Flo Morse: The Story of the Shakers (1986)

Flo Morse's book is only short – about one hundred pages – but there's a great deal of information in it.

What I didn't say in my post below is that the Shakers were so named due to the frenzy they worked themselves up into in their worship of God. Such behavior led to some being imprisoned in Manchester, England, for disturbance of the peace or profanation of the Sabbath. Ann Lee (1736–84) was one of the imprisoned people, and it was there that this illiterate factory worker – the daughter of a blacksmith – had her vision and felt the spirit of Christ entering her. Originally from a Quaker sect, she went on to be the leader of the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, more commonly known as Shakers.

But Mancunians believed she was a witch and stoned her. With a small group of followers she left England for New York in May 1774. A few years later, during the American Revolution, the tiny group of Shakers that had established itself in Niskayuna, New York state, received a number of visitors consisting of the serious-minded and the curious.

Lee gained converts, some of whom went back to their nearby towns to spread the word, but at the beginning the Shakers weren't accepted in America either, saw Lee as a witch and Shakerism as splitting belief in the established churches and (because of its advocacy of celibacy) of splitting families. Lee – though seeing sex even in marriage as a sin – obviously realised that abstinence is not for everyone, and must have to some extent seen the paradoxical nature of a religion with a built-in self-destruct button: she said that those incapable of being a Shaker were committing the least sinful thing by remaining servants to their families.

Ann Lee died in 1784 and James Whittaker (1751–87) became leader, dedicating the first meeting house in New Lebanon, New York state, but wore himself out in the task and it was left to Joseph Meacham to set up a number of independent village-communes. Shakers – as also mentioned in the post below – believed in equality of the sexes, and Lucy Wright from Pittsfield was Meacham's equal in sharing his work. Ten years after Ann Lee's death, ten Shaker communities – from the Berkshires down to Connecticut, through Massachusetts, up to New Hampshire and Maine – had been established.

The book tells of the famous author Charles Dickens traveling to the New Lebanon community at the end of an American tour in 1842, but being refused to see the Shakers at prayer. It quotes a little from Dickens's American Notes of his 'revenge', but this is very interesting albeit, er, very repetitive, grim stuff and I quote below all of Dickens's words on the event, using my italics:

We had yet five days to spare before embarking for England, and I had a great desire to see ‘the Shaker Village,’ which is peopled by a religious sect from whom it takes its name.

To this end, we went up the North River again, as far as the town of Hudson, and there hired an extra to carry us to Lebanon, thirty miles distant [...].

[W]e went to visit our place of destination, which was some two miles off, and the way to which was soon indicated by a finger-post, whereon was painted, ‘To the Shaker Village.’

As we rode along, we passed a party of Shakers, who were at work upon the road; who wore the broadest of all broad-brimmed hats; and were in all visible respects such very wooden men, that I felt about as much sympathy for them, and as much interest in them, as if they had been so many figure-heads of ships. Presently we came to the beginning of the village, and alighting at the door of a house where the Shaker manufactures are sold, and which is the headquarters of the elders, requested permission to see the Shaker worship.

Pending the conveyance of this request to some person in authority, we walked into a grim room, where several grim hats were hanging on grim pegs, and the time was grimly told by a grim clock which uttered every tick with a kind of struggle, as if it broke the grim silence reluctantly, and under protest. Ranged against the wall were six or eight stiff, high-backed chairs, and they partook so strongly of the general grimness that one would much rather have sat on the floor than incurred the smallest obligation to any of them.

Presently, there stalked into this apartment, a grim old Shaker, with eyes as hard, and dull, and cold, as the great round metal buttons on his coat and waistcoat; a sort of calm goblin. Being informed of our desire, he produced a newspaper wherein the body of elders, whereof he was a member, had advertised but a few days before, that in consequence of certain unseemly interruptions which their worship had received from strangers, their chapel was closed to the public for the space of one year.

As nothing was to be urged in opposition to this reasonable arrangement, we requested leave to make some trifling purchases of Shaker goods; which was grimly conceded. We accordingly repaired to a store in the same house and on the opposite side of the passage, where the stock was presided over by something alive in a russet case, which the elder said was a woman; and which I suppose was a woman, though I should not have suspected it.

On the opposite side of the road was their place of worship: a cool, clean edifice of wood, with large windows and green blinds: like a spacious summer-house. As there was no getting into this place, and nothing was to be done but walk up and down, and look at it and the other buildings in the village (which were chiefly of wood, painted a dark red like English barns, and composed of many stories like English factories), I have nothing to communicate to the reader, beyond the scanty results I gleaned the while our purchases were making.

These people are called Shakers from their peculiar form of adoration, which consists of a dance, performed by the men and women of all ages, who arrange themselves for that purpose in opposite parties: the men first divesting themselves of their hats and coats, which they gravely hang against the wall before they begin; and tying a ribbon round their shirt-sleeves, as though they were going to be bled. They accompany themselves with a droning, humming noise, and dance until they are quite exhausted, alternately advancing and retiring in a preposterous sort of trot. The effect is said to be unspeakably absurd: and if I may judge from a print of this ceremony which I have in my possession; and which I am informed by those who have visited the chapel, is perfectly accurate; it must be infinitely grotesque.

They are governed by a woman, and her rule is understood to be absolute, though she has the assistance of a council of elders. She lives, it is said, in strict seclusion, in certain rooms above the chapel, and is never shown to profane eyes. If she at all resemble the lady who presided over the store, it is a great charity to keep her as close as possible, and I cannot too strongly express my perfect concurrence in this benevolent proceeding.

All the possessions and revenues of the settlement are thrown into a common stock, which is managed by the elders. As they have made converts among people who were well to do in the world, and are frugal and thrifty, it is understood that this fund prospers: the more especially as they have made large purchases of land. Nor is this at Lebanon the only Shaker settlement: there are, I think, at least, three others.

They are good farmers, and all their produce is eagerly purchased and highly esteemed. ‘Shaker seeds,’ ‘Shaker herbs,’ and ‘Shaker distilled waters,’ are commonly announced forsale in the shops of towns and cities. They are good breeders of cattle, and are kind and merciful to the brute creation. Consequently, Shaker beasts seldom fail to find a ready market.

They eat and drink together, after the Spartan model, at a great public table. There is no union of the sexes, and every Shaker, male and female, is devoted to a life of celibacy. Rumour has been busy upon this theme, but here again I must refer to the lady of the store, and say, that if many of the sister Shakers resemble her, I treat all such slander as bearing on its face the strongest marks of wild improbability. But that they take as proselytes, persons so young that they cannot know their own minds, and cannot possess much strength of resolution in this or any other respect, I can assert from my own observation of the extreme juvenility of certain youthful Shakers whom I saw at work among the party on the road.

They are said to be good drivers of bargains, but to be honest and just in their transactions, and even in horse-dealing to resist those thievish tendencies which would seem, for some undiscovered reason, to be almost inseparable from that branch of traffic. In all matters they hold their own course quietly, live in their gloomy, silent commonwealth, and show little desire to interfere with other people.

This is well enough, but nevertheless I cannot, I confess, incline towards the Shakers; view them with much favour, or extend towards them any very lenient construction. I so abhor, and from my soul detest that bad spirit, no matter by what class or sect it may be entertained, which would strip life of its healthful graces, rob youth of its innocent pleasures, pluck from maturity and age their pleasant ornaments, and make existence but a narrow path towards the grave: that odious spirit which, if it could have had full scope and sway upon the earth, must have blasted and made barren the imaginations of the greatest men, and left them, in their power of raising up enduring images before their fellow-creatures yet unborn, no better than the beasts: that, in these very broad-brimmed hats and very sombre coats—in stiff-necked, solemn-visaged piety, in short, no matter what its garb, whether it have cropped hair as in a Shaker village, or long nails as in a Hindoo temple—I recognise the worst among the enemies of Heaven and Earth, who turn the water at the marriage feasts of this poor world, not into wine, but gall. And if there must be people vowed to crush the harmless fancies and the love of innocent delights and gaieties, which are a part of human nature: as much a part of it as any other love or hope that is our common portion: let them, for me, stand openly revealed among the ribald and licentious; the very idiots know that they are not on the Immortal road, and will despise them, and avoid them readily.

Leaving the Shaker village with a hearty dislike of the old Shakers, and a hearty pity for the young ones: tempered by the strong probability of their running away as they grow older and wiser, which they not uncommonly do: we returned to Lebanon, and so to Hudson, by the way we had come upon the previous day.


The Story of the Shakers adds that Dickens wrote from hearsay all the unpleasant things he'd heard about the Shakers, and this would appear to be true: in his very brief visit, he couldn't possibly have seen all that he describes. There was much malicious gossip about the Shakers in the outside community. Certainly some Shakers were lured away from the communes, and 'winter Shakers' put up with the ceremonies they secretly thought ridiculous for a warm home until the better weather came. But why is there no mention of pregnancies within the Shaker community, as I can't believe that they didn't occur: perhaps the women left before it became obvious?

One thing that — for a time at least — ensured the survival of the Shakers was the fact that they took in orphans and unwanted children. But only between 10% and 20% of the children remained permanently in the Shaker community.

A major problem that presented itself was the Civil War: the Shakers were pacifists. But the New Lebanon group had a good leader in Frederick William Evans (who with his brother edited radical newspapers concerning land reform, women's rights and wage slavery): he visited President Lincoln in Washington in 1863 and procured a draft exemption for the Shakers.

Sabbathday Lake Shaker village in Maine is the last remaining active community, with only a few existing members.

This is a fascinating little book about a minor religion that had a surprising influence on society at large.

Charles Dickens in London: London #13

St George the Martyr at the junction of Long Lane, Marshalsea Road, and Tabard Street in Southwark is also called 'Little Dorrit's Church' as it was here that Dickens's creation was christened and where she married Arthur Clennam. The church bears a Little Dorrit window but unfortunately it was closed when I was in the area.

St George's Gardens are nearby and there's an interesting plaque there.

'Marshalsea Prison

Beyond this old wall is the site of the old Marshalsea Prison, closed in 1842. This sign is attached to a remnant of the prison wall. Charles Dickens, whose father had been imprisoned for debt in 1824, used that experience as the Marshalsea setting for his novel Little Dorrit.'

Angel Place is through the gates.

'ANGEL PLACE

 

This alleyway lies on the site of the Marshalsea prison where the author

Charles Dickens' father was incarcerated, and which featured strongly in his great book 'Little Dorrit'. The old prison wall still stands.

 

Thanks to an active local steering group, we now have new lighting, paving, and a new gateway to St George's Gardens.'

 

'The wall mounted artworks adapt the original illustrations of Little

Dorrit. The themes of wealth and poverty, freedom and imprisonment,

which run throughout the book, are visually explored. Children from the local St Joseph's and Cathedral Schools collaborated on the project and appear in the scenes along with their drawings.

 

This project was completed and opened on 25th September 2004, and was funded by Southwark Couuncil to make the area safer and easier to use.'

Five of the paving stones in the alley are inscribed.

'JOHN DICKENS, THE FATHER OF CHARLES DICKENS, WAS IMPRISONED HERE FOR DEBT FROM FEBRUARY TO MAY, 1824'

 

'THE HEROINE

OF DICKENS' NOVEL,

LITTLE DORRIT,

WAS ONE RESIDENT

WHO WAS

NOT A PRISONER'

 

'BUT, WHOSOEVER GOES TO MARSHALSEA PLACE ... WILL FIND HIS FEET ON THE VERY PAVING-STONES OF THE EXTINCT MARSHALSEA JAIL ... AND WILL STAND AMONG THE CROWDING GHOSTS OF MANY MISERABLE YEARS'

 

This is a quotation from Dickens's Preface to the 1957 edition of Little Dorrit, which describes his visit to the site of the prison in the same year as the publication. The full sentence reads:

'A little further on, I found the older and smaller wall, which used to enclose the pent-up inner prison where nobody was put, except for ceremony. But, whosoever goes into Marshalsea Place, turning out of Angel Court, leading to Bermondsey, will find his feet on the very paving-stones of the extinct Marshalsea jail; will see its narrow yard to the right and to the left, very little altered if at all, except that the walls were lowered when the place got free; will look upon rooms in which the debtors lived; and will stand among the crowding ghosts of many miserable years.'

'MELANCHOLY STREETS, IN A PENITENTIAL GARB OF SOOT, STEEPED THE SOULS OF THE PEOPLE WHO WERE CONDEMNED TO LOOK AT THEM OUT OF THE WINDOWS, IN DIRE DESPONDENCY'

 

This is from Chapter 3, which is a description of a Sunday evening in 'gloomy, close, and stale' London. Here is a slightly extended quotation:
 

'Maddening church bells of all degrees of dissonance, sharp and flat, cracked and clear, fast and slow, made the brick-and-mortar echoes hideous. Melancholy streets, in a penitential garb of soot, steeped the souls of the people who were condemned to look at them out of windows, in dire despondency. In every thoroughfare, up almost every alley, and down almost every turning, some doleful bell was throbbing, jerking, tolling, as if the Plague were in the city and the dead-carts were going round. Everything was bolted and barred that could by possibility furnish relief to an overworked people.'

 

'THERE WAS NOT ONE

STRAIGHT FLOOR FROM

THE FOUNDATION OF THE ROOF

THE CEILINGS WERE SO

FANTASTICALLY CLOUDED BY

SMOKE AND DUST THAT

OLD WOMEN MIGHT HAVE

TOLD FORTUNES IN THEM

BETTER THAN IN GROUTS OF TEA'

 

This is from Chapter 5, when Arthur Clenn looks through his dead father's house, and a longer reading of the paragraph gives a more graphic image:

 

'Dull and dark he found it. The gaunt rooms, deserted for years upon years, seemed to have settled down into a gloomy lethargy from which nothing could rouse them again. The furniture, at once spare and lumbering, hid in the rooms rather than furnished them, and there was no colour in all the house; such colour as had ever been there, had long ago started away on lost sunbeams—got itself absorbed, perhaps, into flowers, butterflies, plumage of birds, precious stones, what not. There was not one straight floor from the foundation to the roof; the ceilings were so fantastically clouded by smoke and dust, that old women might have told fortunes in them better than in grouts of tea; the dead-cold hearths showed no traces of having ever been warmed but in heaps of soot that had tumbled down the chimneys, and eddied about in little dusky whirlwinds when the doors were opened.'

 

Another view of the old prison wall, this time from Angel Place.

 

The presence of Dickens is all over this part of Southwark, as in Charles Dickens Primary School.

 

And the blue plaque is just about legible through the closed gates.

 

In George Inn Yard off Borough High Street:

 

'THE NATIONAL TRUST

THE GEORGE INN

It is known that the George Inn existed in

the late 16th Century although the present

building dates from 1677. Both Shakespeare

and Dickens knew the hospitality of the inn

which has continued right up to the present day.

The inn is now owned by The National Trust.'

 

The wall opposite offers more information:

 

'Records of this coaching inn date back to 1542

although the current building dates back to

1676 when it was rebuilt following a devastating fire.

During 1874 the north range was pulled down,

however, thankfully the southern range has survived

to be London's last galleried coaching inn.

William Shakespeare often frequented the inn,

as did the novelist Charles Dickens who referred to

The George in his novel Little Dorrit.'

 

Shakespeare, of course, died in 1616, and so must have used the pub which formerly stood here.

Several places in the area, such as Copperfield Street and Weller Street, bear witness to the perceived importance of Dickens in Southwark.

 

Moving away from Southwark, to Bloomsbury:

 

'1851–1860

CHARLES DICKENS

NOVELIST

Lived in Tavistock

House near this

site'

To me, stating that Charles Dickens was a novelist seems a little like saying that William Shakespeare wrote plays, but no matter. Dickens bought this from his friend the artist Frank Stone for £1500, which probably sounded like a bargain even way back then, but it needed a large amount of work doing, and the family couldn't move in until about four months later. He bought Gad's Hill near Rochester in 1956.

Dickens separated from his wife Catherine in 1858: he had become obsessed with the 18-year-old Ellen (or Nelly) Ternan, who was living here with her mother and sisters – at Park Cottage, Northampton Park, Canonbury – at the time when he met her.

This building in Portsmouth Street (and Dickens was of course born in that town), is almost certainly the oldest shop in London, and may have been an inspiration to Dicken's novel The Old Curiosity Shop (1841).

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Charles Dickens in Portsmouth, Hampshire
Charles Dickens and Characters in Marylebone Road, London
Charles Dickens in Kingston upon Hull
Charles Dickens Connections in Kensal Green Cemetery, London
Charles Dickens, Edward Wortley Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Charles Dickens and Cleveland Street, Fitzrovia: Literary London #8
Claire Tomalin: Charles Dickens: A Life (2011)

Claire Tomalin: Charles Dickens: A Life (2011)

It seems appropriate to read a biography of Charles Dickens (1812–70) in this, the bicentenary of his birth, and although I've been familiar with a large number of biographical details about the writer, this is the first book-length biography I've so far tackled. And because I've therefore no measuring stick, it's impossible for me to say how well Claire Tomalin's Charles Dickens: A Life (London: Viking, 2011) captures him, or what additional details about his life she must have unearthed.

But this is an absorbing book that held my attention all the way through, never flagging. Tomalin obviously greatly admires Dickens, but at the same time she can be critical: of his work (he's not very good on female characters, for instance, and of course he can get sentimental and uneven, etc); and of him as a person (such as his cruelty to his wife, his lies and deceit, and so on).

In these 400 pages (with over 100 more for the textual apparatus, etc, this is the trajectory of a an extraordinary man riddled by contradictions, a man of tremendous kindness and generosity, very concerned with social injustice,* a man whose fictional creations have left a permanent impression on countless millions of people, but whose great emotional and sexual passion created enormous problems for most people who knew him.

The first three quarters of the book take us from the feckless father John Dickens living beyond his means through to his adolescent son beginning work in a blacking factory near the Thames in London, then earning his way as a workaholic writer, marrying and becoming increasingly wealthy and famous, until the final quarter which sees him overcome by a kind of madness, a madness that causes him to leave his family, that loses him friends, and means he has an extra family to support, but in secret. Tomalin mentions that Peter Ackroyd, in Dickens (1990), says 'it seems almost inconceivable that [Ellen Ternan and Dicken's] was in any sense a "consummated" affair'. In Tomalin's biography, as in her The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens (1990), it seems inconceivable that the affair – which Dickens had with a young woman who was exactly two and a half times his junior, and which lasted from the 1857 'Doncaster experience' when he met her until his death in 1870 – wasn't sexually consummated.

Occasionally I found an odd note in the writing – for instance, Tomalin writes about Caddy Jellyby in Bleak House being forced to work for her mother and is (therefore, I think we're supposed to understand) 'denied a natural, cheerful childhood'. Does this mean that a 'natural' childhood (whatever one of those is) is necessarily cheerful? And when she quotes from a letter Dickens wrote about the unhappiness of his marriage, supposedly reporting what his wife Catherine (before the break) had often said about their separating, Tomalin comments that the words sound like those made during a quarrel, and imagines Catherine saying  "'If things are so bad...' or 'If you dislike me so much – it might be better if we were to separate'." This is speculation verging on fictionalization, is clumsy, and doesn't belong in such a worthy book.

The final brief chapter, after Dickens's death, follows to their death a number of people involved with the author, and is in no small way concerned with the aftermath of the Dickens–Ternan affair. This is a vivid, and highly memorable book.

*Tomalin has suggested elsewhere that Dickens is particularly relevant today, now the gap between rich and poor is widening, and the post-World War II inroads that the Attlee government made towards social equity are being eroded.

The couch Dickens supposedly died on in his home at Gad's Hill Place, Higham, Kent, which is now a school.

Below are links to several posts I've made relating to Dickens.

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Charles Dickens in London: London #13
Charles Dickens in Portsmouth, Hampshire
Charles Dickens and Characters in Marylebone Road, London
Charles Dickens in Kingston upon Hull
Charles Dickens Connections in Kensal Green Cemetery, London
Charles Dickens, Edward Wortley Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Charles Dickens and Cleveland Street, Fitzrovia: Literary London #8

Charles Dickens Connections in Kensal Green Cemetery, London

The grave of Robert Bell (1800–67) is now illegible. He was born in Cork, Ireland, and moved to London where he first worked as an editor for the weekly Atlas, and later as a journalist. He edited a large number of books of English poets, and was a friend of Dickens.

'SAMUEL LOVER

BORN FEB. 24, 1797.

DIED JULY 6, 1868.'

Lover was an Anglo-Irish songwriter and novelist who founded Bentley's Magazine with Dickens. He is probably best remembered for his novel Handy Andy (links to both volumes below).

Famously, John Forster (1812–76) wrote the biography of his friend Dickens, and also wrote biographies of Swift and Goldsmith. His bequest to the country was his library of 18,000 books, which included the manuscripts of all of Dicken's novels except A Christmas Carol. Dickens probably modelled Podsnap in Our Mutual Friend on him.

'DWARKANAUTH TAGORE,

OF CALCUTTA,

OBIIT 1ST. AUGUST 1846.'

'Tagore was the grandfather of the great Indian poet Rabindranath

Tagore (1861–1941), and met both Dickens and Thackeray when visiting London.

ADDENDUM: I forgot to include this one of William Harrison Ainsworth (1805–82), who for a time lived in nearby Kensal Lodge, and had both Dickens and Thackeray as guests.

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Samuel Lover – Handy Andy: A Tale of Irish Life: Volume One
Samuel Lover – Handy Andy: A Tale of Irish Life: Volume Two
William Harrison Ainsworth, Manchester

George Cruickshank's Grave, Kensal Green Cemetery, London

'In Loving Memory

OF

GEORGE CRUICKSHANK,

ARTIST,

DESIGNER, ETCHER, PAINTER,

BORN SEPT. 27TH., 1792,

DIED FEBY. 1ST., 1878,

AT 263 HAMPSTEAD RD., LONDON,

AGED 86.

FOR 30 YEARS A TOTAL ABSTAINER,

AND ARDENT PIONEER AND CHAMPION

BY PENCIL, WORD AND PEN,

OF

UNIVERSAL ABSTINENCE

FROM

INTOXICATING DRINKS.

HIS REMAINS

LAID IN THIS CEMETERY

FEB. 9TH., 1878

WERE REMOVED ON

NOV. 29TH., 1878

TO ST PAUL'S CATHEDRAL,

WHERE THEY FINALLY REPOSE.

THIS MONUMENT IS ERECTED

BY HIS AFFECTIONATE WIDOW

ELIZA CRUICKSHANK.'

Cruickshank illustrated Dickens's Oliver Twist. The granite bust of him, by William Behnes, has gone, although there is a marble copy in Dickens's Doughty Street museum house.

William Hones's Grave in Abney Park Cemetery, Stoke Newington

'THE FAMILY GRAVE OFWILLIAM HONEWHO WAS BORN AT BATHTHE 3RD. OF JUNE A.D. 1780AND DIED AT TOTTENHAMTHE 6TH. OF NOVEMBER A.D. 1842'  William Hone was a writer and bookseller/publisher very much concerned with the injustices of the time and a strong advocate of political reform. His satirical writings against the government ensured that he would be prosecuted for treason, and his Frederick William Hackwood gives a fascinating account of his life in William Hone: His Life and Times (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1912). His Wikipedia entry is unreliable: for instance, it states that Hone wrote a book about Elizabeth Fenning, who was wrongly hanged for poisoning her employers, whereas John Watkins in fact wrote the book which Hone edited and no doubt published.

Charles Dickens and Hones's illustrator George Cruickshank attended his funeral.

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William Hone: His Life and Times, by Frederick William Hackwood

Angela Burdett-Coutts and Charles Dickens, London

This Gothic drinking fountain in Victoria Park, Tower Hamlets, designed by H. A. Darbyshire, was a gift by Angela Burdett-Coutts (1814–1906) to the people of the East End. Burdett-Coutts was heir to the Coutts bank fortune and a noted philanthropist.

Her relationship with her friend Charles Dickens is interesting from a literary point of view because, with Dickens, she established Urania Cottage (above), a refuge for 'fallen' women, in 1847. Urania Cottage was in Lime Grove, Shepherd’s Bush, London, and was funded by Burdett-Coutts's fortune. And Dickens may have collected material from the inmates of Urania Cottage for, say, the characters Em'ly and Martha in David Copperfield.

Charles Dickens and Characters in Marylebone Road, London

'WHILE LIVING IN A HOUSE ON THIS SITE
CHARLES DICKENS
WROTE SIX OF HIS PRINCIPAL WORKS,
CHARACTERS FROM WHICH APPEAR
IN THIS SCULPTURED PANEL'

This sculpture is on an outside wall of Ferguson House, 15 Marylebone Road, formerly No 1 Devonshire Terrace, where Dickens lived from 1839 to 1851. The characters represented near Dickens' head – clockwise, concluding with the pair to our immediate right of Dickens – are Ebenezer Scrooge with Marley's ghost as a doorknocker (A Christmas Carol); Barnaby Rudge with his pet raven Grip (Barnaby Rudge); Little Nell Trent and her grandfather (The Old Curiosity Shop); Mrs Gamp (Martin Chuzzlewit); David Copperfield and Mr Micawber (David Copperfield); and Paul Dombey and his daughter Florence (Dombey and Son).

This arresting plaque is the work of Estcourt James Clack (1906–73), who sculpted it in 1960.

Two more of my posts on Dickens are linked below.

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Charles's Dickens's birthplace in Portsmouth
Charles's Dickens's inspiration for Oliver Twist?

Charles Dickens in Portsmouth, Hampshire

Charles John Huffam Dickens was born on 7 February 1812 at 393 Old Portsmouth Road (formerly Mile End Terrace, and the 1871 sketch above shows remarkably little change) to John and Elizabeth Dickens. His parents had married in 1809, his father being a clerk with the Naval Pay Office, where he had been posted from London. The house cost £35 a year to rent. Francis (or Fanny) was born in 1810, and Charles was the second child. In summer 1812 the family moved to 16 Hawke Street, Portsea, a house that has since been demolished.

'CHARLES DICKENS

WAS BORN IN THIS

HOUSE ON

7TH FEBRUARY 1812

This plaque was placed here

by the Portsmouth Branch

of the Dickens Fellowship

in May 1978'

A reconstruction of an early 19th century middle-class parlour, where guests would have been greeted. The wallpaper is a reproduction made by printing from rollers of the period. The curtains and carpet are also reproductions, and the sofa dates from about 1800.

The fabric on the panels of the firescreen shielded women from the perceived coarseness of a woman's reddened face.

The chiffonier in the same room. The porcelain tea set was made in about 1780 at Caughley, Shropshire.

The dining room reconstructed, again with reproduction wallpaper. The dining suite dates from about the time of Dickens's birth.

A reconstruction of the main bedroom, where Dickens was born. The four-poster bed and dressing mirror are early 19th century.

The room opposite is called the 'Education Room', which among other things contains the couch on which Dickens died on 9 June 1870 of 'apoplexy', or a stroke as we would term it today, at his home in Gad's Hill, Kent, the day after falling ill at dinner. A different story, though, is that he fell ill while visiting Ellen Ternan at Peckham, so Ternan took him back to Gad's Hill in a carriage, and he died the day after being put on the couch. Dickens's sister-in-law Georgina Hogarth, his housekeeper, gave the couch to the Charles Dickens Birthplace Museum. Unfortunately, no photography is allowed in this room.

In one of the two attic rooms, a cabinet containing memorabilia of Dickens throughout the ages.

 This is right opposite Charles Dickens's birthplace.

'THESE TREES

ARE THE GIFT OF

THE WORLDWIDE

DICKENS

FELLOWSHIP

MAY 1978'

Charles Dickens in Kingston upon Hull

This building in Kingston Square, Kingston upon Hull, was built in 1830 as the Assembly Rooms, designed by R. H. Sharp under the direction of Charles Mountain. It became the New Theatre in 1939.

The plaque on the theatre wall reads: 'In this building in 1859 and 1860 the novelist Charles Dickens (1812-1870) gave selected readings from many of his works.'

ADDENDUM: I notice an interesting paragraph in Claire Tomalin's Charles Dickens: A Life (London: Viking, 2011) in which she notes that in Hull Dickens went into 'Dixon's shop in Whitefrairgate' and, along with giving an assistant a free ticket to a local reading by him, bought six pairs of women's silk stockings (almost certainly for Ellen Ternan).

Sydney Smith, Charles Dickens, Vera Brittain, and Winifred Holtby at Doughty Street, Bloomsbury: Literary London #21

The impressive Doughty Street had security gates at each end in Charles Dickens's day: it was a very short distance from the slums of Saffron Hill, where Dickens had set Fagin's hovel in Oliver Twist.

14 Doughty Street. 'Sydney Smith 1771-1845 Author and Wit Lived Here'.

48 Doughty Street. 'Charles Dickens 1812-1870 Novelist Lived Here'. Dickens lived here from 1837 to 1839, when he was completing Pickwick Papers (1837), Oliver Twist (1839), most of Nicholas Nickleby (1839), and the start of Barnaby Rudge. He had married Catherine a short time before living here.

52 Doughty Street. Unfortunately, the whole house has scaffolding over it, and does not take a pretty photo, although the blue plaque is readable:

'Vera

Brittain

1893-1970

Winifred

Holtby

1898-1935

Writers and Reformers

lived here'.

 ADDENDUM: In August 2013 I returned to the street and took pictures of a house clear of scaffolding: