The Pilgrimage Series
THE DICKENS COUNTRY
IN THE SAME SERIES
THE SCOTT COUNTRY
BY W. S. CROCKETT
_Minister of Tweedsmuir_
THE THACKERAY COUNTRY
BY LEWIS MELVILLE
THE INGOLDSBY COUNTRY
BY CHAS. G. HARPER
THE BURNS COUNTRY
BY C. S. DOUGALL
THE HARDY COUNTRY
BY CHAS. G. HARPER
THE BLACKMORE COUNTRY
BY F. J. SNELL
PUBLISHED BY
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON
[Illustration: CHARLES DICKENS IN 1857.
_From a hitherto unpublished photograph by Mason._]
THE DICKENS COUNTRY
BY
FREDERIC G. KITTON
AUTHOR OF
“CHARLES DICKENS BY PEN AND PENCIL,” “DICKENS AND HIS ILLUSTRATORS,”
“CHARLES DICKENS: HIS LIFE, WRITINGS, AND PERSONALITY,” “DICKENSIANA,”
ETC.
WITH
FORTY-EIGHT FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
MOSTLY FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
BY T. W. TYRRELL
[Illustration: Publisher Logo]
LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
1911
_First published February, 1905
Reprinted September, 1911_
INTRODUCTION
It seems but a week or two ago that Frederic Kitton first mentioned to
me the preparation of the volume to which I have now the melancholy
privilege of prefixing a few words of introduction and valediction. It
was in my office in Covent Garden, where he used often to drop in of an
afternoon and talk, for a spare half-hour at the end of the day, of
Dickens and Dickensian interests. We were speaking of a book which had
just been published, somewhat similar in scope to the volume now in the
reader’s hand, and Kitton, with that thoroughly genial sympathy which
always marked his references to other men’s work, praised warmly and
heartily the good qualities which he had found in its composition. Then,
quite quietly, and as though he were alluding to some entirely
unimportant side-issue, he added: “I have a book rather on the same
lines on the stocks myself, but I don’t know when it will get finished.”
That was a little more than a year ago, and in the interval how much has
happened! The book has, indeed, “got finished” in the pressure of that
indefatigable industry which his friends knew so well, but its author
was never to see it in type. Almost before it had received his finishing
touches, the bright, kindly, humane spirit of Frederic Kitton was “at
rest and forever.” He died on Saturday, September 10, 1904, and left the
world appreciably poorer by the loss of a sincere and zealous student, a
true and generous man.
As I turned over the pages of the book in proof, and recalled this
passing conversation, it seemed to me that the whole character of its
author was displayed, as under a sudden light, in that quite unconscious
attitude of his towards the two books—the one his friend’s, the other
his own. For no one that I ever met was freer from anything like
literary jealousy or the spirit of rivalry in art; no one was ever more
modest concerning his own achievements. And in this case, it must be
remembered, he was speaking of a particular piece of work for which no
writer in England was so well qualified as himself. His work had its
limitations, and he knew them well enough himself. For treatment of a
subject on a broad plane, critically, he had little taste; indeed, many
of his friends may remember that at times, when they may have indulged
too liberally in a wide literary generalization, he was inclined,
quietly and almost deprecatingly, to suggest some single contrary
instance which seemed to throw the generalization out of gear at once.
He saw life and literature like a mosaic; his eye was on the pieces, not
upon the piece; and this microscopic view had its inevitable drawbacks
and hindrances. On the other hand, when it came to a subject like that
of the present volume, his method was not only a good one, but
positively the best and only certain method possible. His laborious care
for detail, his unfailing accuracy—never satisfied till he had traced
the topic home under his own eye—his loving accumulation of little facts
that contribute to the general impression—all these conspicuous traits
made him the one man qualified to speak upon such a subject with
confidence and authority. One sometimes felt that he knew everything
there was to know about Dickens and the circle in which Dickens lived.
The minuteness of his knowledge could only be appreciated by those who
had occasion to test it in actual conversation, in that give-and-take of
question and answer by which showy, shallow information and pretentious
ignorance are so quickly discomfited and exposed. He had not only, for
example, traced almost every published line and letter of Dickens
himself, but he could tell you, in turning over old numbers of
_Household Words_, the author of every single inconsiderable
contribution to that journal; he was familiar with the manner and the
production of all the _infusoria_ of Wellington Street. It was a
wonderful wealth of information, and his habit of acquiring and
fostering it was born and bred in his very nature. In this, as in many
other respects, he was essentially his father’s son.
When I ventured, a page further back, to call his method “microscopic,”
the word slipped naturally from my pen, but in a moment its indisputable
propriety asserted itself. Frederic George Kitton was trained in the
school of microscopy. He was born at Norwich on May 5, 1856, and his
father, who had then only just completed his twenty-ninth year, was
already known among his associates as a scientist of much research and
no little originality of observation. Frederic Kitton the elder was the
son of a Cambridge ironmonger, and had been intended for the legal
profession; but his father’s business did not prosper, and the whole
family was obliged to remove to Norwich, there to take up work in a
wholesale tobacco business, the proprietor of which was one Robert
Wigham, a botanist of some repute. This Mr. Wigham soon saw that Kitton
was a clever lad, and, finding him interested in the studies which were
his own diversion, trained him in botany and other scientific branches
of research. The young man soon surpassed his tutor in knowledge and
resource, and by the time that he was married and the father of our own
friend, Frederic George Kitton, he had made a name among the leading
diatomists of his time, and was reputed to be more successful in finding
rare specimens than any other man in the country. His reputation and his
industry increased together, with the result that the son grew up in an
atmosphere of unsparing research and conscientious accuracy of
observation which never failed him as an example for life. We may fairly
attribute the general outlines of F. G. Kitton’s method to the
inspiration he received at his father’s desk.
This inspiration found its first expression upon the lines of art. The
boy showed great ability with his pencil, and was apprenticed to wood
engraving, joining the staff of the _Graphic_, and contributing any
number of pencil drawings and woodcuts to its columns, in the days
before the cheap processes of reproduction had supplanted these genuine
forms of art-workmanship. His landscapes and his pictures of old
buildings and romantic architecture were full of breadth and feeling,
and some of the best of them were devoted to an early book of travel in
the Dickens country, in which he collaborated with the late William R.
Hughes. Indeed, much of the most picturesque work of his life was done
in the way of black and white.
At the age of twenty-six, however, he decided to be less of an artist
and more of a writer, and retired finally from the ranks of illustrated
journalism. He settled about this time at St. Albans in Hertfordshire,
and began his long series of books, most of them dedicated to his
lifelong study of Dickens and his contemporaries. His first books of the
kind treated, not unnaturally, of the various illustrators of Dickens’s
novels, and monographs on Hablot K. Browne and John Leech attracted
attention for their fidelity and sympathetic taste. Following these came
“Dickensiana: a Bibliography of the Literature relating to Charles
Dickens and His Writings” (1886); “Charles Dickens by Pen and Pencil”
(1890); “Artistic London: from the Abbey to the Tower with Dickens”
(1891); “The Novels of Charles Dickens: a Bibliography and a Sketch”
(1897); “Dickens and His Illustrators” (1899); “The Minor Writings of
Charles Dickens” (1900); “Charles Dickens: His Life, Writings, and
Personality” (1902); and innumerable editorial works, among which must
be mentioned his notes to the Rochester Edition of Dickens, his
recension of Dickens’s verse, and his general conduct of the Autograph
Edition now in course of publication in America—a laborious undertaking,
which included a series of bibliographical notes from his pen of the
very first value to all students of “Dickensiana.” He had also in MS. a
valuable dictionary of Dickens topography, illustrated by descriptive
quotations from the novels themselves; and, finally, he left the “copy”
for the present book, which will rank among the most useful and
characteristic of all his contributions to the study of the author whom
he so much admired and so sincerely served.
Kitton was only forty-eight when he died, and the work which he had done
was large in bulk and rich in testimony to his industry; but he was far
from accomplishing the volume of work which he had already set before
himself. It is no secret that the short “Life of Dickens” which he
published two and a half years ago was only regarded by himself as the
framework upon which he proposed to construct a much more elaborate
biography, to be at least as long as Forster’s “Life,” fortified by a
vast array of facts which Forster had not been disposed, or careful
enough, to collect. The book would have been full of material and value;
but there were some of us who believed that Kitton’s talent might be
even better employed in a work which none but himself could have
satisfactorily accomplished—the preparation of an elaborate annotated
edition of Forster, constructed upon the scale of Birkbeck Hill’s
monumental Boswell, and illustrated by all the fruits of Kitton’s
profitable research. We talked the matter over together, and he was
enthusiastically willing to essay the task. But obstacles arose at the
moment, and now the work can never be done as he would have done it. His
talent was peculiarly adapted to annotation; his knowledge of the
subject was unparalleled. If the work is ever done (and I suppose it is
bound to be done some day), it can never be done now with that surety
and deliberate finality which he would have had at his disposal.
But one must not speak of Kitton only as a student of literature and an
artist; any picture of him that seemed to suggest that he was rooted to
his desk and his desk-work, to the exclusion of outside interests and
social activities, would give a very false impression of his energetic
and amiable temperament. There are many books standing to Kitton’s name
in the catalogue of the British Museum, and innumerable articles of his
writing in the files of the reviews, magazines, and newspapers of the
last twenty years, but his work extended far beyond the limits of print
and paper. He was not only an industrious man of letters, but a most
helpful and self-sacrificing citizen. His adopted town of St. Albans,
and the county of Hertfordshire at large, had no little cause for
gratitude in all he did in their interests. Despite the amount of
literary work he got through, there was scarcely a day that passed
without finding him at work at the Hertfordshire County Museum, where he
took sole charge of the prints and books, a collection which his care
and judgment made both exhaustive and invaluable. He was continually at
work, arranging and adding to the books and prints, and outside the
walls of the museum he did inestimable service in preserving the ancient
buildings of the town of St. Albans. Had it not been for his
intervention, many of the most interesting old houses in the town would
have been pulled down; he argued with callous owners and vandal
jerry-builders, and managed to retain for the town those characteristic
and historic buildings around the abbey which in days to come will be
the chief attraction of the picturesque county town he loved to serve.
And so, with hard work at his desk and unsparing energy out of doors,
his bright, unselfish spirit wore itself out. He never looked strong,
but I do not think he seemed actually ill when one spring morning in
this last year he came in to see me at my office, and told me, with his
easy, unapprehensive smile, that he was about to undergo an operation.
“It is only a small matter,” he said, “but the doctors say I ought to
have it done. I hope I shall soon be back again, and we will have a
further talk over that book you know about.” We parted, as men part at
the cross-roads, feeling sure of meeting on the morrow. But I never saw
him again. The operation he had made so light of proved too much for a
constitution already undermined by hard, unselfish work. He lingered on,
but never really rallied, and the end came very quietly, to close a life
that had always brought with it a sense of peace and gentle will,
wherever it had touched, whomsoever it had influenced.
For, when other shifting recollections of Frederic Kitton fade
away—accidents of a common interest, chances of a brief and busy
acquaintanceship—the impression that remains, and will always remain
with those who knew him, is the haunting impression of a sweet and
winning simplicity, an absolute sincerity of life and word, that knew no
use for the thing he said but that it should be the thing he thought,
and that never (so it seemed) thought anything of man, or woman, or
child but what was kind and Christian and noble-hearted. He looked you
in the eyes in a fearless, open fashion, as a man who had nothing to
conceal and nothing to pretend; he smiled with a peculiarly sunny and
unhesitating smile, as one who had tried life and found it good. And
yet, as the common rewards of life go, he had less cause to be thankful
than many who complain; he had to work hard (how hard it is not ours to
say) for the ordinary daily gifts of homely comfort. He had little time
to rest or play, and little means of recreation. Yet no friend of his, I
believe, however intimate, ever heard him grumble about work and the
badness of the times. He had a happy home, bright and blithe with the
carol of the cricket on the hearth, and brighter and blither for his own
affectionate nature; and his happy spirit seemed to ask for nothing that
lay outside the four walls of his plain contentment. He knew the secret
of life—a simple secret, but hard to find, and harder to remember. He
had no touch of self in all his composition, no taint of self-interest
or self-care. He lived for others: and in their memory he will survive
so long as earthly recollections and earthly examples return to
encourage and to inspire.
Arthur Waugh.
PUBLISHERS’ NOTE.
Owing to the untimely death of the author, the page proofs were not
revised by him for the press, though Mr. Kitton corrected proofs at an
earlier stage.
Mr. Kitton’s friends—Mr. B. W. Matz, Mr. T. W. Tyrrell, and Mr. H.
Snowden Ward—have kindly read the final proofs, without, however, making
any material alterations.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
PORTSMOUTH AND CHATHAM 1
CHAPTER II
BOYHOOD AND YOUTH IN LONDON 23
CHAPTER III
THE LONDON AND SUBURBAN HOMES 49
CHAPTER IV
IN THE WEST COUNTRY 83
CHAPTER V
IN SOUTHERN ENGLAND 101
CHAPTER VI
IN EAST ANGLIA 112
CHAPTER VII
IN THE NORTH 123
CHAPTER VIII
IN THE MIDLANDS AND HOME COUNTIES 160
CHAPTER IX
IN DICKENS LAND 183
CHAPTER X
THE GAD’S HILL COUNTRY 204
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
_From Photographs by T. W. Tyrrell, etc._
1. CHARLES DICKENS IN 1857 _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
2. 1 MILE END TERRACE, PORTSEA (NOW 393 COMMERCIAL ROAD
PORTSMOUTH) 1
3. CLEVELAND STREET (LATE NORFOLK STREET), FITZROY SQUARE 8
4. 2 (NOW 11) ORDNANCE TERRACE, CHATHAM 12
5. 18 ST. MARY’S PLACE, THE BROOK, CHATHAM 17
6. FORT PITT, CHATHAM 19
7. THE GOLDEN CROSS, CHARING CROSS, CIRCA 1827 22
8. 16 (NOW 141) BAYHAM STREET, CAMDEN TOWN 24
9. DICKENS AT THE BLACKING WAREHOUSE 33
10. LANT STREET, BOROUGH 35
11. THE SIGN OF THE DOG’S HEAD IN THE POT, CHARLOTTE STREET,
BLACKFRIARS 38
12. 29 (NOW 13) JOHNSON STREET, SOMERS TOWN 40
13. WELLINGTON HOUSE ACADEMY, HAMPSTEAD ROAD 43
14. 1 RAYMOND BUILDINGS, GRAY’S INN 46
15. CHARLES DICKENS IN 1830 49
16. YORK HOUSE, 15 BUCKINGHAM STREET, STRAND 51
17. 15 FURNIVAL’S INN, HOLBORN 54
18. 48 DOUGHTY STREET 56
19. JACK STRAW’S CASTLE, HAMPSTEAD, CIRCA 1835 59
20. 1 DEVONSHIRE TERRACE 62
21. 9 OSNABURGH TERRACE 65
22. TAVISTOCK HOUSE 72
23. 5 HYDE PARK PLACE 75
24. THE OFFICE OF “ALL THE YEAR ROUND,” WELLINGTON STREET, STRAND 78
25. THE OFFICE OF “HOUSEHOLD WORDS,” WELLINGTON STREET, STRAND 81
26. MILE END COTTAGE, ALPHINGTON 88
27. THE GEORGE INN, AMESBURY 97
28. AMESBURY CHURCH 104
29. THE COMMON HARD, PORTSMOUTH 113
30. THE GEORGE, GRETA BRIDGE 120
31. DOTHEBOYS HALL, BOWES 129
32. THE RED LION, BARNET 136
33. THE ALBION HOTEL, BROADSTAIRS 145
34. LAWN HOUSE, BROADSTAIRS 147
35. FORT HOUSE, BROADSTAIRS 150
36. 3 ALBION VILLAS, FOLKESTONE 152
THE WOODEN LIGHTHOUSE, FOLKESTONE HARBOUR ″
37. THE AULA NOVO AND NORMAN STAIRCASE, PART OF THE KING’S SCHOOL,
CANTERBURY 155
HOUSE ON LADY WOOTTON’S GREEN, CANTERBURY ″
38. THE SUN INN, CANTERBURY 158
39. GAD’S HILL PLACE 161
40. THE LEATHER BOTTLE, COBHAM 163
41. THE HOUSE AT CHALK IN WHICH DICKENS SPENT HIS HONEYMOON 166
42. THE CORN EXCHANGE, ROCHESTER 168
43. THE GUILDHALL, ROCHESTER 171
44. ROCHESTER ABOUT 1810 174
45. EASTGATE HOUSE AND SAPSEA’S HOUSE, ROCHESTER 203
46. RESTORATION HOUSE, ROCHESTER 206
47. THE BULL HOTEL, ROCHESTER 209
48. CHARLES DICKENS IN 1868 216
[Illustration: 1 MILE END TERRACE, PORTSEA
(NOW 393 COMMERCIAL ROAD, PORTSMOUTH). (_Page 2._)
The birthplace of Charles Dickens.]
THE DICKENS COUNTRY
CHAPTER I.
PORTSMOUTH AND CHATHAM.
The writer of an article in a well-known magazine conceived the idea of
preparing a map of England that should indicate, by means of a tint,
those portions especially associated with Charles Dickens and his
writings. This map makes manifest the fact that the country thus most
intimately connected with the novelist is the south-eastern portion of
England, having London as the centre and Rochester as the “literary
capital,” and including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Kent,
Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire, and Warwickshire, with an offshoot extending
to the northern boundary of Yorkshire.
All literary pilgrims, and particularly the devotees of Charles Dickens,
regard as foremost among literary shrines inviting special homage the
scene of the nativity of “Immortal Boz.” Like the birthplaces of many an
eminent personage who first saw the light in the midst of a humble
environment, the dwelling in which Dickens was born is unpretentious
enough, and remains unaltered. The modest abode rented shortly after
marriage by John Dickens (the future novelist’s father), from June,
1809, to June, 1812, stands in Commercial Road, Portsmouth, the number
of the house having been recently changed from 387 to 393. The district
was then known as Landport, in the Island of Portsea, but is now
incorporated with Portsmouth; a comparatively rural locality at that
time, it has since developed into a densely populated neighbourhood,
covered with houses and bisected by the main line of the municipal
tramways.[1] It is, however, yet within the memory of middle-aged people
when this area of brick and mortar consisted of pasture land in which
trees flourished and afforded nesting-places for innumerable birds—a
condition of things recalled by the names bestowed upon some of the
streets hereabouts, such as Cherry Garden Lane and Elm Road—but now
“only children flourish where once the daisies sprang.”
The birthplace of Charles Dickens, which less than half a century ago
overlooked green fields, is an interesting survival of those days of
arboreal delights; and the broad road, on the west side of which it is
situated, leads to Cosham and the picturesque ruin of Porchester Castle.
In 1809 John Dickens was transferred from Somerset House to the Navy
Pay-Office at Portsmouth Dockyard, and, with his young wife, made his
home here, in which were born their first child (Frances Elizabeth) in
1810, and Charles on February 7, 1812. This domicile is a plain,
red-brick building containing four rooms of moderate size and two
attics, with domestic offices; in front there is a small garden,
separated from the public roadway by an iron palisading; and a few
steps, with a hand-rail, lead from the forecourt to the hooded doorway
of the principal entrance. The front bedroom is believed to be the room
in which Dickens was born. From the apartments in the rear there is
still a pleasant prospect, overlooking a long garden, where flourishes
an eminently fine specimen of the tree-mallow. On the death of Mrs.
Sarah Pearce, the owner and occupier (and last surviving daughter of
John Dickens’s landlord), the house was offered for sale by public
auction on Michaelmas Day, 1903, when, much to the delight of the
townspeople as well as of all lovers of the great novelist, it was
purchased by the Portsmouth Town Council for preservation as a Dickens
memorial, and with the intention of adapting it for the purposes of a
Dickens Museum. The purchase price was £1,125, a sum exceeding by five
hundred pounds the amount realized on the same occasion by the adjoining
freehold residence (No. 395), which is identical in character—an
interesting and significant testimony as to the sentimental value
attaching to the birthplace of “Boz.”
Charles Dickens, like David Copperfield, was ushered into the world “on
a Friday,” and, when less than a month old, underwent the ordeal of
baptism at the parish church of Portsea, locally and popularly known as
St. Mary’s, Kingston, and dating from the reign of Edward III. In 1882 a
plan for its restoration and enlargement was proposed, but a few years
later the authorities resolved to demolish it altogether and build a
larger parochial church from designs by Sir Arthur Blomfield, A.R.A.,
the foundation stone of which was laid by Queen Victoria early in the
spring of 1887, one half of the estimated cost being defrayed by an
anonymous donor. On its completion the people of Portsmouth expressed a
desire to perpetuate the memory of Charles Dickens by inserting in the
new building a stained-glass window, but were debarred by a clause in
the novelist’s will, where he conjured his friends on no account to make
him “the subject of any monument, memorial, or testimonial whatever,” as
he rested his claim to the remembrance of his country upon his published
works. It is not common knowledge that three baptismal names were
bestowed upon Dickens, viz., Charles John Huffam, the first being the
Christian name of his maternal grandfather, the second that of his
father, while the third was the surname of his godfather, Christopher
Huffam (incorrectly spelt “Huffham” in the church register), who is
described in the London Postal Directory of that time as a “rigger in
His Majesty’s Navy”; he lived at Limehouse Hole, near the lower reaches
of the Thames, which afterwards played a conspicuous part in “Our Mutual
Friend” (“Rogue Riderhood dwelt deep and dark in Limehouse Hole, amongst
the riggers, and the mast, oar, and block-makers, and the boat-builders,
and the sail-lofts, as in a kind of ship’s hold stored full of waterside
characters, some no better than himself, some very much better, and none
much worse”). It is interesting to know that the actual font used at the
ceremony of Charles Dickens’s baptism has been preserved, and is now in
St. Stephen’s Church, Portsea.
John Dickens, after a four years’ tenancy of No. 387, Mile End Terrace,
went to reside in Hawke Street, Portsea. Here he remained from Midsummer
Day, 1812, until Midsummer Day, 1814, when he was recalled to London by
the officials at Somerset House.
I have spared no trouble in endeavouring to discover the house in Hawke
Street which John Dickens and his family occupied. Mr. Robert Langton,
in his “Childhood and Youth of Charles Dickens” (second edition), states
that it is the “second house past the boundary of Portsea,” which,
however, is not very helpful, as the following note (kindly furnished by
the Town Clerk of Portsmouth) testifies:
“I cannot understand what the connection can be between Hawke Street and
the borough boundary. The town of Portsea, no doubt, had a recognised
boundary, because at one time the greater part of it was encircled by
ramparts, but Hawke Street did not come near those ramparts. The old
borough boundary was outside the ramparts, both of Portsmouth and
Portsea, and therefore Hawke Street did not touch that boundary. Since
then the borough boundary has been extended on more than one occasion,
and, of course, these boundaries could not touch Hawke Street.” A letter
sent by me to the Portsmouth newspapers having reference to this subject
brought me into communication with a Southsea lady, who informs me that
an old gentleman of her acquaintance (an octogenarian) lived in his
youth at No. 8, Hawke Street, and he clearly remembers that the Dickens
family resided at No. 16. Hawke Street, in those days, he says, was a
most respectable locality, the tenants being people of a good class,
while there were superior lodging-houses for naval officers who desired
to be within easy reach of their ships in the royal dockyard, distant
about five minutes’ walk. No. 16, Hawke Street is a house of three
floors and a basement; three steps lead to the front door, and there are
two bay-windows, one above the other. The tenant whom John Dickens
succeeded was Chatterton, harpist to the late Queen Victoria.
Forster relates, as an illustration of Charles Dickens’s wonderfully
retentive memory, that late in life he could recall many minor incidents
of his childhood, even the house at Portsea (_i.e._, his birthplace in
Commercial Road), and the nurse watching him (then not more than two
years old) from “a low kitchen window almost level with the gravel walk”
as he trotted about the “small front garden” with his sister Fanny.
Dickens’s memory obviously failed him on this point, for he was a mere
infant of barely five months old when his parents left Commercial Road
to reside in Hawke Street, a fact which he had probably forgotten, and
of which Forster had no knowledge, as no mention is made by him of the
latter street. Here the family had lived two years when John Dickens was
recalled to London. I therefore venture to suggest that the novelist
vaguely recalled certain incidents of his childhood associated with
Hawke Street. True, there is no “small front garden” at No. 16 (indeed,
all the houses here are flush with the sidewalk), but at the back is a
garden overlooked by the kitchen window, which has an old-fashioned,
broad window-seat.
On quitting Portsea for the Metropolis, John Dickens and his family
occupied lodgings in Norfolk Street (now Cleveland Street), on the east
side of the Middlesex Hospital. In a short time, however, he was again
“detached,” having received instructions to join the staff at the Navy
Pay-Office at Chatham Dockyard. The date of departure is given by
Forster as 1816, and in all probability the Dickens family again took
lodgings until a suitable home could be found. After careful research,
the late Mr. Robert Langton discovered that from June, 1817 (probably
midsummer), until Lady Day, 1821, their abode was at No. 2 (since
altered to No. 11), Ordnance Terrace. There little Charles passed some
of the happiest years of his childhood, and received the most durable of
his early impressions.
Chatham, on the river Medway, derives its name from the Saxon word
_Ceteham_ or _Cættham_, meaning “village of cottages.” It is anything
but a “village” now, having since that remote age developed into a river
port and a populous fortified town. Remains of Roman villas have been
found in the neighbourhood, thus testifying to its antiquity. Chatham is
one of the principal royal shipbuilding establishments in the kingdom.
The dockyard was founded by Elizabeth before the threatened invasion of
the Spanish Armada, and removed to its present site in 1662; it is now
nearly two miles in length, and controlled by an Admiral-Superintendent,
with a staff of artisans and labourers numbering about five thousand.
Dickens describes and mentions Chatham in several of his writings, and
in one of the earliest he refers to it by the name of “Mudfog.”[2]
In “The Seven Poor Travellers” he says of Chatham: “I call it this town
because if anybody present knows to a nicety where Rochester ends and
Chatham begins, it is more than I do.”[3]
Mr. Pickwick’s impressions of Chatham and the neighbouring towns of
Rochester, Strood, and Brompton were that the principal productions
“appear to be soldiers, sailors, Jews, chalk, shrimps, officers, and
dockyard men,” and that “the commodities chiefly exposed for sale in the
public streets are marine stores, hard-bake, apples, flat-fish, and
oysters.” He observed that the streets presented “a lively and animated
appearance, occasioned chiefly by the conviviality of the military.”
“The consumption of tobacco in these towns,” Mr. Pickwick opined, “must
be very great, and the smell which pervades the streets must be
exceedingly delicious to those who are extremely fond of smoking. A
superficial traveller might object to the dirt, which is their leading
characteristic, but to those who view it as an indication of traffic and
commercial prosperity it is truly gratifying.” Were Mr. Pickwick to
revisit Chatham, he would find many of these characteristics still
prevailing, and could not fail to note, also, that during the interval
of more than sixty years the town had undergone material changes in the
direction of modern improvements. When poor little David Copperfield
fled from his distressing experiences at Murdstone and Grinby’s, hoping
to meet with a welcome from Betsy Trotwood at Dover, he wended his weary
way through Rochester; and as he toiled into Chatham, it seemed to him
in the night’s aspect “a mere dream of chalk, and drawbridges, and
mastless ships in a muddy river, roofed like Noah’s arks.”[4]
[Illustration: NORFOLK (NOW CLEVELAND) STREET, FITZROY SQUARE.
(_Page 7._)
Dickens and his parents resided in Norfolk Street in 1816, after
their removal from Hawke Street, Portsea.]
Dickens himself, when a boy, must have seen the place frequently under
similar conditions. The impressions he then received of Chatham and the
neighbourhood were permanently fixed upon the mental retina, to be
recalled again and again when penning his stories and descriptive
pieces. In an article written by him in collaboration with Richard
Hengist Horne, he supplies a picture of Chatham as it subsequently
appeared when the military element on the main thoroughfares seemed
paramount: “Men were only noticeable by scores, by hundreds, by
thousands, rank and file, companies, regiments, detachments, vessels
full for exportation. They walked about the streets in rows or bodies,
carrying their heads in exactly the same way, and doing exactly the same
thing with their limbs. Nothing in the shape of clothing was made for an
individual, everything was contracted for by the millions. The children
of Israel were established in Chatham, as salesmen, outfitters, tailors,
old clothesmen, army and navy accoutrement makers, bill discounters, and
general despoilers of the Christian world, in tribes rather than in
families.”[5]
John Dickens’s official connection with the Navy Pay Department offered
facilities for little Charles to roam unchecked about the busy dockyard,
where he experienced delight in watching the ropemakers, anchor-smiths,
and others at their labours, and in gazing with curious awe at the
convict hulks (or prison ships), and where he found constant delight in
observing the innumerable changes and variety of scenes; on one day
witnessing the bright display of military tactics on Chatham “Lines,” on
another enjoying a sail on the Medway with his father, when on duty
bound for Sheerness in the Commissioners’ yacht, a quaint, high-sterned
sailing-vessel, pierced with circular ports, and dating from the
seventeenth century; she was broken up at Chatham in 1868.
The boy unconsciously stored up the pictures of life, and character, and
scenery thus brought to his notice, to be recalled and utilized as
valuable material by-and-bye. Of the great dockyard he afterwards wrote:
“It resounded with the noise of hammers beating upon iron, and the great
sheds or slips under which the mighty men-of-war are built loomed
business-like when contemplated from the opposite side of the river....
Great chimneys smoking with a quiet—almost a lazy—air, like giants
smoking tobacco; and the giant shears moored off it, looking meekly and
inoffensively out of proportion, like the giraffe of the machinery
creation.”[6]
The famous Chatham Lines (constituting the fortifications of the town),
are immortalized in “Pickwick” as the scene of the review at which Mr.
Pickwick and his friends were present and got into difficulties; and the
field adjacent to Fort Pitt (now the Chatham Military Hospital, standing
on high ground near the railway station), was the locality selected for
the intended duel between the irate Dr. Slammer and the craven (but
innocent) Mr. Winkle, both field and the contiguous land surrounding
Fort Pitt being now a public recreation ground, whence is obtainable a
fine panoramic view of Chatham and Rochester. The “Lines” are today
locally understood as referring to an open space near Fort Pitt, which
is used as an exercising ground for the soldiers at the barracks near
by. All this portion of the country possessed great attractions for
Dickens in later years; it was rendered familiar to him when, as a lad,
he accompanied his father in walks about the locality, thus hallowed by
old associations.
Ordnance Terrace, Chatham, retains much the same aspect it possessed at
the time of John Dickens’s residence there (1817-1821)—a row of
three-storied houses, prominently situated on high ground within a short
distance of the Chatham railway station. The Dickens abode was the
second house in the terrace (now No. 11), whose front is now overgrown
with a Virginia creeper, and so redeems its bareness. In describing the
place, the late Mr. W. R. Hughes says: “It has the dining-room on the
left-hand side of the entrance and the drawing-room on the first floor,
and is altogether a pleasantly-situated, comfortable and respectable
dwelling.” At Ordnance Terrace, we are assured by Forster, it was that
little Charles (“a very queer, small boy,” as he afterwards described
himself at this period) lived with his parents from his fifth to his
ninth year; the child’s “first desire for knowledge, and his greatest
passion for reading, were awakened by his mother, who taught him the
first rudiments, not only of English, but also, a little later, of
Latin.” The same authority states that he and his sister Fanny presently
supplemented these home studies by attending a preparatory day-school in
Rome Lane (now Railway Street), and that when revisiting Chatham in his
manhood he tried to discover the place, found it had been pulled down
“ages” before to make room for a new street; but there arose,
nevertheless, “a not dim impression that it had been over a dyer’s shop,
that he went up steps to it, that he had frequently grazed his knees in
doing so, and that, in trying to scrape the mud off a very unsteady
little shoe, he generally got his leg over the scraper.” Other
recollections of the Ordnance Terrace days flashed upon him when engaged
upon his “Boz” sketches; for example, the old lady in the sketch
entitled “Our Parish” was drawn from a Mrs. Newnham who lived at No. 5
in the Terrace, and the original of the Half-Pay Captain (in the same
sketch) was another near neighbour: at No. 1 there resided a winsome,
golden-haired maiden named Lucy Stroughill, whom he regarded as his
little sweetheart, and who figures as “Golden Lucy” in one of his
Christmas stories,[7] while her brother George, “a frank, open, and
somewhat daring boy,” is believed to have inspired the creation of James
Steerforth in “David Copperfield.”
[Illustration: 2 (NOW 11) ORDNANCE TERRACE, CHATHAM. (_Page 11._)
Occupied by John Dickens and his family, 1817-1821.]
Little Charles must have been acquainted, too, with the prototype of
Joe, the Fat Boy in “Pickwick,” whose real name was James Budden, and
whose father kept the Red Lion Inn at the corner of High Street and
Military Road, Chatham, where the lad’s remarkable obesity attracted
general attention. The Mitre Inn and Clarence Hotel at Chatham,
described in 1838 as “the first posting-house in the town,” is also
associated with Dickens’s early years, and remains very much as it was
when he knew it as a boy. At the period referred to the landlord of this
fine old hostelry was a Mr. Tribe, with whose family Mr. and Mrs. John
Dickens and their children were on visiting terms; indeed, it is
recorded that, at the evening parties held at the Mitre, Charles
distinguished himself by singing solos (usually old sea songs), and
sometimes duets with his sister, both being mounted on a dining table
for a stage. The Mitre is historically interesting by reason of the fact
that Lord Nelson used to reside there when on duty at Chatham, a room he
occupied being known as “Nelson’s Cabin.”[8]
In the eighteenth chapter of “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” we find the
place disguised as “The Crozier”—“the orthodox hotel” at Cloisterham
(_i.e._, Rochester)—and in “The Holly-Tree Inn” it is thus directly
immortalized: “There was an inn in the cathedral town where I went to
school, which had pleasanter recollections about it than any of
these.... It was the inn where friends used to put up, and where we used
to go and see parents, and to have salmon and fowls, and be tipped. It
had an ecclesiastical sign—the Mitre—and a bar that seemed to be the
next best thing to a bishopric, it was so snug.”[9]
John Dickens had by nature a very generous disposition, which inclined
him to be too lavish in his expenditure. This idiosyncrasy, coupled with
the ever-increasing demands of a young and growing family, compelled him
to realize the immediate necessity for retrenchment. Hitherto his income
(ranging from £200 to £350 per annum) amply sufficed to provide for the
comfort of wife and children; but the time had arrived when rigid
economy became imperative, and early in 1821 he removed into a less
expensive and somewhat obscure habitation at No. 18, St. Mary’s Place
(otherwise called “The Brook”), Chatham, situated in the valley through
which a brook (now covered over) flows into the Medway. The house on
“The Brook,” with a “plain-looking whitewashed plaster front, and a
small garden before and behind,” still exists; it is a semi-detached,
six-roomed tenement, of a much humbler type than that in Ordnance
Terrace, and stands next to what is now the Drill Hall of the Salvation
Army, but which, in John Dickens’s time, was a Baptist meeting-house
called Providence Chapel. While the Dickens dwelling-place remains
unaltered, the neighbourhood has since greatly deteriorated. The
locality was then more rural and not so crowded as now, many of the
people living there being of a quite respectable class. The minister
then officiating at Providence Chapel was William Giles, whose son
William had been educated at Oxford, and afterwards kept a school in
Clover Lane (now Clover Street, the playground since covered by a
railway station), Chatham, whence he moved to larger premises close by,
still to be seen at the corner of Rhode Street and Best Street. Both
Charles and his elder sister Fanny attended here as day scholars, and
the boy, under Mr. Giles’s able tuition, made rapid progress with his
studies. Apropos of Mr. Giles, it should be mentioned that when his
intelligent pupil had attained manhood and achieved fame as the author
of “Pickwick,” his old schoolmaster sent him, as a token of admiration,
a silver snuff-box, the lid bearing an inscription addressed “To the
Inimitable Boz.” For a considerable time afterwards Dickens jocosely
alluded to himself, in letters to intimate friends, as “the Inimitable.”
By the way, where is that snuff-box now?
St. Mary’s Place is in close proximity to the old parish church of St.
Mary, where the Dickens family worshipped during their residence in
Chatham. It dates from the early part of the twelfth century, but having
lately undergone a process of rebuilding, the edifice no longer
possesses that quaintness which formerly characterized it, both
externally and internally. The present structure, standing on a site
which has been occupied by a church from Saxon times, has been erected
from the designs of the late Sir Arthur Blomfield, already mentioned as
the architect of the new parochial church of St. Mary, Kingston.
Happily, there are preserved in St. Mary’s, Chatham, some interesting
remains of the Norman edifice (A.D. 1120), notably a fine doorway and
staircase, and the columns of the central arch of the nave. Instead of
the diminutive bell-turret originally surmounting the roof of the nave,
a lofty detached tower now constitutes the most striking feature of the
church, which was consecrated on October 28, 1903, in the presence of
Lord Roberts. It has been suggested that the description of Blunderstone
Church in “David Copperfield” recalls in some respects the old parish
church of Chatham, so familiar to Dickens in his boyhood, although the
picture was partly drawn from Blundeston Church, Suffolk: “Here is our
pew in the church. What a high-backed pew! with a window near it, out of
which our house can be seen, and _is_ seen many times during the
morning’s service by Peggotty, who likes to make herself as sure as she
can that it’s not being robbed, or is not in flames.”[10] Dame Peggotty
was no doubt to some extent depicted from Charles Dickens’s nurse of
those days, Mary Weller, who afterwards married Thomas Gibson, a
shipwright in the dockyard, and whose death took place in 1888.
In the registers at Chatham Church are recorded the entries of the
baptism of three children born in the parish to John and Elizabeth
Dickens, the parents of the novelist; and Mary Allen, an aunt of
Charles, was married by license there on December 11, 1821, to Dr.
Lamert, a regimental surgeon, who afterwards figured in “Pickwick” as
Dr. Slammer. In the church registers may be found several names
subsequently used by Dickens in his stories—names of persons who lived
in the district—Sowerby (Sowerberry), Tapley, Wren, Jasper, Weller,
etc., the Tapleys and the Wellers being well-known cognomens, for there
are vaults in the church belonging to the former family, and a
gravestone in the churchyard erected to the latter. At the west end of
the church there are two inscriptions to the family of Stroughill, who
lived in Ordnance Terrace, and to whom reference has already been made.
The Vicar, in his appeal for subscriptions in aid of the restoration
fund, expressed a hope that the people of Chatham would contribute
towards the cost of a memorial in the church to Charles Dickens.
Apropos, I may mention that the Council of that flourishing institution
the Dickens Fellowship have, very rightly, approached the Corporation of
Chatham with the suggestion that they should place commemorative tablets
on the two houses in Chatham in which he spent some of the happiest
years of his boyhood, and the Corporation have consented.
[Illustration: 18 ST. MARY’S PLACE, THE BROOK, CHATHAM. (_Page 14._)
The Dickens family resided in the house next to Providence Chapel,
1821-1823.]
From an upper window at the side of the house, No. 18, St. Mary’s Place,
an old graveyard was plainly visible, and frequently at night little
Charles and his sister would gaze upon the God’s-acre and at the heavens
above from that point of vantage. Some thirty years later he recalled
the circumstances in a poetical little story entitled “A Child’s Dream
of a Star,”[11] a touching reminiscence of these early days, where he
says: “There was once a child, and he strolled about a good deal, and
thought of a number of things. He had a sister, who was a child too, and
his constant companion. These two used to wonder all day long. They
wondered at the beauty of the flowers; they wondered at the height and
blueness of the sky; they wondered at the depth of the bright water;
they wondered at the goodness and the power of God who made the lovely
world.
“They used to say to one another sometimes, Supposing all the children
upon earth were to die, would the flowers and the water and the sky be
sorry? They believed they would be sorry. For, said they, the buds are
the children of the flowers, and the little playful streams that gambol
down the hillsides are the children of the water, and the smallest
bright specks playing at hide-and-seek in the sky all night must surely
be the children of the stars; and they would all be grieved to see their
playmates, the children of men, no more.
“There was one clear shining star that used to come out in the sky
before the rest, near the church spire, above the graves. It was larger
and more beautiful, they thought, than all the others, and every night
they watched for it, standing hand in hand at a window. Whoever saw it
first cried out, ‘I see the star!’ and often they cried out both
together, knowing so well when it would rise, and where. So they grew to
be such friends with it that, before lying down in their beds, they
always looked out once again to bid it good-night; and when they were
turning round to sleep they used to say, ‘God bless the star!’”
[Illustration: FORT PITT, CHATHAM. (_Page 18._)
The playground of Dickens in his childhood, and the scene of the
duel in “Pickwick.”]
The Chatham days were replete with innocent delights for little Charles,
whose young life overflowed with the happiness resulting therefrom. He
and his schoolfellows often went to see the sham fights and siege
operations on the “Lines,” and he enjoyed many a ramble with his sister
and nurse in the fields about Fort Pitt; and “the sky was so blue, the
sun was so bright, the water was so sparkling, the leaves were so green,
the flowers were so lovely, and they heard such singing birds and saw so
many butterflies, that everything was beautiful.” In “The Child’s
Story,” whence these extracts are culled, we find the following
undoubted allusions to some of the juvenile pleasures in which the
children indulged while at Chatham: “They had the merriest games that
ever were played.... They had holidays, too, and ‘twelfth-cakes,’ and
parties where they danced till midnight, and real theatres, where they
saw palaces of real gold and silver rise out of the real earth, and saw
all the wonders of the world at once. As to friends, they had such dear
friends and so many of them that I want the time to reckon them up.”[12]
At home there were picture-books and toys—“the finest toys in the world
and the most astonishing picture-books”—and, above all, in the little
room adjoining his bedchamber a small library, consisting of the works
of Fielding, Smollett, Defoe, Goldsmith, the “Arabian Nights,” and
“Tales of the Genii,” which the boy perused with avidity over and over
again. “They kept alive my fancy,” he said, as David Copperfield, “and
my hope of something beyond that place and time ... and did me no harm,
for whatever harm was in some of them was not there for me; _I_ knew
nothing of it.”[13] In referring afterwards to the “readings” and
“imaginations” which he described as brought away from Chatham, he again
observes with David: “The picture always rises in my mind of a summer
evening, the boys at play in the churchyard, and I, sitting on my bed,
reading as if for life. Every barn in the neighbourhood, every stone in
the church, and every foot of the churchyard, had some association of
its own in my mind connected with these books, and stood for some
locality made famous in them”[14]—words that were written down as fact
some years before they found their way into the story.
Happily for the boy, he remained in ignorance of the changes impending
at home, and unconscious of the fact that he was about to relinquish for
ever the delectations afforded by those daily visions of his childhood;
the ships on the Medway, the military paradings and manœuvres, the woods
and pastures, the delightful walks with his father to Rochester and
Cobham—all were to vanish, as Forster says, “like a dream”; for in 1822
John Dickens was recalled to Somerset House, and in the winter of that
year he departed by coach for London, accompanied by his wife and
children, excepting Charles, who was left behind for a few weeks longer
in the care of the worthy schoolmaster, William Giles. Presently the day
arrived when the lonesome lad followed his parents to the Metropolis,
leaving behind him, alas! everything that gave his “ailing little life
its picturesqueness or sunshine”; for he was really a very sickly boy,
and for that reason unable to join with zest in the more vigorous sports
of his playfellows, which explains his fondness for reading, so unusual
in lads of his age.
Little Charles was only ten years old when he bade farewell to Chatham,
and took his place as a passenger in the stage-coach “Commodore.” “There
was no other inside passenger,” he afterwards observed, “and I consumed
my sandwiches in solitude and dreariness, and it rained hard all the
way, and I thought life sloppier than I expected to find it.” Like
Philip Pirrip, he might with more justice have thought that henceforth
he “was for London and greatness.” Undoubtedly he experienced the same
sensations as those of that youthful hero who, under similar
circumstances, realized that “all beyond was so unknown and great that
in a moment with a strong heave and sob I broke into tears.”[15]
Reminiscences of that memorable journey are recorded in one of that
charming series of papers contributed by him to _All the Year Round_
under the general title of “The Uncommercial Traveller.” Dickens here
calls his boyhood’s home “Dullborough”—“most of us come from Dullborough
who come from a country town”—informing us that as he left the place “in
the days when there were no railways in the land,” he left it in a
stage-coach, and further takes us into his confidence by saying that he
had never forgotten, nor lost the smell of, the damp straw in which he
was packed, “like game, and forwarded, carriage paid, to the Cross Keys,
Wood Street, Cheapside, London.” These words were written in June, 1860,
and a few months later, when penning the twentieth chapter of “Great
Expectations,” he again recalled the episode: “The journey from our town
to the Metropolis was a journey of about five hours. It was a little
past mid-day when the four-horse stage-coach by which I was a passenger
got into the ravel of traffic frayed out about the Cross Keys, Wood
Street, Cheapside, London.... The coach that had carried me away was
melodiously called ‘Timpson’s Blue-Eyed Maid,’ and belonged to Timpson,
at the coach-office up-street.... Timpson’s was a moderate-sized
coach-office (in fact, a little coach-office), with an oval transparency
in the window, which looked beautiful by night, representing one of
Timpson’s coaches in the act of passing a milestone on the London road
with great velocity, completely full inside and out, and all the
passengers dressed in the first style of fashion, and enjoying
themselves tremendously.” He found, on a later visit to Rochester and
Chatham, that Timpson’s had disappeared, for “Pickford had come and
knocked Timpson’s down,” and “had knocked two or three houses down on
each side of Timpson’s, and then had knocked the whole into one great
establishment....”[16] The late Mr. Robert Langton states that Timpson
was really Simpson (the coach proprietor at Chatham), and that the
“Blue-Eyed Maid” was a veritable coach, to which reference is also made
in the third chapter of “Little Dorrit.”
If, as Forster tells us, the “Commodore,” and not the “Blue-Eyed Maid,”
conveyed little Charles to London, it was the identical vehicle by which
Mr. Pickwick and his companions travelled from the Golden Cross at
Charing Cross to Rochester, as duly set forth in the opening chapter of
“The Pickwick Papers”; this coach was driven by old Cholmeley (or
Chumley), who is said to have been the original of Tony Weller, and
concerning whom some amusing anecdotes are related in “Nimrod’s Northern
Tour.”
[Illustration: THE GOLDEN CROSS, CHARING CROSS, CIRCA 1827. (_Page
22._)
Showing the hotel as it was in the Pickwickian days.
_From a print in the collection of Councillor Newton, Hampstead._]