Page 11 - PBCJuly2012

Pickwick Bicycle Club Magazine. Volume 9 No.2 July 2012
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More on Charles Dickens
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The 200 anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens prompts one to take a closer look at some
aspects of his life and maybe get to know him a little better.

We know that he Another epic event in 1836 was Charles
was born in marriage to Catherine Thomson Hogarth on
Portsmouth on 2 .April , at age 24. This was in Chelsea,
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7 February Middlesex. They lived in Bloomsbury where
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1812 and that they produced a family of 10 children. Sadly,
he later married they separated in 1858 but were never
C a t h e r i n e divorced, probably because it would have been
T h o m s o n a social stigma for someone so prominent as
Hogarth, but it is Dickens.
interesting to
take a look at an Catherine had moved from the family home
earlier event in together with their son Charles Jr., and her roll
his life. of running the house was taken by Georgina,
Catherine’s sister, who had opposed her sister
Perhaps the earliest was his baptism. It is in the rift with Charles.
reasonably easy to find the record for he had
two middle names, one of which was quite The census of 1861 (see Doc.1 overleaf)
unusual. shows the family living in Marylebone, at 3
Hanover Terrace. Catherine is not listed but
So we find that he was baptised in Portsea St Georgina is, as ‘wife’s sister’ and as a ‘servant
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Mary, Hants. on 4 March 1812 and the housekeeper’, aged 34, born in Scotland.
documents reveal that his parents were John Charles’ occupation, as Head of the
and Elizabeth. His full name is given as Charles Household, is that of ‘author, novelist essayist
John Huffham Dickens. and editor,’ aged 49. Also listed were Charles’
daughter Mary, aged 23, (no occupation given),
He left school to work in a boot blacking factory sons Francis J. 17, secretary and Edward B.,
following his father’s incarceration in a debtor’s 9, scholar. Others included were Georgina plus
prison. This drove him to work hard and, Susannah Cooper, married. 37, cook, Matilda
although receiving only a formal education, he Bush, married, 29, housemaid and Agnes
edited a weekly journal for 20 years and wrote Garrad, 21, parlourmaid. These last two
15 novels and hundreds of short stories and originally from East Anglia.
non-fiction articles. A vigorous campaigner for
children’s rights and education, he lectured a
great deal.
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As we know, Charles Dickens died on 9 June
Dickens shot to fame in 1836 with the 1870 in North Aylesford, Kent, aged 58. The
serialisation of his novel Pickwick Papers. A Civil Registration document can be located in
Christmas Carol, written in 1843, is one of the Volume 2A, page 257 at the National Archives,
Kew.
most influential works ever written, and is
popular to this day.