story, cleverly emphasizes this connection by describing Nicholas’ perception of
Madeline’s beauty being enhanced by her willingness to sacrifice herself in marriage to
Gride:
139
Dickens, Nickleby, p. 379.
Madeline is ‘scarcely eighteen’, whilst Rose is ‘not passed seventeen’. Madeline has a ‘very slight and
delicate figure, but is exquisitely shaped’, Rose is ‘slight and exquisite’. Both are described as being
beautiful. Ibid., pp. 188, 190, 516, 604, 613; and Dickens, Twist, p. 212.
141
Dickens, Nickleby, p.188.
140
315
There are no words which can express, nothing which can be compared, the
perfect pallor the clear transparent whiteness, of the beautiful face which
turned towards him when he entered. Her hair was a rich deep brown, but
shading that face, and straying upon a neck that rivalled its whiteness, it
seemed by the strange contrast raven black. Something of the wildness and
restlessness there was in the dark eye, but there was the same patient look, the
same expression of gentle mournfulness which he well remembered, and no
trace of a single tear. Most beautiful - more beautiful, perhaps, than ever there was something in her face that quite unmanned him, and appeared far
more touching than the wildest agony of grief. It was not merely calm and
composed, but fixed and rigid, as though the violent effort which had
summoned that composure beneath her father’s eye, while it mastered all
other thoughts, had prevented even the momentary expression they had
communicated to the features from subsiding, and had fastened it there, as an
evidence of its triumph.142
The first, and most significant of the three references used by Dickens to identify
Madeline as an ‘Angel’,143 closely resembles that used for Rose. Nicholas, on the
occasion of undertaking his first clandestine charitable visit on behalf of the Cheeryble
brothers, enters the Bray’s front room where ‘seated at a little table by the window, on
142
143
Ibid., pp. 694-695.
This is the same number of references used for Rose.
316
which were drawing materials with which she was occupied, sat the beautiful girl.’144
Dickens continues:
He felt as though the smile of Heaven were on the little chamber; as though
the beautiful devotion of so young and weak a creature, had shed a ray of its
own on the inanimate things around, and made them as beautiful as itself; as
though the halo with which old painters surround the bright angels [my
emphasis] of a sinless world, played about a being akin in spirit to them, and
its light were visible before him.145
The second reference is very similar to the magistrates’ court ‘Angelic’ allusion used
for Mr Brownlow. Following the successful completion of his first charitable mission
Nicholas and Madeline briefly meet on the stairs. During the course of their hurried
meeting Nicholas confides: ‘Dear madam, as I know your history, and feel as men and
angels [my emphasis] must who hear and see such things, I do entreat you to believe that
I would die to serve you.’146 The final ‘Angelic’ reference occurs after Nicholas has
confronted Madeline’s father over his involvement in Gride’s depraved plan. In the short
conversation that follows, Madeline invokes an ‘Angelic’ blessing on behalf of Charles
Cheeryble.147
144
Dickens, Nickleby, p. 604.
Ibid., pp. 604, 605.
146
Ibid., p. 608.
147
Ibid., p. 700. “Meantime, all holy angels’ shower blessings on his head, and prosper and preserve him.”
145
317
Nell Trent
Described by Marcus as ‘purity incarnate’,148 Nell Trent, through her suffering and
eventual death, embodies the Christ-like quality of self-sacrifice. Unlike Rose and
Madeline, this ‘icon of goodness’,149 in common with the ‘Charitable Angels’, is used by
Dickens to introduce additional aspects of his personal beliefs. Welsh alludes to this point
when he describes The Old Curiosity Shop as having the most obvious religious design of
any of Dickens’ novels. 150 Dickens’ belief in the Resurrection, opposition to the doctrine
of Original Sin, and the revelation of the Divine in creation are all clearly expressed
through the ‘transcendental Nell’. 151 Dickens also uses his representation of Nell to
support his view that following death children become ‘Angels’.
Nell, more than any other ‘Female Angel’, qualifies for Welsh’s ‘Angel of Death’
epithet. 152 In Chapter IX, Nell, whose very name is connected with the sounding of the
funeral bell and death, looks out of a first-floor window of her father’s shop and sees ‘a
man passing with a coffin on his back, and two or three others silently following him to a
house where somebody is dead.’153 Seven chapters later Nell, and her grandfather, meet
the ‘Punch and Judy’ man, Tom Codlin, in a graveyard. In the next chapter Nell revisits
the graveyard alone. On this occasion Dickens writes: ‘She felt a curious kind of pleasure
in lingering among these houses of the dead, and read the inscriptions on the tombs of the
good people, passing on from one to another with increasing interest.’154 On reading one
particular ‘humble stone, which told of a young man who had died at twenty-three-years
148
Marcus, p. 151.
Schor, p. 32.
150
Welsh, p. 121.
151
Michael Schielfelbein, ‘Little Nell, Catholicism, and Dickens’ Investigation of Death’, Dickens
Quarterly, Vol. IX, No. 3, September 1992, p. 121.
152
Welsh, Chapter XI.
153
Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop, London: Hazell, Watson and Viney Ltd., N.D. p. 60.
154
Ibid., p.107.
149
318
old, fifty-five years ago’, she is joined by his elderly widow, their meeting resulting in a
dialogue regarding bereavement and death.155
She is present with Mr Marton at the death of the ‘little scholar’ Harry, and,
immediately afterwards, reflects on her recent visit to the old churchyard, musing over
how many of the graves belonged to children.156 In Chapter XLV, whilst struggling
through the large industrial town, where ‘contagious disease and death had been busy
with the living crops’, Nell observes carts ‘filled with made coffins.’157
During the closing scenes of Nell’s life her association with death increases. On the
very first night in her new village home, Nell’s thoughts, no doubt prompted by the
proximity of the churchyard, are drawn to consider the subject of death.158 In Chapter
LIII she visits the graveyard. In describing the pastoral scene Dickens writes: ‘The
neighbouring stream sparkled, and rolled onward with a tuneful sound; the dew glistened
on the green mounds, like tears shed by Good Spirits over the dead.’159 Walking toward
the church, she notices some children playing amongst the tombs, and an infant sleeping
on a child’s new grave.160 On leaving the churchyard she is invited into the elderly
sexton’s cottage. Once inside the conversation quickly turns to the subject of death.161
Two chapters later Nell, having resolved to make the graveyard her garden, tends the
graves of the children and the young people.162
Whilst the obvious focus on death is undoubtedly used as a narrative device to
intimate Nell’s eventual fate, it is also tendentiously used to promulgate the author’s
155
Ibid., pp.108, 109.
Ibid., pp. 157-159.
157
Ibid., p. 273.
158
Ibid., pp. 315, 316.
159
Ibid.
160
Ibid.
161
Ibid., pp. 321, 322.
162
Ibid., pp. 327, 328, 330, 331.
156
319
fictional and personal belief in the resurrection.163 The theme was a recurring one within
Dickens’ novels. In Oliver Twist Monks makes reference to the resurrection of the dead.
In both David Copperfield and Our Mutual Friend Lazarus is referred to. In Tale of Two
Cities Sidney Carton, prior to his execution, repeats the words from John Chapter XI
verse xxv, ‘I am the resurrection and the life’ on four separate occasions. In the final
chapter that Dickens was ever to write this reference was repeated.164 Although other
‘Angels’ are also used to symbolise the resurrection, 165 Nell is unique in that she herself
is resurrected.
Of the numerous resurrectional references that appear throughout the novel all, with
one exception,166 focus on Nell. The first appears in Chapter VI, when Nell recollects to
Mrs Quilp how, when she was a little girl, her grandfather used to speak of her deceased
mother, and would ‘try to make her understand that she was not lying in her grave, but
had flown to a beautiful country beyond the sky, where nothing died or ever grew old.’167
Five chapters later Nell and her grandfather are about to enter a graveyard: ‘The sun was
setting when they reached the wicket-gate at which the path began, and, as the rain falls
upon the just and unjust alike [Matthew IV verse xlv], it shed its warm tint even upon the
163
At the commencement of The Life of Our Lord, a Gospel account written for his own children, Dickens
confirms his personal belief in the Resurrection. Charles Dickens, The Life of Our Lord, Ware:
Wordsworth Editions Ltd., 1995, p. 11.
164
Dickens, Twist, p. 285; Dickens, Copperfield, p. 14; Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, p. 19; Dickens, Tale
of Two Cities and Christmas Carol, pp. 282, 283, 284, 334; Dickens, Miscellaneous, p. 510.
165
Mr Pickwick in relation to the Chancery Prisoner; Rose Maylie, in the form of her handkerchief at the
death of Nancy; Florence Dombey with reference to her father; Harriet Carker in relation to the death of
Alice Marwood; Agnes Wickfield with Dora; and Lizzie Hexam with Eugene Wrayburn.
166
During the course of a conversation between Mr Chuckster and Dick Swiveller, reference is made to
‘graves giving up their dead.’ Dickens, Curiosity Shop, p. 336.
167
Ibid., p. 44.
320
resting places of the dead, and bade them be of good hope for its rising on the morrow.’
168
Following the death of Harry, ‘the little scholar’, Nell dreams of the boy, ‘not coffined
and covered up, but mingling with angels [my emphasis], and smiling happily.’ This
dream is also repeated twenty chapters later.169 Nell, in conversation with the elderly
sexton, earnestly states: ‘Perhaps the mourners learn to look to the blue sky by day, and
to the stars by night, and to think that the dead are there, and not in graves.’170 At the end
of Chapter LV, Nell, following her visit to the well under the belfry, which the old sexton
had used previously as an allegory of death, leans out of her bedroom window and,
watching the declining winter’s sun, thinks of the beauty and happiness of spring.171
In Chapter LIII Dickens makes a particularly powerful resurrection statement. Nell,
having read her bible, and mused over the interaction of nature and death among the
tombs in the baronial chapel, decides to climb to the top of the church tower. In contrast
to the darkness of the climb Nell, on reaching the top of the tower, experiences ‘the glory
of the sudden burst of light; the freshness of the fields and woods, stretching away on
every side and meeting the bright blue sky; the cattle grazing on the pasturage; the
smoke, that, coming from among the trees, seemed to rise upward from the green earth;
the children yet at their gambols down below - all, everything, so beautiful and happy! It
was like passing from death to life; it was drawing nearer to heaven.’172
168
Ibid., p. 103.
Ibid., pp. 159, 316.
170
Ibid., p. 327.
171
Ibid., p. 335.
172
Ibid., pp. 323, 324.
169
321
The remainder of the resurrectional references in the book focus on Nell’s death,
which symbolically occurs early on a Sunday morning. The first describes the death-bed
scene:
She was dead. No sleep so beautiful and calm, so free from trace of pain, so
fair to look upon. She seemed a creature afresh from the hand of God, and
waiting for the breath of life; not one who had lived and suffered death. Her
couch was dressed with here and there some winter berries and green leaves,
gathered in a spot she had been used to favour. ‘When I die, put near me
something that has loved the light, and had the sky above it always.’ Where
were the traces of her early cares, her sufferings, and fatigues? All gone.
Sorrow was dead indeed in her tranquil beauty and profound repose […] ‘It
was not,’ said the schoolmaster, as he bent down to kiss her on the cheek, and
gave his tears free vent, ‘it is not on earth that Heaven’s justice ends. Think
what it is, compared with the World to which her young spirit has winged its
early flight, and say, if one deliberate wish expressed in solemn terms above
this bed could call her back to life, which of us would utter it!’173
The narrative is supported by George Cattermole’s illustration, ‘At Rest’ (Figure
Sixteen on the following page).174 There are two subtle death-resurrection cues within it.
Although Nell’s death takes place in the midst of winter, there is a heavy fall of snow
covering the countryside, and there are slips of evergreen foliage on her pillow.
173
174
Ibid., pp. 435, 436.
This illustration has been taken from Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop, London: Penguin Books
Ltd.,1972.
322
Figure Sixteen: At Rest
The inclusion of this detail, specifically requested by Dickens,175 can be interpreted as a
dual symbolic representation of the resurrection: continuing life through the winter of
death, and the certain hope of spring, new life, within the death of winter. The second cue
is the closed book resting by Nell’s right hand. With the exception of Pilgrim’s
Progress,176 the only book that Nell is recorded as reading throughout the narrative is the
Bible.177 Each reading of the Scriptures is connected with the resurrection.178
This symbolic use of her closed bible to represent the resurrection is not without
precedent in Dickens’ work. As discussed in Chapter Three William, in the final chapter
of ‘Our Parish’, dies just after his mother closes the bible she has been reading to him.179
175
In a letter to George Cattermole, dated 22 December 1840, Dickens specifically requested that this detail
be included in his illustration. House and Storey, Vol. II, pp. 171, 172.
176
Dickens, Curiosity Shop, p. 97.
177
Ibid., pp. 323, 333, 438.
178
The first involves Nell climbing to the top of the church tower. The second, a conversation with her
young friend about her becoming an ‘Angel’ after her death.
179
Dickens, Sketches, p. 45.
323
In Pickwick Papers the ‘Chancery Prisoner’ dies when the bible read to him by the
cobbler is closed.180 Several years after the appearance of The Old Curiosity Shop,
Dickens, in Dombey and Son, uses the symbolic representation again in relation to Alice
Marwood’s death-bed scene.181
Dickens, in describing Nell’s funeral, provides a further three textual resurrectional
references. The first relates to the choice of quote taken from ‘The Order For The Burial
Of The Dead’: ‘Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.’182 Those of his readers who
were familiar with the Book of Common Prayer, which would represent a significant
portion of his readership, would, reading this quote be prompted to recall the words
which immediately follow them: ‘in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal
life, through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ In the second, the resurrection is symbolically
represented by light. Following the service, Nell’s body is carried ‘to one old nook,
where she had many and many a time sat musing […] The light streamed on it through
the coloured window - a window, where the boughs of trees were ever rustling in the
summer, and where the birds sang sweetly all day long. With every breath of air that
stirred among those branches in the sunshine some trembling, changing light would fall
upon her grave.’183
Following Nell’s grave being covered over, Dickens describes how, in the dusk of the
evening, light pours ‘upon her quiet grave - in that calm time, when all outward things
and inward thoughts teem with assurances of immortality.’184 Kit, in the closing chapter
180
Dickens, Pickwick, p. 627.
Dickens, Dombey, p. 827.
182
Ibid.
183
Dickens, Curiosity Shop, p. 438.
184
Ibid., p. 439.
181
324
of the book, reassures his children that Nell has gone to Heaven.185 The final illustration
of the novel (Figure Seventeen below),186 described by Dickens in a letter to Cattermole
as ‘a little tail piece which should give some notion of the etherealized spirit of the child’,
187
depicts Nell being transported to Heaven by four Angels.
Figure Seventeen: Tailpiece The Old Curiosity Shop
Nell’s resurrectional association is developed a stage further by Dickens to promote
his fictive belief that dead children become ‘Angels’. Laurence Lerner, in observing that
‘such belief is much older than the nineteenth century’ compares Nell with Gothe’s
185
Ibid., p. 447.
This illustration is taken from Dickens, Old Curiosity Shop, (Penguin Books Ltd.), p. 672.
187
House and Storey, Vol. II, pp. 183,184.
186
325
eighteenth century character Mignon. 188 From its first appearance in Mr Wardle’s
Christmas Eve tale about Gabriel Grub (The Pickwick Papers), 189 to Jenny Wren’s
dreams in Our Mutual Friend, 190 the ‘Angelic’ translation of children remained an
enduring and frequently appearing fictional image.191 Dickens’ characterisation of Paul
Dombey,192 and his Household Words piece ‘A Child’s Dream of a Star’, 193 represent,
beyond Nell, the author’s most noteworthy depiction of this proposed resurrectional
transformation. In two of his private letters there appears evidence to suggest that his
fictional position was supported by his personal conviction. In consoling his friend, the
Reverend James White, Dickens wrote of his dear child being among the ‘Angels’.194 In
seeking to comfort another friend, Basil Hall, who lost his youngest son, Dickens
expressed a similar sentiment: ‘It must be something to you, even in your grief, to know,
that one of the Angels [my emphasis] called you father upon earth.’195
Whilst Dickens’ position was contrary to the main-stream religious belief of the
period, it found credence among certain unorthodox elements within the broad Victorian
religious spectrum. The Swedenborgians, with whom Dickens corresponded some
months after the completion of The Old Curiosity Shop, 196 taught that dead children, on
Mignon, who appears in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Lehrjahre (1794-1796), is an adopted girl of a
similar age to Nell who, after dying, becomes an angel. See Laurence Lerner, Angels and Absences,
London: Vanderbilt University Press, 1997, pp. 98-100.
189
Dickens, Pickwick, p. 402.
190
Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, pp. 239, 240, 349.
191
Charles Dickens, Master Humphrey’s Clock and A Child’s History of England, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1994, p. 8; Dickens, Sketches by Boz and Hard Times, London: Hazell, Watson &
Viney Ltd., p. 566; Dickens, Christmas Stories, pp. 24, 514.
192
Dickens, Dombey, pp.226, 451, 708.
193
Charles Dickens, The Uncommercial Traveller and Reprinted Pieces , Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1996, pp. 387-390.
194
Hogarth and Dickens, p. 187. The letter was dated 4 May 1848.
195
House and Storey, Vol. II, p. 285. The letter is dated 26 May 1841.
196
On the 9 September 1841,Dickens wrote to the Swedenborg Society to thank them for the translated
copy of Swedenborg’s A Treatise Concerning Heaven and Hell. House and Storey, Dickens, Vol. II,
p. 377.
188
326
having gained the necessary intelligence and wisdom, became ‘Angels’. The Mormons in
their angelology allowed for two distinct ‘Angelic’ groups: those who are spirits and
those who have been resurrected. Despite these similarities it is far more likely that
Dickens’ position was influenced by his penchant for religious sentimentality and his
awareness of contemporary ‘Angelic’ thought as described by Welsh: ‘Victorians did not
precisely believe that the dead became ‘Angels’, but they made room for this idea in their
make-believe worlds and in their rituals of grief and condolence. Children and women on
these occasions seem far more likely to become ‘Angels’ than men are.’197
Dickens’ conspicuous representation of child-Angel translation in The Old Curiosity
Shop provided hope and consolation for the legion of bereaved parents who had lost
children as a result of the period’s appalling high rate of infant mortality.198 It also
reflected Dickens’ opposition to contemporary Evangelical teaching on Original Sin.
Briggs, in Victorian Cities, reports infant mortality rates remaining around 150 per 1,000
throughout the Victorian period.199 In ‘Births. Mrs Meek of A Son’ (Household Words
1850), Dickens, quoting from contemporary statistical tables, reports that ‘one child in
five dies within the first year of its life; and one child in three, within the fifth.’200 Two
years later, in the same publication, the author commented upon the unacceptably high
levels of infant mortality within London.201
197
Welsh, p. 194.
For information on the contemporary infant mortality rate see Chapter One of Sanders; Chapter Six of
Patricia Jalland’s, Death in the Victorian Family, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996 and Lynne
Vallone’s, ‘Fertility, Childhood and Death in the Victorian Family’, Victorian Literature and
Culture, 2000, Vol. 28, pp. 217-226.
199
Asa Briggs, Victorian Cities, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1982, p.19.
200
Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, p. 430.
201
Charles Dickens, ‘Dropping Buds’, Household Words, 5, 3 April 1852, pp. 45-48.
198
327
In his own childhood Dickens witnessed the death of his brother Alfred and sister
Harriet.202 In his All the Year Round autobiographical piece, ‘Some Recollections of
Mortality’, Dickens provides a recollection from his early married life in which the local
undertaker, on hearing he was planning to start a family, viewed him as a prospective
customer.203 Examination of Dickens’ personal letters also reveals a noticeably high
frequency of messages of condolence and comfort to friends and family who had lost
children.
Dickens makes several allusions to the incidences of infant deaths in his early works.
Indeed, Lerner observes that ‘there is more child death in Dickens than in any other
novelist.’ 204 In Chapter II of ‘Our Parish’ there is the death of the washerwoman’s child;
and, in Chapter VII, William dies. In another Sketch, ‘The Bloomsbury Christening’, the
cantankerous Nicodemus Dumps ‘speedily regains his composure as his eyes rests on a
paragraph quoting the number of infant deaths from the bills of mortality.’205 In another
early work, Sketches of Young Couples, there are two references to the death of
children.206 In Oliver Twist, Mrs Thingummy, Agnes Fleming’s nurse, has lost eleven of
her thirteen children.207 Oliver’s young friend Dick also dies.208 In The Old Curiosity
Shop, in addition to Nell, Mr Marton’s favourite scholar, Harry, and Willy, the younger
brother of Nell’s young friend, both die.209 In his final, unfinished novel, The Mystery Of
Edwin Drood, Dickens, with reference to Septimus Crisparkle, makes his most direct
202
His brother died at the age of five months when Dickens was two years-old; whilst his sister died at
the age of three, when he was ten.
203
Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, p. 195.
204
Lerner, p. 82.
205
Dickens, Sketches, pp. 8, 46, 470.
206
Ibid., pp. 560, 597.
207
Dickens, Twist, p. 2.
208
Dickens, Twist, p. 403.
209
Dickens, Curiosity Shop, pp. 158, 320.
328
novel allusion to infant mortality: ‘the Reverend Septimus Crisparkle was called
Septimus because six little brother Crisparkles before him went out one by one, as they
were born, like six little rush-lights as they were lighted.’210
Dickens’ portrayal of children being ‘Angelically’ resurrected also represented, as
discussed in Chapter One, his antithetical reaction to the doctrine of Original Sin. This
Calvinistic doctrine, popular with leading Evangelicals of the period,211 which taught the
inherent corruptibility of man, resulted in the period’s religious tracts ‘pressurizing, even
frightening, children, and others, into immediate conversion lest early death take them to
hell.’212
Chapter XXVI contains Dickens’ first allusion to dead children becoming ‘Angels’.
Nell, following the death of Mr Marton’s favourite ‘little scholar’ Harry, dreams of him
‘not coffined and covered up, but mingling with ‘angels’, [my emphasis] and smiling
happily.’213 Later in the novel, approaching her own death, she dreams of ‘the roof
opening, and a column of bright faces, rising far away into the sky, as she had seen in
some old Scriptural picture once, and looking down on her, asleep. It was a sweet and
happy dream. The quiet spot, outside, seemed to remain the same, saving that there was
music in the air, and a sound of angels’ [my emphasis] wings.’214 In these first two
references, Dickens, as in ‘A Child’s Dream of a Star’,215 and the tailpiece illustration,
210
Dickens, Miscellaneous Papers, p. 332.
‘Lord Shaftesbury firmly believed in the doctrine of total depravity of the human heart by nature.
William Wilberforce had put the matter more forcibly. Evangelical Christianity was based upon the
recognition that ‘man is an apostate creature [...] He is a creature tainted with sin, not slightly and
superficially, but radically and to the very core.’ Norris Pope, Dickens and Charity, London: Macmillan
Press Ltd., 1978, pp. 4, 5.
212
Marilyn Georgas, ‘Little Nell and the Art of Holy Dying: Dickens and Jeremy Taylor’, Dickens Studies
Annual, Vol. 20, 1991, pp. 43, 44.
213
Dickens, Curiosity Shop, p. 159.
214
Ibid., p. 316.
215
Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, pp. 387-390.
211
329
reproduced on page 323 of this thesis, refers to the transportation of children to Heaven
by ‘Angels’. The proximity of ‘Angels’ to those children soon to die is also alluded to.
The next reference occurs during a churchyard conversation between Nell and Mr
Marton. The schoolmaster, reacting to Nell’s sorrowful resignation that the dead are soon
forgotten, explains: ‘An infant, a prattling child, dying in its cradle will live again in the
better thoughts of those who loved it, and play its part, through them, in the redeeming
actions of the world [...].’ He then adds: ‘There is not an angel [my emphasis] added to
the Host of Heaven but does its blessed work on earth in those that loved it here.’216
In the following chapter Nell, who is sitting alone in the church reading, is joined by
her young friend. The boy, in a highly agitated state, runs up to Nell and embraces her.
During the course of their conversation it transpires that the boy has heard talk that Nell
is soon to become an ‘Angel’.217 Having been kindly reassured by Nell, the boy then
alludes to the ‘Angelic’ status of his deceased younger brother Willy.218 The final textual
reference relating to Nell’s dead body confirms that she herself has become a resurrected
‘Angel’: ‘So shall we know the angels [my emphasis] in their majesty, after death.’219
This is supported by the similarity between the four ‘Angels’ that appear in Cattermole’s
tailpiece illustration and Nell. The similarity also infers that these ‘Angels’ are in fact
translated children.
Numerically, the references used by Dickens to denote Nell’s ‘Angelic’ status, far
exceed those used for his other ‘Angels’. The first appears in the form of a night time
blessing spoken by her grandfather in Chapter One: ‘Sleep soundly Nell, and angels [my
216
Dickens, Curiosity Shop, pp. 329, 330.
Ibid., pp. 333.
218
Ibid., p. 334.
219
Ibid., p. 435.
217
330
emphasis] guard thy bed!’220 The second occurs on the occasion of Nell and her
grandfather leaving London; on the morning of their departure Dickens writes of the air
‘falling like breath from angels [my emphasis] on the sleeping town.’221 On three
separate occasions Nell dreams of ‘Angels’.222 In Chapter XLIV, the furnace-man’s kind
gift of two penny pieces are described as shining brightly ‘in the eyes of angels.’223 In
Chapter LXIX Nell is described as being an ‘Angel’ by Kit, and ‘a Good Angel’ by her
great uncle.224 Two chapters later, Nell’s grandfather, referring to the adverse winter
weather at the time of Nell’s death, tells Kit that ‘Angel hands have strewn the ground
deep with snow.’225 In the same chapter, Dickens, referring to Nell’s lifeless body,
declares: ‘So shall we know the angels [my emphasis] in their majesty, after death.’226
The final reference occurs when the elderly mourners at Nell’s funeral whisper among
themselves that ‘she had seen and talked with angels’ [my emphasis].227
In addition to these numerous textual references, Nell is the first of Dickens’ ‘Angels’
to be identified by illustrative cues.228 In Samuel Williams’ illustration, ‘Child in her
gentle Slumber’ (Figure Eighteen on the following page), 229 the sleeping figure of Nell is
being watched over by an ‘Angel’.
220
Ibid., p. 17.
Ibid., p. 82.
222
Ibid., pp. 159, 273, 316.
223
Ibid., p. 270.
224
Ibid., pp. 421,424.
225
Ibid., p. 431.
226
Ibid., p. 435.
227
Ibid., p. 438.
228
Florence Dombey, Agnes Wickfield and Esther Summerson are the only other ‘Angels’ provided with
illustrative references. See Chapter Four for details.
229
The Old Curiosity Shop Frontispiece was the only illustration that Williams was to produce for Dickens.
221
331
Figure Eighteen: Child in her gentle Slumber
* The illustration has been enlarged and the Angel detail highlighted.
In the George Cattermole illustration, ‘Nell’s New Home’ (Figure Nineteen on the
following page), 230 Mr Marton is showing Nell and her grandfather their cottage. As
described in the narrative, their dwelling has been partially constructed from the remains
of a monastery, and the room in which they are standing clearly reflects this. At the top
left of the illustration, among the various other ornate fireplace figurines, an ‘Angel’ can
be seen watching over the room and those within it.
230
This illustration has been taken from Dickens, Old Curiosity Shop, (Penguin Books Ltd.) p. 481.
332
Figure Nineteen: Nell’s New Home
* The illustration has been enlarged and the figurine highlighted.
The final ‘Angelic’ identificatory illustration, is Cattermole’s tailpiece, and depicts Nell’s
transportation to Heaven (see Figure Seventeen page 323).
Nell, through her death, represents Dickens’ ultimate expression of the ‘Female
Angelic’ qualities of self-sacrifice, selflessness and atonement.231 These qualities are
231
Whilst Madeline and Esther are both afflicted with life-threatening illnesses as a result of their
expressing their ‘Angelic’ qualities, both recover.
333
accentuated by her child status.232 As with Madeline Bray, Florence Dombey and Harriet
Carker,233 Nell’s ‘Angelic’ qualities are exclusively expressed within a familial relational
context. All the physical, mental and emotional anguish uncomplainingly suffered by
Nell is for the sake of her grandfather. Although Nell’s suffering and depravation is most
conspicuous during her pilgrimage to redeem her grandfather, Dickens leaves his readers
in no doubt about the extent of her heartbreak and sorrow prior to the commencement of
this fatal journey. As early as Chapter IX he writes:
It was not the monotonous day unchequered by variety and uncheered by
pleasant companionship, it was not the dark dreary evenings or the solitary
nights, it was not the absence of every slight and easy pleasure for which
young hearts beat so high, or the knowing nothing of childhood but its
weakness and its easily wounded spirit, that had wrung such tears from Nell.
To see the old man [her grandfather] struck down beneath the pressure of
some hidden grief, to mark his wavering and unsettled state, to be agitated at
times with a dreadful fear that his mind was wandering and to trace in his
words and looks the dawning of despondent madness; to watch and wait and
listen for confirmation of these things day after day, and to feel and know
that, come what might, they were alone in the world with no one to help or
Nell, the ‘pretty little girl’, the ‘child with a soft, sweet voice and a very small and slight delicate frame’
is the youngest of Dickens’ ‘Female Angels’. Dickens, Curiosity Shop, pp. 10, 11. Nearly fourteen at
the beginning of the narrative, she has, by the time of her death, reached that age. Dickens, Curiosity
Shop, pp. 48, 49. Georgas, p. 41, misses this and gives Nell’s age as being thirteen.
233
Madeline and Florence for their respective fathers, and Harriet for her brother, John.
232
334
advise or care about them - these were the causes of depression and
anxiety.234
The mental, emotional and physical anguish endured on behalf of her grandfather
during their journey comes to a head in the large, noisy industrial town. Just before being
given refuge by the furnace-man, she is ‘shivering with the cold and damp, ill in body,
and sick to death at heart.’235 Following their overnight stay by the furnace fire Nell
explains to her grandfather: ‘We shall be very slow to-day, dear […] my feet are sore,
and I have pains in all my limbs, from the wet of yesterday.’236 In the passage that
follows Dickens describes how ‘The child walked with more difficulty than she had led
her companion to expect, for the pains that racked her joints were of no common severity,
and every exertion increased them.’237 Forced that night to sleep outside, Nell is
terrorised by all that goes on around her.
Despite all of her suffering, Dickens reveals the selflessness of her ‘Angelic’
character: ‘So very weak and spent she felt, so very calm and unresisting, that she had no
thought of any wants of her own, but prayed that God would raise up some friend for
him.’238 With hope, strength and energy all but gone, Nell, resolved to disguise her true
desperate state from her grandfather, heroically staggers on. Eventually she collapses
senseless in the street.239 Mr. Marton, who, at this point, comes to Nell’s rescue, reports
her to be ‘quite exhausted’; her grandfather describes her as being ‘perishing of want.’240
234
Dickens, Curiosity Shop, p. 59.
Ibid., pp. 263, 264.
236
Ibid., p. 271.
237
Ibid., pp. 271, 272.
238
Ibid., pp. 273.
239
Ibid., p. 275.
240
Ibid., p. 276.
235
335
Shedding tears over her pale face and wasted figure, Mr Marton marvels at Nell’s
struggle with poverty and suffering.241 Although, through the ministrations orchestrated
by Mr Marton, Nell makes a recovery, the depravation and suffering experienced on her
pilgrimage slowly, but inevitably, leads to her death.
241
Ibid., pp. 278, 279.
336
CONCLUSION
Dickens’ fictionalisation of his personal faith perfectly suited the age. His writing
accurately reflected both the content and mood of Victorian religiosity, whilst tapping
into the religious consciousness of his readers. The simplicity and sentimentality of his
message, although subject to criticism, proved the most effective means of achieving his
purpose.1 As George Orwell correctly noted, Dickens was a ‘change of heart man.’2 He
recognised that the key to influencing the attitudes and actions of his readership lay in
appealing directly to their hearts through religious sentimentality. Walder acknowledges
this point: ‘Dickens wrote for an audience far less interested in Wiseman, Gorham and
the rest of those interested in doctrinal controversies but for those interested in the fate of
the Dairyman’s Daughter.’3
Dickens’ ‘Angels’ exemplify the author’s sensitivity in communicating his beliefs and
his appreciation of the prevailing religious climate. Whilst Clark observes that ordinary
people were not interested in theological issues, a contemporary reviewer suggested that
many among Dickens’ target reading audience ‘were not at all, or only slightly imbued,
with religious principles.’ 4 As a skilled novelist, Dickens realised that his best hope of
reaching his readers lay not in describing general theories of religion, or exclusively
detailing specific abuses of the poor and religious hypocrisy, but in depicting his
Christian ideals within the lives of a discrete set of characters. Lizzie Hexam, the last of
1
For example, Roger Henkle, with reference to Paul Dombey, notes how Dickens used his sentimental
portrayal of the child to counter-act the Victorian spirit of materialism. See Roger Henkle, ‘The Crisis of
Representation in Dombey and Son’ in Robert Polhemus and Roger Henkle’s (eds.), Critical
Reconstructions: The Realtionship of Fiction and Life, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994.
2
George Orwell, Charles Dickens in the Decline of the English Murder and other Essays, Harmondsworth,
Penguin, 1965, pp. 80-141.
3
Dennis Walder, Dickens and Religion, London: George Allen & Unwin Publishers Ltd., 1981, p. 2.
4
George Kitson Clark, The Making of Victorian England, London: Meuthen, 1966, p. 147; Metropolitan
Magazine, Vol. 30, March 1841.
337
Dickens’ ‘Female Angels’, succinctly describes the essence of this story telling approach:
‘They have never asked me what my religion is. They asked me what my story was, and I
told them.’5
Although, as detailed in Chapter Two, Dickens’ work was published during a period
of unprecedented Christian activity, traditional religious beliefs were being
contemporaneously undermined by Science, Materialism and Doubt. Frank Turner has
explained this apparent paradox:
A remarkable and virtually unnoticed irony lies at the very heart of the
problem of nineteenth century religious doubt, unbelief, and scepticism.
Victorian faith entered crisis not in the midst of any attack on religion but
rather during the period of the most fervent religious crusade that the British
nation had known since the seventeenth century [...] The religion that was
rejected, and transformed in the lives of generally young intellectuals was not
some mode of staid long-established Christianity but rather a recently
intensified faith associated with militant Christian institutions. In this regard
it seems virtually certain that the personal experiences of religious crisis and
the public criticism of ecclesiastical institutions arose less from dissolvent,
sceptical literature than from a Christian faith that became overbearingly
intense on the personal and vocational levels.6
5
6
Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 516, 517.
Frank Turner, ‘The Victorian Crisis of Faith and the Faith That Was Lost’ in Richard J. Helmstader and
Bernard Lightman (eds.), Victorian Faith in Crisis: Essays on Continuity and Change in Nineteenth
Century Religious Belief, London: 1990, p.11.
338
The challenge confronting Dickens was, therefore, not only to represent his beliefs to
those who ascribed to the Christian faith, but also to those who had become disillusioned
with it. Through the simple religious and sentimental appeal of his ‘Angels’, Dickens not
only achieved this, but was also able to specifically address those issues which caused his
readers to question their own beliefs.
Hyeck argues that Science, which was generally accepted by the Victorians as being
part of natural theology, was not seen as opposing Christianity before the publication of
The Origin of Species in 1859.7 Knight and Mason caution against exaggerating the
immediate effect that the book, and the subsequent debate surrounding it, had on
contemporary Christian belief. 8 According to the authors ‘many leading religious figures
responded positively to the text, while others expressed relative indifference.’9 Drawing
on a selection of early 1860s Evangelical periodicals they conclude that the main threat to
the status and authority of the Bible was seen to come from Essays and Reviews and not
The Origin of Species.10 Similarly Dixon argues that ‘it was [Auguste] Comte and
positivism, rather than Darwin and Darwinism that were probably perceived by most
people to represent the greatest scientific threat to Christian faith in the second half of the
nineteenth century.’11
Prior to the publication of Darwin’s book (Dickens owned an 1860 edition) there were
several other notable published works which, at the very least, invited readers, including
T. W. Heyck ‘From Men of Letters to Intellectuals: The Transformation of Intellectual Life in
Nineteenth Century England’, Journal of British Studies, 20, Autumn, 1980, p.162. Far from opposing
Natural Theology aspects of Darwin’s work, with reference to William Paley, actually endorse it.
8
Mark Knight and Emma Mason, Nineteenth Century Religion and Literature, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2006, p. 156.
9
Ibid.
10
Ibid.
11
Thomas Dixon, ‘Looking Beyond “the Rumpus about Moses and Monkeys ” : Religion and the Sciences
in the Nineteenth Century’, Nineteenth Century Studies, Vol. 17, 2003, p. 29. Auguste Comte, the
French philosopher and sociologist published Cours de philosophie positive between 1830-42.
7
339
Dickens, to speculate about the perceived relations between Science and Christianity.
These included The Bridgwater Treatises 12 (first published between 1833 and 1836),
Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology (1831-1833)13 and Robert Chambers’ Vestiges of
the Natural History of Creation (October 1844).14 In particular, William Buckland (a
contributor to The Bridgwater Treatises, and Chair of geology at Cambridge) and Charles
Lyle (professor of geology at King’s College) called into question the validity of the
biblical account of the great flood, and, through their speculation of the actual age of the
world, the Genesis creation account. Whilst Chambers’ anonymous vindication of
Lamarckism promoted a theory contrary to biblical creationism.
In ‘Dickens and Science’,15 K. J. Fielding discusses Dickens’ review of Robert Hunt’s
The Poetry of Science, which he describes as being ‘the only piece Dickens ever wrote’
on the subject of contemporary popular science. Drawing on the review, which originally
appeared in The Examiner (December 1848), Fielding concludes, on the basis of
Dickens’ supposed enthusiasm for Chambers’ portrayal of Lamarckian evolutionary
theory, that the author ‘clearly declared himself an evolutionist.’16 He further suggests
that Dickens was favourably disposed to contemporary geology, and that he was ‘proscience, pro-evolution, and pro-speculation.’17 Beyond his review of Hunt’s The Poetry
of Science Fielding refers to three anonymous All theYear Round pieces: ‘Species’ (2
June 1860), ‘Natural Selection’ (7 July 1860) and ‘Transmutation of Species’ (9 March
12
Dickens, during his speech at the Annual Inaugural Meeting of the Birmingham and Midland Institute,
27 September, 1869, referred to Babbage’s Ninth Bridgewater Treatise. K. J. Fielding, The Speeches Of
Charles Dickens, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960, p. 399. Dickens’ personal library contained over half
of The Bridgewater Treatises.
13
Dickens owned a copy of Lyell’s later work, Geographical Evidence of the Antiquity of Man, published
in 1863.
14
Dickens’ personal library contained an 1845 edition of the book.
15
K. J Fielding, ‘Dickens and Science’, Dickens Quarterly, Vol. XIII, No. 4, December 1996, pp. 200-215.
16
Ibid., pp. 200, 201.
17
Ibid., p.202.
340
1861) to support his view of Dickens’ proposed pro-evolutionary position. Fielding also
draws attention to Dickens’ use of the Darwinian phrase ‘universal struggle’ in Great
Expectations.18
Whilst undoubtedly Dickens’ view of the relative merits of the New Testament over
the Old Testament, as discussed in Chapter One, was in part influenced by scientific
thought of the period, and in particular geology, there is ample evidence to suggest he
retained a fundamental belief in God as Creator. Indeed, he was of the opinion that
advances in science, including geology, were inspired by God. Similarly, he viewed
evolution not as being a theory opposed to creationism, but rather as a method of
explaining how God created.19 Oulton, in acknowledging Dickens’ view that science
should be used to enlighten religion, detects a similarity between the author’s position
and that of his friend the Reverend Edward Tagart.20
Dickens’ association with the ‘Old School’ Unitarians, also discussed in Chapter One,
was consistent with his creationist position. Joseph Priestly, the founding father of the
school originated a system of belief which taught that the nature of the omniscient,
benevolent God could be studied through that which he created. Dickens’ sympathy with
Priestly’s ‘Natural Religion’ was linked to his belief in the Pauline principle, expressed in
Romans Chapter I verse xx, that the invisible God could be perceived in His Creation. In
18
The phrase, used by Darwin in The Origin of Species, which was published only a year before the novel,
appears in only the second paragraph of the book. See Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1998, p.1. Alan Fischler in his article, ‘The Descent of Darwinism: W.S.
Gilbert and The Evolution of Great Expectations’ ( Dickensian, Vol. 98, Summer 2002, pp. 101-112 ),
further explores the evolutionary aspect of the novel. For a more detailed discussion on Dickens’
relationship with Darwin and his evolutionary theory see George Levine, Darwin and The Novelists:
patterns of Science in Victorian Faith, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991, pp. 119-176.
19
Fielding, ‘Dickens and Science’, p. 202.
20
Carolyn Oulton, Literature and Religion in Mid-Victorian England from Dickens to Eliot, Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan Ltd., 2003, p. 24. The author quotes from Edward Tagart’s, ‘Thoughts Suggested by
the Discovery of the New Planet’, in which he describes ‘science as the hand-maiden of religion.’
341
a letter to Mrs Godfrey (25 July1839) Dickens, speaking of his hopes for the religious
education of his own children, states: ‘I would far rather that my children acquired their
first principles of religion from a contemplation of nature and all the goodness and
beneficence of the Great Being who created it.’21
There are throughout Dickens’ fictional work numerous allusions to his creationist
position. For example, in Sketches by Boz, Nicholas Nickleby and Our Mutual Friend,
there are references to Eden.22 In ‘The Drunkard’s Death’, the final piece of Sketches By
Boz, he refers to the Lord as ‘your Maker’;23 in the story of Gabriel Grub (Pickwick
Papers) Dickens provides a short creationist allegory;24 and, in Chapter LIV of Barnaby
Rudge, he uses the phrase ‘since the creation of the world.’25 In Our Mutual Friend
Dickens gives a strong endorsement of his creationist ideology: ‘But they have been the
truth since the foundation of the universe were laid, and they will be the truth until the
foundations of the universe are shaken by the Builder.’26 Beyond his fictional work there
is further evidence of Dickens’ creationist views. In a letter to the Reverend Thomas
Robinson (8 April 1841) Dickens refers to ‘God as Creator’;27 and, in his speech to the
Birmingham and Midland Institute (27 September 1869), Dickens describes himself as
being ‘a child of Adam and the dust.’28
21
Madeline House and Graham Storey (eds.), Letters of Dickens, Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1965,
Vol. I, p. 568.
22
Charles Dickens, Sketches by Boz, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 118, 365; Charles
Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p.763; Dickens, Our Mutual
Friend, p. 351.
23
Dickens, Sketches, p. 491.
24
Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 403.
25
Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 410.
26
Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, p. 503.
27
Madeline House and Graham Storey (eds.), Letters of Charles Dickens , Oxford: Clarendon Press,1969,
Vol. II, p. 257
28
Fielding, Speeches of Dickens, p. 405.
342
Dickens’ use of three of his early ‘Female Angels’ to connect God’s presence with
nature represents Dickens’ most conspicuous portrayal of his creationist views. In his
description of Rose Maylie, the first of his ‘Female Angels’, Dickens equates ethereal
beauty with creation.29 As Garnett observes, Rose ‘springs from an edenic rural setting.’30
In ‘The Five Sister’s of York’ (Nicholas Nickleby),31 Alice passionately makes the
point that God’s presence is experienced in creation rather than the confines of church
buildings. Set in the precincts of Saint Mary’s Abbey, during the reign of Henry IV, the
story involves the opposition of the youngest orphaned sister, Alice, to the promptings of
a Benedictine Monk that she and her sisters’ should enter a convent. The monk, in
contrast to Alice, who exhibits a fervent love for the beautiful things of nature, considers
‘the beauty of the earth as but a breath.’ 32 Although her sisters, seem resigned to their
fate of living a cloistered life, Alice strongly expresses her conviction that the presence of
God can best be enjoyed within the gardens they currently inhabit:
‘Never sisters’, cried Alice. Barter not the light and heaven, and all the
beautiful things which breathe upon it, for the cold cloister and the cell.
Nature’s own blessings are the proper gods of life, and we may share them
sinlessly together. To die is our heavy portion, but, oh, let us die with life
about us; when our cold hearts cease to beat, let warm hearts be beating near;
let our last look be upon the bounds which God has set to his own bright
skies, and not on stone walls and bars of iron! Dear sisters, let us live and die,
29
Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 298.
Robert Garnett, ‘Dickens, the Virgin and the Dredger’s Daughter’, Dickens Studies Annual, Vol. 28,
1999, p. 57.
31
Dickens, Nickleby, pp. 57-64.
32
Ibid., pp. 58, 59.
30
343
if you list, in this green garden’s compass; only shun the gloom and sadness
of a cloister, and we shall be happy.’
33
Dickens’ strategy of connecting God’s presence with natural creation finds its
culmination in Nell Trent. As Nell’s grandfather plans their journey he echoes William
Cowper’s sentiment that ‘man made the town, but God made the country’: ‘We will
travel afoot through fields and woods and by the side of rivers, and trust ourselves to God
in the places where He dwells.’34 With his dark depiction of the industrialised town in
Chapters XLIII, XLIV and XLV; the perception of the two travellers is that their journey
is a pilgrimage in which their salvation is to be found in the country: a view cleverly
supported by a reference to Pilgrim’s Progress.35
Following their flight from the race-ground, Nell and her grandfather reach the edge
of a wood. Dickens describes how: ‘as they passed onward parting the boughs that
clustered in their way, the serenity which the child had first assumed, stole into her breast
in earnest; the old man cast no longer fearful looks behind, but felt at ease and cheerful,
for the further they passed into the deep green shade, the more they felt that the tranquil
mind of God was there, and shed its peace on them.’36
In Chapter LIII Nell is depicted reading a Bible in the baronial chapel. It is not,
however, the scriptures or the church building which spiritually inspires her:
33
Ibid., p. 60.
Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop, London: Hazell, Watson & Viney Ltd., N.D. p. 80. According
to Walder, this passage demonstrates Dickens’ ability to tap into the familiar current of contemporary
Romanticism (pp. 85, 86).
35
Ibid., p. 97.
36
Ibid., pp. 147, 148.
34
344
The child sat down in this old silent place, among the stark figures on the
tombs […] She took a Bible from the shelf, and read; then laying it down,
thought of the summer days and the bright spring-time that would come - of
the rays of sun that would fall in aslant upon the sleeping forms - of the
leaves that would flutter at the window, and play in glistening shadows on the
pavement - of the songs of birds, and growth of buds and blossoms out of
doors - of the sweet air, that would steal in and gently wave the tattered
banners overhead. What if the spot awakened thoughts of death! Die who
would, it would still remain the same; these sights and sounds would still go
on as happily as ever. It would be no pain to sleep amidst them […] She left
the chapel […] and coming to a low door, which plainly led into the tower,
opened it, and climbed the winding stair in darkness […] At length she gained
the end of the ascent and stood upon the turret top. Oh! The glory of the
sudden burst of light; the freshness of the fields and woods, stretching away
on every side and meeting the bright blue sky; the cattle grazing in the
pasturage; the smoke, that, coming from the trees, seemed to rise upward
from the green earth; the children yet at their gambols down below – all,
everything, so beautiful and happy! It was like passing from death to life; it
was drawing nearer Heaven.37
The second factor to impinge upon Victorian religiosity was materialism. Coleridge,
as early as the 1830s, lamented over the materialism of the age,38 which he saw
37
38
Ibid., pp. 323, 324.
S. C. Carpenter, Church and People, 1789-1889, London: S.P.C.K, 1933, pp. 302, 303.
345
manifested in the ‘overbalance of the commercial spirit.’39 In a series of sermons
published in 1839, he continued his theme by expressing his fears about many Christianseeming men who ‘join house to house and lay field to field, that they be alone in the
land, and in towns employ all the time between their morning and their evening prayers
in the pursuit of a temptation so perilous that no power short of omnipotence could make
their deliverance.’40
Coleridge also railed against the factory system in which he saw, in common with
Thomas Arnold, an expression of the materialistic view of the age as employers sought to
exploit their workforce to maximise their profits. Arnold, in The Social Condition of the
Operative Class, launched his attack on the materialistic greed of the ruling and managing
classes by quoting a British employer, a Mr Dyer, who denied his workforce a union on
the basis that ‘it was in the interest of every employer to get as much work as he can done
for the smallest sum possible.’41 In response, Arnold goes on to characterize the
mercenary relationship between employer and employee as being actually worse than
master and slave. Arnold, on a separate occasion, condemns the wicked covetousness of
the period, which determined that the sole aim of man was the maximisation of profit. 42
Dickens’ condemnation of the ‘Calvinistic commercialism’43 of the early and middle
Victorian age and the exploitation of the labouring classes is unequivocal.44 Ralph
Nickleby, in his pursuit of avarice and greed, sells his soul to the devil; as noted by Reed,
39
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Second Sermon in Church and State: and Two Lay Sermons 1839, p. 359.
Ibid., p. 383.
41
Quoted in Carpenter, p. 301, 302.
42
Ibid., p. 64.
43
This phrase is used by David Holbrook, Charles Dickens and The Image of Women, New York: New
York University Press, 1993, p.119
44
For example see chapter three of Janet Larson’s, Dickens and the Broken Scripture, Athens: The
University of Georgia Press, 1985.
40
346
old Martin Chuzzlewit discovers that money only brings unhappiness;45 Jacob Marley
carries the chains of his financial greed in to the after-life; whilst Scrooge’s entire earthly
existence is tied up in the pursuit of wealth. Mr Dombey’s god is money; his ambition to
educate his son in the principles of his religion. Mr Merdle (Little Dorrit) is a
materialistic idol who is worshipped by his disciples. In Our Mutual Friend, Mr Harmon
Senior, is imprisoned by his own wealth; whilst Mr Boffin, for the spiritual benefit of
Bella Wilfer, mimics the awful effects of covetousness and greed. Oulton, in her
discussion of the subject, also refers to Amy Dorrit’s discomfiture with her family’s
materialism; and Dickens’ use of the Veneerings dinner party and the mounds of dust in
Our Mutual Friend, to describe the spiritual deadness associated with the pursuit of
wealth.46 All the characters representative of materialism, covetousness and greed reap
the terrible consequences of their false religion. Interestingly, in the cases of Ebenezer
Scrooge and Mr Dombey their redemption is achieved only through supernatural means:
Scrooge through the visitation of spirits and Mr Dombey through the intervention of his
‘Angelic’ daughter, Florence.
Dickens’ ‘Charitable Angels’, contrary to his portrayal of materialistic greed and
covetousness, demonstrate how wealth, in the hands of Godly men, can be used for the
good of others. Each, through his generosity of spirit, fulfils Dickens’ personal charitable
mandate as prescribed by Jacob Marley: ‘Mankind was my business. The common
welfare was my business, charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were all my
business.’47 In addition, Charles Cheeryble, far from exploiting his employees, treats
45
John Reed, Dickens and Thackeray: Punishment and Forgiveness, Athens: Ohio University Press, 1995,
p. 135
46
Oulton, pp. 135, 151.
47
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities and A Christmas Carol, London: Hazell, Watson & Viney Ltd.,
347
them with kindness and respect. As a result his business is thriving. Mr Pickwick and Mr
Brownlow, although retired, both enjoyed successful careers and, as a result, no doubt
benefited those with whom they worked. Contrary to the miserable, lonely, empty lives
endured by those who have sold their souls, the ‘Charitable Angels’ enjoy life and find
purpose and meaning in helping others.
Briggs suggests that the later Victorians nostalgically looked back upon the 1830s and
1840s as being more religious than their own period.48 One of the contributing factors to
this contemporarily perceived shift in Christian belief was the lengthening shadow of
Doubt.49 Lambert, in his introduction to Victorian Doubt, observes: ‘For almost the
whole of Queen Victoria’s reign the assumption was made that belief was a norm and
disbelief a variation, that doubt was an aberration.’50 The author then goes on to suggest
that 1870 - the mid-point of Victoria’s reign - represented a watershed in which the
balance between religious discourse and that which related to doubt shifted toward the
latter.51 Although Lambert points to the coining of the phrase ‘Agnostic’ in 1870 to
support his view, 52 it is misleading to propose that the introduction of this term
represented ‘the first glimmering of a rebellion’ against the assumption that belief was
N.D. p. 359.
Asa Briggs, Victorian People 1851-1867, London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1954, p.32.
49
Timothy Larsen, in Crisis of Doubt: Honest Faith in Nineteenth Century England, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2006, p. 1, sounds a note of caution regarding the prevalence of Victorian doubt.
In his opening chapter Larsen provides an excellent analysis of the over-emphasis of the Victorian crisis
of faith. Through a series of high profile secularists and sceptics who re-converted to Christianity, the
author addresses the imbalance by focusing on what he describes as the Victorian crisis of doubt.
50
Lance St John Butler, Victorian Doubt: Literacy and Cultural Discourses, Hemel Hempstread: Harvester
Wheatsheaf, 1990, p. 1.
51
Ibid., p. 86.
52
Ibid.,p. 1.
48
348
the norm for the Victorian period.53 In reality the expression of doubt was evident
throughout Dickens’ career.
As early as the late 1840s, Geraldine Jewsbury’s Zoe: The History of Two Lives
(1845), John Sterling’s Essays and Tales (edited in 1848 by J. C. Hare) and James
Anthony Froude’s The Nemesis of Faith (February 1849), were publicly challenging
Christian faith. Prior to this, Strauss’ notorious 1835 work, Life of Jesus, which
questioned Christ’s divinity, was published. It was not, however, until 1846 that an
English translation of the German text became widely available.54 Also, in 1841, Ludwig
Feurebach’s The Essence of Christianity, which argued ‘that God was a projection of all
that humanity aspired to be [and that] the personality of God is nothing else than the
projected personality of man,’ was published. 55 However, it was the1860s that proved a
watershed in terms of literature that challenged traditional belief.
The first half of the decade saw the publication of Essays and Reviews (1860/1861),
Ernest Renan’s Vie de Jesus (1863) and Robert Seeley’s Ecce Homo: A Survey of the
Life and Work of Jesus Christ (1865). Also a completely reworked version of Strauss’
work was published in 1864. Whilst Swinburne’s Atatanta in Calydon, Anactoria, Hymn
of Man and Hymn of Proserpine represented nothing less than a vitriolic attack on the
Christian faith. In addition, Lecky’s History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of
Rationalism in Europe (1865) was a particularly influential work of the period, partly due
to the exceptional nature of Lecky and ‘partly because it was history that perfectly fitted
53
Ibid.
The translation, delayed due fears of prosecution under the blasphemy laws, was eventually undertaken
by Marian Evans (George Eliot).
55
Knight and Mason, p. 166.
54
349
the age of conflict between reason and faith.’56 However, according to Lambert, the
‘locus classicus’ of Victorian ‘honest doubt’57 was Tennyson’s ‘In Memoriam.’58
The poem, dedicated to his close friend Arthur Hallam who, at the age of twenty-two,
tragically died in Vienna, was started in the year of Hallam’s death, 1833, and did not
appear until seventeen years later, when it was published anonymously. Over ten years in
the writing, it was divided into four distinct parts with the later addition of a prologue.
Chadwick concludes that the poem, brooding over the effects of science and geology on
Victorian faith, represents an allegory of Tennyson’s personal faith ‘stumbling up the
altar-stairs in the darkness.’59 Chadwick adds: ‘Marking an epoch in English religious
life, the poem mirrors the anxious sensitive and anxious predicament of a soul seeking
faith amid the rocks and waters, bruised and fearful but at last triumphant.’60 The
prologue, added in 1849, which was written, according to Butler, with Tennyson’s future
wife, the ‘deeply religious’ Emily Sellwood in mind, validates, in part, Butler’s
contention that the poem is in fact, in some substantial respects, a poem of faith.61
Dickens’ ‘Angels’, with their emphasis on the heart-felt expression of practical
Christianity, provided an ideal antidote to the doubt that was ‘ubiquitous in the discourse
of the Victorians.’62 The genuine Christian charity of Mr Pickwick, Mr Brownlow and
Charles Cheeryble, and the Christ-like qualities of his ‘Female Angels’, were completely
detached from doctrine and formulary. They were not created by the author to engage his
readers intellectually, but rather to affect their hearts.
56
Owen Chadwick, Victorian Church, (Part Two), London: A and C Black Ltd., 1970, pp. 14, 15.
Larsen, p. 11, notes that this phrase taken from Tennyson’s poem has become synonymous with those
who ‘no longer found faith intellectually credible.’
58
Butler, pp. 9, 10.
59
Owen Chadwick, The Victorian Church, (Part One), London: A and C Black Ltd., 1971, pp. 567, 568.
60
Ibid.
61
Butler, p. 10.
62
Ibid., p. 9.
57
350
Representing Dickens’ beliefs they are not adherents of a dogmatic religion but agents
of a living faith that actively sought to help others. The benevolence of Mr Pickwick
transforms the lives of Alfred Jingle and his servant Job Trotter. In Oliver Twist, Mr
Brownlow rescues Oliver, restores his fortune and adopts him as his son. In the same
novel Nancy, through her contact with Rose Maylie, is redeemed in her dying moments.
Charles Cheeryble’s kind-heartedness and benevolence provides for the Nickleby family
and Madeline Bray. Dickens’ readers may well have been struggling with the religious
implications of scientific advancements and the creeping tide of secularism, but they
could readily understand the real difference that the author’s representation of
Christianity made in the lives of others.
Turner suggests a correlation between doubt, and what he describes as the
‘overbearing intensity’ of Victorian Christian faith.63 Similarly, Larsen notes, ‘the
Victorian crisis of faith was actually a by-product of the religiosity of the Victorians’ and,
in particular, the influence of evangelicalism.64 Whilst Dickens’ ‘Angels’, as has been
noted, were carefully detached from formal religion, scathing representations of those
who practised extreme religion and religious hypocrisy are to be readily found in his
work. In his early fiction the Miss Browns and the Johnson Parkers (‘Our Parish’); the
Reverend Stiggins (Pickwick Papers) and Mrs Nubbles’ minister (The Old Curiosity
Shop)65 represent Dickens’ most conspicuous examples. These characters, and others like
63
Turner, p. 11.
Larsen, Crisis of Doubt, pp. 10, 11.
65
According to Lily Watson, the daughter of the Principal of a Baptist Theological College near Leeds,
Dickens’ criticism of Stiggins and Mrs Nubbles minister, was viewed by contemporary Dissenting
ministers as an accurate reflection of the extreme elements of their movement. Also, far from creating
animosity, the writer’s work was well received by her father and the other ministers known to him.
‘Charles Dickens and Dissenters’, Notes and Queries, Vol. 5, June 29, 1912, pp. 511, 512.
64
351
them, are used by Dickens to both depict the failings of the Victorian church and
accentuate the virtues of his ‘Angels’.
Dickens used his fiction as means of externalising his own beliefs. In a sense, through
his ‘Angels’, critical commentary and his representations of false religion, he was
confirming to himself what he actually believed. Such was the connection between his
writing and his inner self that any attempt to provide a meaningful description of his
beliefs necessitates drawing on personal sources and his fictional work. One point which
is apparent from studying the complete canon of his writing is the consistency of the
beliefs he portrays. His representation of the responsibility of the Christian community to
care for the poor and needy and the importance of demonstrating Christ-like qualities
within a familial and societal setting remain a constant.
Dickens personal faith, although contemporary, was ostensibly practical. The Life of
Our Lord, as recognised by Peyrouton,66 essentially summarises the author’s Christ
centred beliefs. The day before he died, Dickens, reflecting on his career, wrote: ‘I have
always striven in my writings to express veneration for the life and lessons of our
Saviour.’ In seeking to improve the physical and spiritual lives of the poor, and
embodying the qualities of kindness, charity, forgiveness, self-sacrifice and atonement
within his ‘Angelic’ representations, Dickens was endeavouring to reveal his perception
of Christ. To Dickens, Christianity was not doctrinal compliance or formal religious
observance: rather, it was attempting to live out a Christian life according to the example
of Christ.
66
N. Peyrouton, The Life of Our Lord: Some Notes of Explication’, The Dickensian, Vol. LIX, May, 1963,
p.103.
352
Although far from orthodox in his beliefs (his position on the Old Testament, for
example, bordered on the heretical) Dickens did prescribe to the biblical view of the
Resurrection and, although falling short of representing eternal punishment, Divine
Judgement. This, and his fictional depiction of Divine Providence, demonstrated his
belief in God’s active involvement in the affairs of the world, and in the lives of
individuals. Dickens rejected both the doctrine of Original Sin and the innate depravity of
man. He preferred to believe that each individual, if given the opportunity, could aspire to
eternity. Dickens also did not view the Bible as the sole source of Divine revelation. He
saw God revealed through all aspects of creation and within the lives of others. Whilst he
was keen to distance his ‘Angels’ from overt expressions of religiosity, Dickens himself,
as demonstrated in his writing, was intimately familiar with the contents of both the Bible
and the Book of Common Prayer. As discussed in Chapter One, Dickens also prayed on a
daily basis. His faith was central to his life as an individual, parent and writer.
Dickens made a significant contribution to the spiritual life of his contemporaries.
Through his participation in the ‘Osmosis Process’ he championed the cause of the poor.
He showed the religion of the age to itself, and challenged individuals and the Christian
community to change its position on certain issues. In a sense his beliefs, as expressed in
his writings, were ultimately beyond his own ability to live up to.67 Yet, his idealized
67
The breakdown of Dickens’ marriage, the author’s relationship with Ellen Ternan, his nocturnal London
wanderings with Wilkie Collins and suspicions about his involvement with Urania Cottage and possible
other marital indiscretions seemingly provide ample evidence of Dickens’ personal moral failings. These
failings have been well documented. For example, Holbrook, commenting on the author’s relationship
with Ellen Ternan, whom he had met a year before leaving his wife, refers to Dickens purportedly
spending fifty-three nights with her at her home in Slough between January and July 1867 (p. 127).
Edgar Johnson, in Charles Dickens: His Tragedy and Triumph, London: Penguin Books Ltd., details
Dickens’ anticipation of renewing his relationship with Maria Beadnell (pp. 416, 418); Michael Slater,
Dickens and Women, London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1983, refers to Dickens’ infatuation with
Christiana Weller (pp. 88-91) and Holbrook refers to a Mrs de la Rue (pp. 168, 169). Peter Ackroyd, in
Dickens: Public Life and Private Passions, New York: Peter Lang, 1991; William Clarke, in The Secret
353
views of Christianity, which were so brilliantly communicated through his creative
strategy, represented a Christ-centred Gospel of individual and social redemption.
Life of Wilkie Collins, London: W. H. Allen & Co., 1998 and Robert Giddings, in ‘Dickens and the
Great Unmentionable’, ‘Dickens and Sex’ Conference, Birbeck College, London, March 2004 speculate
about Dickens’ involvement with Urania Cottage and his nocturnal wanderings with Collins.
354
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