Charles Dickens' England

it was the best of times it was the worst of times [Music] you can break his heart it's now you so saying it it's a valentine i'm a very humble person the happiness of young people has ever been the chief pleasure of my life it is a far far better thing that i do than i've ever done when we think about different periods in british history we tend to refer to them by the names of the monarchs reigning at the time george and victorian edwardian elizabethan but there are also two writers who have achieved instant recognition one of course is william shakespeare the other is charles dickens i'm going to take you on a journey through charles dickens england to find out how much of his world still remains and to see the places that informed and inspired this remarkable man [Music] it all started modestly enough here in portsmouth britain's principal home of the royal navy and thankfully still the home of several treasures from dickens earliest days [Music] i've come to one mile and terrace landport porzi now 393 old commercial road and the home of the dickens birthplace museum welcome to portsmouth thank you and welcome to charles dickens house saved from demolition back in 1976 thanks to the tireless work of the dickens fellowship charles john huffman dickens was born here on friday the 7th of february 1812 and though no one was yet aware of it sotu was born the age we now call dickensian charles was the second child of john and elizabeth dickens and his father worked here as a clerk in the naval pay office in portsmouth dockyard and this is the safe to held the pay of all the employees of the royal navy based here today it houses important artifacts from the maryroo ship excavation originally in saint mary's church portsy and now to be found here in the coppner parish church of saint alban this was the 15th century font used to christen the infant charles dickens and there you have it uh our font the dickens font in which charles dickens was baptized along with one of our other great sons the great engineer isambard kingdom brunel following the duke of wellington's victory over napoleon and no longer needed at portsmouth dockyard john dickins was posted to the royal navy administrative headquarters at somerset house in london in 1815 [Music] aged only three charles briefly moved here 10 norfolk street now 22 cleveland street london w1 this was an area for modest working families very much on the fringes of basic survival but after two years john dickens was again relocated this time to the naval pay office here in chatham kent and the family eventually settled into number two ordnance terrace chatham of the day like portsmouth was a powerhouse for the navy dickens would have observed the constant bustle of ships and sailors coming and going from all parts of the world activity for his young imagination to start germinating [Music] this is the pay office in chatham dockyard where john dickens took up his new post the young charles would have played on those very steps it's now in the process of being renovated back to its former glory dickens loved the weekend walks he used to take with his father upon whom the character of mr micawber was significantly based and on one such walk gads hill place at heil has pointed out and dickens was told that uh if he worked very hard he might one day own such a place dickens would never forget those words immediately next to chatham is rochester the two are inextricably linked and are often referred to as the medway towns both were to have a profound effect upon charles's life and his work although not his actual birthplace the medway towns were as his friend an eventual biographer john foster says the birthplace of his fancy or imagination and his thoughts always returned here in his writings charles's joy in learning was nurtured in a school run by william giles who recognized the little boy's abilities and gave him great encouragement this was the happiest time of dickens childhood becoming intimately familiar with the medway area so profound was the effect on his young imagination he used the people and places he had seen as a boy as characters and settings for his novels bull hotel rochester featured in the pickwick papers and great expectations this is eastgate house built 1590 rechristened westgate house for bigwig papers and the nuns house a school for young ladies in the mystery of edwin drood dickens described jasper's gatehouse and mr topezas as if they were one linked by a connecting door this house features an uncle pumblechook's corn chandler's business and house in great expectations and also in the mystery of edwin drewed as the officers of mr sapsi an auctioneer this is the guild hall which treated as the court where pit was brought by mr pumblechook to be bound over as an apprentice to joe gargery [Music] writers and historians often talk of dickens's london but equal prominence should surely be given to the county of kent rochester cathedral also featured in the pickwick papers and will be used once again as a setting in the mystery of edwin drude it's often believed that dickens borrowed the names of some of his characters from the headstones in local graveyards here for instance is a memorial to a family called dorit possibly inspiration for little dorit it isn't spelt in the same way but it's certainly pronounced in the same way [Music] this is james church cooling a few miles from rochester and right on the edge of the marshes it's changed little since dickens time in the first chapter of great expectations magwitch had just escaped from a prison hulk out on the estuary over there dickens describes pip standing over the grave with five stone lozenges each one and a half feet long representing his five brothers but here we actually have thirteen children's graves they were all from two families the comports and the bakers and they all died from marsh fever and incidentally the name magwitch is a variation of a common old portsmouth name madge wick madgwick dickens was very good at putting all this stored up knowledge to eventual effect oh noise cried a terrible voice as a man started up from among the graves at the side of the church porch keep still your little devil or i'll cut your throat a fearful man all in coarse grave with a great iron on his leg a man with no hats and with broken shoes and with an old rag tied around his head a man who had been soaked in water and smothered in mud and lamed by stones and cut by flints and stung by nettles and torn by briars who limped and shivered and glared and growled and whose teeth chattered in his head as he sees me by the chin oh don't cut my throat sir i pleaded in terror pray don't do it sir tell us your name said the man quick pip sir once more said the man staring at me give me mouth pink pips in june 1822 at the age of 10 dickens dickens's idyllic childhood came to an abrupt end when his father was posted back to london although charles was permitted to remain at his much-loved william giles's school for a few further months after the family left for london he eventually joined them after a most unpleasant coach trip he describes the damp straw in the coach into which he was packed like game and forwarded carriage paid to the cross keys wood street cheap side london in great expectations pip would also endured a five hour coach journey arriving at precisely this location it's interesting to note that the the lively happy stories he was the country up tend to reflect his idyllic countryside childhood whereas the dark grave tales are more often set within the unforgiving heart of city life young charles was about to discover this in what was to become for him a very difficult a very bleak time [Music] just over there was number 16 bam street camden of course nowadays is considered almost city center but in 1822 to the 10 year old charles dickens it was filthy and on the very fringes of the city dickens was later to describe the beyond street house as a mean small tenement with a wretched little back garden a butting on a squallied court it was thought to be the inspiration for bob cratchit's house in a christmas carol john and elizabeth dickens had by this time seven children in all but two died in infancy another would be born later with such a large dependent family john dickens was finding it very hard to make ends meet so two days after his 12th birthday young charles had to go out and look for some work he found it here at one's blacking factory a ramshackle old building that overlooked the thames he later described it as the last house on the left-hand side of the way at hungerford stairs my work was to cover the pots of paste blacking first with a piece of oil paper and then with a piece of blue paper to tie them around with a string and then to clip the paper close and neat all round until it looks as smart as a pot appointment from an apothecary shop 8 a.m to 8 p.m monday to saturday six shillings a week and in full public view hungerford stairs and the whole hungerford market area was demolished in 1860 in preparation for the construction of chairing cross railway station as for charles's treasured education during this time it simply ceased the fact he would resent for the rest of his life to add to his woes a fortnight after child started work at warrens in 1824 john dickens entered the marshall c prison for a debt of 40 pounds and 10 shillings between 1329 and 1842 the marshall sea prison housed smugglers mutineers and most of all debtors all that remains of this infamous institution is this wall and the original grill at the charles dickens museum in doughty street soon after most of the rest of the family also joined him for economic reasons and not unusual practice at the time [Music] in those days a man would be imprisoned for debt and he wouldn't be released until he'd repaid the debt in full but in order to earn money to pay the debt back he had to work and of course being in prison that was impossible it was a ludicrous situation and without outside assistance a family could be condemned to permanent incarceration prisons dominate it in stories with fagin in his condemned cell mr micawber and william doric whose circumstances closely mirror those of john dickens in his preface to little gareth dickens states that whoever visits this site will be standing with the crowded ghosts of many miserable years [Music] charles was the only one capable of breaking this cycle of debt so he took lodgings at 37 little college street camden now he built his college place but this separation from his family and the long walk to warrens became too much for the boy to bear so lodgings were found for him here in lance street southwark so that the beginning and the end of his working day he could spend time with his family in the prison charles later recalled when i took possession of my new abode i thought it was paradise after 14 weeks john dickens inherited enough money in a legacy from his mother to discharge his debts and to leave the marshwood sea prison however financial uncertainties still unleashed an endless succession of relocations in 1824 the dickens family had undergone just such a move to gower street north afterwards the family settled in 29 johnson street summerstown now cranley street they were there till 1827 when they were evicted for non-payment they moved around the corner to the polygon clarendon square and then in 1829 it was back to norfolk street then to 15 fitzroy street now number 25 and very much changed since dickey's day followed in 1833 to 18 benting street and so it went on [Music] most days while working at warren's factory he would have passed the adelphi arches originally built during the 1770s and comprising 24 riverside terraced houses the newly constructed victoria embankment then blocked its view and by 1838 the royal terrace was demolished dickens would later use the arches in david copperfield who recounts i was fond of wandering about the adelphi because it was a mysterious place with those dark arches well all that remains is one solitary arch it was while dickens was working at warren's blacking factory that he'd moved just across the strand to here chandelle street coven garden fortunately for charles his father insisted he resumed his education here at the wellington house academy in hampstead road and although it was to be short-lived it rescued him from a life of manual drudgery following his schooling charles then began the rigorous process of self-education it was to inform his entire professional life on his 18th birthday he obtained a reader's ticket to the british museum educating himself in its reading room [Music] dickens was also at liberty to socialize visiting his uncle thomas barrow here at 10 gerald street you lived in the upper house of a bookseller the bookseller mr manson had died in 1812 but his wife carried on the business and one of the many treasures she lent the curious young dickens was george coleman's broad grins which contained many descriptions of london life and characters i wonder what dickens would make of gerard street now years later mr jaggers of great expectations would also reside in gerard street possibly in the same house another enticement lay here at prince henry's room fleet street built in 1610 it is one of the few inns to survive the fire of london and later became mrs salmon's wax works a favorite visit for the young dickens in 1827 dickens entered the world of adult employment he became a junior clerk in a firm of solicitors called elias and blackmore but the drudgery of the work prompted him to teach himself shorthand the gurney system in order to pursue a career in journalism the phonetics of this system of shorthand helped to train his ear to the idiosyncrasies of speech that he was to use for the characters he created it was here on the site of doctors commons in the shadow of saint paul's cathedral the charles became a newspaper reporter hearing cases dealing with ecclesiastical admiralty probate and divorce matters although doctors commons was abolished years later it provided experience while i was waiting for a vacancy to arise at the house of commons for dickens to become a parliamentary reporter by 1832 charles had joined the parliamentary staff reporting for his uncle john barrow's periodical the mirror of parliament roy hattersley a former member of parliament has an insider's view on dickens during this period while he was here the two great events were first of all the great reformers of 1832 which made elections a bit more democratic but not very much and the terrible terrible terrible 1834 poor law reform act which made poverty a crime which intended to punish the paupers by not giving them outdoor relief but sending them into workouts at the beginnings of the great workout movement workouts which we intended to be brutal unpleasant because the paupers were responsible for their own poverty why do you think that um dickens focus on social problems was more effective than several other writers dickens wrote about great issues in a humorous way and that made them more accessible not just more accessible because you could read it week by week in a magazine but he was intellectually more accessible the great example is political corruption many 19th century writers wrote about by-elections being corrupt most famously troll up in fitness finn the silver bridge by-election which were little account of a violent controller but fought in whole but when dickens writes about a violent corruption eaton's will in frequent papers it's funny yeah i mean it's hideously corrupt people are having beer poured down until they're too drunk to know they're voting for they're being bribed they're being bullied but what is hideously correct what it's a scandal it's also a humorous scandal and this this was much more accessible much more digestible and therefore people laugh and that the sort of when they've had a day to think about it there's something wrong with that that's what they're doing they realize i think you really believed in the need to reform uh others recognize it in an intellectual sort of way but i said they could felt something in here that's wrong about the way the poor retreat and the weather disadvantage but he wrote about it but he didn't actually do anything about it did he he just do attention to it he threw a spotlight on him but i think i think that drawing attention to it is doing something about it i think it may well be that he did more about it than people in there of course people in there were doing very little about it until 1906 until the first great reforming radical liberal government people in there didn't think the welfare of the poor was their responsibility well thank you it's a pleasure by 1830 his love life was flourishing through his relationship with his first serious sweetheart mariah bidnall the inspiration for dora in david copperfield her father managed the banking house of smith payne and smith just here at one lombard street now a restaurant [Music] she was something of a flirt and their stormy courtship ended after three years it was a painful rejection and dickens was deeply affected by it he vowed never again to lay himself open to such vulnerability thank you [Music] nevertheless he did write of her i have never and can never love another human creature breathing but you perhaps he was right cheers [Music] during these unsettling times charles age 20 even applied to the stage manager of the covent garden theater for an audition to become an actor fortunately for literature he was too ill to keep the appointment there is a story possibly apocryphal that years later when dickens was giving one of his public readings a stagehand went up to him and said oh mr dickens what a loss it was to the stage when you took to writing books this was the time when the young dickens began to hone his observations of the curiosities that populated the capital streets he also visited the theaters regularly as well as perfecting his mimicry to the great amusement of his colleagues this desire to be involved in the theater would never leave him this is johnson's court named after dr johnson the compiler of the first english dictionary sweeney todd the demon barber had a shop just around the corner seems to be a wedding going on charles dickens later recounted that he dropped stealthy one evening at twilight with fear and trembling into a dark letterbox in a dark office up a dark court in fleet street the anonymous short story manuscript of a dinner at poplar walk his very first published story albeit unpaid although the court still remains sadly the building is long gone by this time as well as joining the morning chronicle the chief rival to the times under the pseudonym balls charles had also written 12 sketches for belle's life of london but more importantly 20 street sketches for the evening chronicle edited by george hogarth his future father-in-law in 1834 age 22 charles left his father's house in benting street with the intention of starting a home of his own renting chambers at 13 fernando's inn in hoban later moving to 15 for more space as he contemplated marriage a mere three months after meeting george hogarth's daughter catherine who was physically a very liked mariah beadle although she lacked her coquettish nature charles and catherine were engaged and so smitten was he that he took on extra lodgings that sell with terrace in bomtom in order to be closer to her this is seven dials but i've arranged to meet adrian wooden an expert on dickens and the criminality that fascinated him derek what a delightful pleasure to meet you too welcome to seven dollars and uh now of course a bustling tourism theater fashion restaurant area but not in dickens day not at all in the 1830s and 1840s was part of one of the greatest most unpleasant slums in london and this was a scene of depravity vice and poverty he talked about the first time a visitor came to seventales the way in which their curiosity would be endlessly satisfied by peering down one of these alleyways and he was appalled and fascinated simultaneously by what he witnessed it gave him an opportunity to write and rail about social injustice he talked about watching the the filthy men the dirty women the squalid children the reeking pipes the noisy battle doors he talked about the bad fruit the more than dubious oysters and the attenuated cats and depressing dogs we would not have felt comfortable at all in this area um and it stayed like this actually until the really the the kind of latter part of the 19th century early 20th century before the area was completely changed into what we now recognize as seven dolls but i think you know having sort of scared ourselves probably we should we should move on on the 2nd of april 1836 charles age 24 and catherine aged 20 married here at st luke's church chelsea their first home together as a married couple involved to move to somewhat larger rooms at number 15 fernival's inn where they were joined by catherine's younger sister mary aged 16 to whom dickens was devoted as well as frederick charles's brother [Music] dickens was to discover that catherine did not have the temperament to suit the energy of her husband it was as if she had been tied to the tail of a comet [Music] and this is cradduck's cottage in chalk in kent its plaque claims it was charles dickens honeymoon cottage a short fortnight which turned out to be the only brief time they were ever alone together throughout their entire married life whilst there dickens was well advanced in the writing of the posthumous papers of the pickwick club or the pickwick papers so in the late 1830s mid to late dickens had really started to make a name for himself he'd obviously written the sketches the vignettes of london life and it would become sketches by boss he was paid 150 pounds an enormous sun and everybody wanted to know benjamin israeli politicians men of state other novelists and that fired him to start writing the installments for what would become his first novel which we would of course later know as the people of the papers he'd been contracted to work with an artist called robert seymour who'd actually come up with the original idea for the pickpick papers but dickens the young turk the man about town very quickly as usurped the authority of seymour and was dictating what he wanted and what he didn't want the illustrations and was actually unhappy with seymour's work seymour got very upset and through a combination of a whole range of other circumstances then shot himself so they immediately had to get another illustrator and they had a kind of competition about illustrators and all these illustrators running around including thackery all desperate to get this job and in fact a chap called hablot brown did get the job illustrated the pickwick papers and became one of the most important creative collaborators of dickens life under the name of fizz in pigwik papers there were many locations easily recognizable to all of its readers in covent garden then london's wholesale fruit and vegetable market job trotter spent the night in a vegetable basket before pickwick's release [Music] jack bamberg a lawyer's clerk told mr pickwick many stories of the inns of court especially inn which crops up again and again later on in dickens in little dorit our mutual friend and bleak house here at the spaniards in hampstead mrs and master bardel spent the afternoon with mrs randall mr rattle and friends but having been tracked down by mr jackson clark of dobson and fogg mrs bardell was conveyed to the fleet prison on account of the costs of the trial of bardel versus pickwick dickens had visited east anglia in january 1835 to report on election nominations for the morning chronicle and was familiar with the angel hotel later using it in the pickwick papers [Music] the coach rattled through the well-paved streets of a handsome little town of thriving and cleanly appearance and stopped before a large inn situated in a wide open street nearly facing the old abbey and this said mr pickwick looking up is the angel this is the leather bottle in cobham kent the clean commodious village ale house where the pig wikians came in search of tracy tupman today it's a must-see for the keynesians with its store of memorabilia ah thelma hello hello i take it you're reading dickens yeah of course of course and what else but the pickwick papers dickens is first great success which made him famous from the age of 24 and of course scenes set here in the leather bottle this is the sauce and stone with a rather cryptic inscription mr pickwick said to a man standing by is the stone very old it must be very precious and the man said well but who would buy it but mr pickwick bought it he thought he'd made a very great antiquarian discovery he took the stone to london and published a pamphlet about it but his enemy mr blotton if the pickwick club came down to cobham found the same man and said well what about this stone so the man said well the stone is old but i carved that inscription it says bill stumps his mark and i have fallen into the trap when someone asked me whether it was the original stone of saying oh no it can't be because mr pickwick took back to london hard as it may be the first installment of the pickwick papers appearing as it did in monthly serial form and earning the dickens 14 pounds a month was nobody successful only 400 copies were printed but by issue number four and the introduction of the character of sam weller all that had changed by the end sales had increased to 40 000 copies thank you very much i'm on my way to the georgian vulture which featured in the picnic papers and when i've arranged to meet dr tony williams an expert on dickens's life and work this is uh one of dicken's favorite watering holes i'm telling you it's a place he would very much have recognized if he was joining us for lunch today yes it really really feels dickensian it was implicit papers that he he particularly made use of the georgian vulture and when mr pickwick could no longer stay at his lodgings in goswell street with mrs bardell because the breach of promise case was coming on at the guild hall and at one point one of the other characters says to him i say old boy where do you hang out to which mr pickwick replies that he was at present suspended at the george and vulture this is number 48 dowty street which is now the charles dickens museum it's it's been a museum since 1925 but between 1837 and 1839 it was where charles dickens lived so shall we go and have a look see what's there this is the dining room um dickens was very keen on entertaining and he would have had dinner parties here with the circle of friends that he developed people of literary and theatrical and political importance there's one of these letters on display at the moment where he's inviting someone to come to dinner and he says that amongst the company there will be forster that's his friend and eventual biographer john foster but also a man named zachary and it's the bringing together of these two giants of 19th century literature in this room around the dinner table we talked about nicholas nicholbe being the novel which really belongs to this this place and the portrait over the fireplace is known as the nickleby portrait it's a portrait that was done to celebrate the fact that that novel was so successful and looking at that portrait it's again a very very valuable reminder that the dickens we should be thinking about at 48 dowty street is not the old man with the beard who used to be on our 10 pound note no it's a very young man yeah a young man who is something of a regency dandy a taste in um brightly colored waistcoats which stayed with him all his life and he loved bright colors when charles and catherine dickens came to 48 delta street in april of 1837 they came with their baby son there were two other births which happened in this house the births of their next two children two daughters mary and then katie very close to the young married couple was catherine hogarth's sister her younger sister mary on the 6th of may 1837 which is about a month after they've moved in the three of them had gone to the theater gone to the west end and they came back after a very very enjoyable evening spent together mary came up the stairs there was a scream they rushed after her to see what had happened she collapsed she died the next day in dickens's arms she was 17. the impact on on dickens was enormous for the first time ever in his professional career as a writer he failed to meet the publisher's deadline for that monthly installment well this is dickens's study and this is of course where all the work went on and it's now devoted to a series of displays about dickens as a writer about his methods of work and about the way the books were produced and perhaps one of the most interesting amongst them is is this bookcase here which is the dr henry collection which contains dickens's novels in their original monthly part issues and memories of dickens of course go on a long time the reactions to his death in all different kinds of art forms were phenomenal the picture on the wall there at the top it's called the empty chair and it's a graphic response to dickens's death it was done very soon after the the event uh and it shows dickens's working desk but perhaps one of the most memorable of the memorials to dickens comes in this painting here which is called dickens's dream and what it does is present dickens surrounded by images of characters from his novels people spend a lot of time coming and trying to identify which character is which even before the pickwick papers was completed dickens began writing oliver twist demonstrating his ability to work on several projects simultaneously once again drawing upon familiar landscapes the old london bridge that used to stand here was called upon to serve his story as it would time and again in future in oliver twist nancy was unfortunate enough to be overheard by noah claypo making her disclosures to mr brownlow at the bottom of the original steps thus sealing her wretched fate so this is the site of what was once known as jacob's island a place of poison depravity toxic fumes vast overcrowding awful wooden houses piled one on top of each other and people stuffed in them where the air was unfit to breathe the place where the cholera outbreaks of 1832 and 1848 started here and was such a frightening place that dickens only came under the protection of the river police so that he could look around and use it as the the terrible inspiration for fagin's den and particularly sykes's lair it was a vision of hell and a hell that wasn't removed until the 1880s with the slum clearance and then finally the blitz finished it off thankfully in world war ii leaving the way for this completely different environment that doesn't in any way look like the place that dickens once came to and inspired him [Music] oliver twist trudged along behind bill sykes here at hoban viaduct on their way to the chessy crib and at the clock of saint andrews church he was told it was hard upon seven and you must step out [Music] this is saffron street ec one the site of fagin's lair in oliver twist and although much of it has been rebuilt it was heavily bombed during the war it still retains that sinister feeling you can easily imagine the artful dodger charlie baits the urchins making their way home after a day's picking up pockets charles dickens was just 25 years old when oliver twist was published and although this and the pickwick papers are undoubtedly great novels they were just the beginning of his extraordinary career the best was yet to come dickens was always capable of great outrage great anger at social abuses and inequalities and in the early 19th century one particular national scandal struck a special cord with him the one thing that we guaranteed to make dickens angry was the ill-treatment of children and in the late 1830s there was much in the air about certain schools in yorkshire now of course some of these schools were good honest institutions but equally there were those run by ruffians and charlatans purely for profit they subjected the pupils to a regime of brutality and horror often resulting in disease blindness even death when dickens heard of these appalling abuses he decided to travel incognito to the north with his illustrator hablo knight brown to research the situation in dickens's time the school that he visited was in yorkshire but due to subsequent boundary changes the area is now encountered down dickinson brown traveled for two days by stagecoach from london and delighted at greta bridge very late on the second day [Music] posing as the friend of a widowed mother who wanted to place her child in such an institution dickens arranged to visit the then bowles academy school for gentlemen headmaster one william shaw later immortalized by dickens as mr squears in nicholas nickleby as well as providing utterly squalid living conditions and very little education several of shaw's pupils had actually gone blind due to gross neglect his next creation was already taking shape nicholas nickleby past seven nickleby said mr squares this morning come already asked nicholas sitting up in bed now nickelback come tumble up will you oh he is a pretty go said that gentleman the pumps froze you can't wash yourself this morning not wash myself extreme nicholas no not a bit of it rejoin squares tartly so you must be content with giving yourself a dry polish till we break the ice in the well and can get a bookify out for the boys and this is shaw's grave as grasping even in death as he was in life his headstone is unsurprisingly larger than anyone else's and hidden under this tree is the grave of george ashton taylor who died whilst a pupil at the academy when dickins saw this he wrote the country for miles around was covered when i was there with deep snow there is an old church near the school and the first gravestone i stumbled on that dreary winter afternoon was placed above the grave of a boy eighteen long years old who had died suddenly the inscription said i suppose his heart broke the camel falls down suddenly when they heaped the last load on his back died at that wretched place i think his ghost put smike into my head upon the spot back in london this is the neighborhood where the kenwig's family lived and newman noggs and nicholas nickleby found lodgings ralph nickleby lived in a spacious house here in golden square [Music] this is eel pie island in the middle of the thames at twickenham middlesex and you know even now it evokes an atmosphere i'm sure dickens would have recognized [Music] um [Music] these two land-based boats now used by artists and studios are a modern echo of mr peggotty's house in david copperfield [Music] it had come to pass that afternoon that miss molina kenwigs had received an invitation to repair next day per steamer from westminster bridge unto the eel pie island of twickenham there to make merry upon a cold collation bottle beer shrub and shrimps and to dance in the open air to the music of a locomotive band the river thames is london's main artery and so it is in some ways for charles dickens and his stories in our mutual friend all the misery the poverty the corruption all stem from london's riverside that felt an echo of the misery dickens himself felt when he was working on the riverside warren's blacking factory the grotesque dwarf quilt in the old curiosity shop is drowned with the water playing with his corpse dragging it with a mud and a long grass and finally dumping it onto a swamp to rot and fester mother endle in david copperfield tries to drown herself in the thames in december 1839 charles and his family moved into number one devonshire terrace regions park this magnificent home propelled him into living in the smartest area of his life but of course it reflected his newfound wealth and popularity this mural commemorating dickens and the characters he created while he was living here now runs alongside this 1960s office block which stands in its place between 1839 and 1851 he worked tirelessly creating barnaby rudge martin chuzzlewitz a christmas carol zombie and son and david copperfield and this one is little mel and her grandfather from the old curiosity shop at the end of the old curiosity shop dickens writes the old house had been long ago pulled down and a fine broad road was in its place as you will see from its very bold statement the shop across the road claims to be the shop immortalized by dickens it was not however it is definitely a curiosity and an increasingly rare example of a shot dating from 1567. [Music] very curious the reason dickens was so familiar with that particular old curiosity shop is that he would have passed it many times on his way to this house just around the corner at 58 lincoln's inn fields it was the home of john foster a man dickens had met on christmas day 1836 who became his closest friend as well as his future biographer on december the 3rd 1844 dickens gave a reading here in this room for a few friends it was one of a series of christmas books called the chimes which he'd written while he was touring genoa in italy it was the first time that he'd ever read any of his work to an audience the previous year he'd written perhaps one of his most popular christmas stories of all a christmas carol dickens has often been described as the man who invented our modern christmas through his stories rediscovering old english customs that might otherwise have died out in a christmas carol it was here at the royal exchange that every day along with other businessmen was to be found ebenezer scrooge business cried the ghost ringing its hands again mankind was my business the common welfare was my business charity mercy tolerance and forbearance where all my business the dealings of my trade about a drop of water in the comprehension ocean of my business the royal exchange also saw service as a venue for pip and herbert pocket in great expectations quilt in the old curiosity shop and flintwich in little dorritt and once scrooge had passed through his extraordinary life with the three christmas spirits the chimes from saint dunstan's clock in fleet street would have been amongst those that awoke into his new life the same clock the david copperfield and his aunt stopped at to watch the giant strike of bells at noon [Music] of all the public readings the hins would come to adapt a christmas carol was by far the most popular of all with audiences during the writing of a christmas carol he would walk through the streets of london for many miles working out the story in his mind dickens was a prolific walker in his early life it was out of necessity but later on when he could afford less arduous means of transport he still strode huge distances durham to sunderland yarmouth to lowestoft london to rochester [Music] dickens left england in 1844-45 to spend time in italy and switzerland there the formulation for a new novel was taking shape zombie and sun which he wrote outside lausanne on the shores of lake geneva in switzerland however whilst away he did comment that he had plucked himself out of his proper soil by leaving london and would not be able to write anything until he walked again through his beloved streets which he referred to as that magic lantern after switzerland and a further two months exploring paris the family returned to london staying here at number one chester place between 1846 and 1848 dombian son appeared in monthly installments dickens was always possessed with a recurrent restlessness to move on to new surroundings in both his life and his writings [Music] on his own admission idleness unsettled even on holiday he stored up his observations as raw material for future works later on his reading engagements offered him the much welcomed opportunity to travel throughout the british isles and beyond at a time of the transition from stagecoach to rail dickens was surely one of the first widely traveled writers in the country and he absolutely loved it [Music] indeed so enthusiastic was his use of this new mode of transport that he would eventually write to his sister-in-law georgina hogarth and say i seem to be doing nothing all my life but riding in railway carriages and reading [Music] good morning welcome to highgate cemetery i'm roger one of the tour guides take you up these in 1848 after a lengthy decline in her health charles's sister fanny died she had been diagnosed with tuberculosis after collapsing at a party in manchester and charles had found lodgings for her and her husband in the village of hornsey where he visited her almost daily until she died our records show us that his sister family is buried in this area here as you can see it's become pretty overgrown over the years it's not exactly the temperature's been neglected but certain areas have been cleared and certain areas haven't and it's also quite difficult for the descendants of the people buried here you know particularly if they're buried 100 150 years ago it's difficult for people to identify shall we say with their ancestors i mean for example dickens himself would probably have descendants living today around here but perhaps they're not aware that fanny lies here i think over the years um what has happened time has passed uh the past is retreating from us all the times turn your back the gravestone will fall over the ivy will invade ashes to ashes dust to dust that's what it's all about [Music] perhaps it was fanny's death and thoughts of his own mortality that prompted the idea for his most autobiographical novel david copperfield following a holiday in broadstairs kent in 1837 a location he would return to many times in the coming years charles now unhappy with dowty street retreated here in order to finish nicholas nickleby dickens affectionately called broadstairs our english watering place hello uh lee alt welcome to dickinson you weren't expecting i was expecting you did you have a good journey very good thank you yes we're getting into this room here this is the famous parlor and when dickens visited here it was the home of a lady called mary pearson strong dickens inspiration for betsy trotwood in david copfield mary pearson strong was in her late 60s when the rather young handsome charles dickens age 27 first met her he obviously admired this rather elderly stiff in the back lady with a kind heart because he came back to see her many times and it was in this parlour that he waited for the famous words donkeys and because of course it was mary pearson strong who did not like the donkey boys going across what she considered was her property it would have been from here that he would have watched mary pick up her half brush and hit the donkey boys not the donkeys it was the boys she didn't like didn't like rude nasty smelly donkey boys she didn't like them that was it so dickens had david copperfield actually walking up the garden path when he'd run away from working in the factory so the black in factory and he'd run all the way down and he had very few clothes it was up that garden path where betsy chopwood went out to meet him and that's the famous bit where she sits down flat on the path oh yes yes and then she brought him in here and she laid him on the sofa just there and out of the press in the corner she brought all these weird remedies which she poured down his throat this is the beautiful bay it's lovely known in dickens time as main bay and you can imagine him watching the people on the beach running about in suits of buff no clothes in victorian time well this was very early victorian times and the bathing suit really didn't come into its own um until the beginning of the 1850s late 1840s so it would have been very natural for people to bathe and of course dickens talks about himself going in from his bathing machine and swimming like a salmon coloured podpoise yes and what about that house over there impressive known as bleak house but it's actually fault house it looks like a ford it doesn't i thought um because thomas barry who actually built it that way had a thing about castles and everything he built he put the casterations on top dickens wrote parts of american notes david copperfield there but not a word of bleak house did he write in or about bullsters and just behind us we have the albion hotel where dickens stayed on many occasions this is probably the room where dickens would have come and sat facing the sea inspiration for his writing yes it's beautiful he used to invite people to come to broadstairs for the sun the sea in the air and he talked about the sun sparkling on the water is there any particular novel associated with here in this part of the hotel nicholas nicolby yes because he would have visited this part when it was just a georgian house before it was incorporated by mr ballard into the hotel um so he would have been writing part of nicholas nicolby was it a very because it's a very posh place oh yes both uh brustes dickens considered to be rather a knobby place and he talks of dukes and duchesses riding in their carriages and things like that as compared to margate and ramsgate which were considered quite low they were the common they were the commoner had gone away to get the bath ready when my aunt to my great alarm became in one moment rigid with indignation and had hardly voiced to cry out janet donkeys upon which janet came running up the stairs as if the house were in flames darted out on a little piece of green in front and warned off two saddle donkeys lady ridden that are presumed to set hoof upon it well my aunt rushing out of the house seized the bridle of a third animal laden with a bestriding child turned him led him forth from those sacred precincts and boxed the ears of the unlucky urchin in attendance who had dared to profane that hallowed ground david copperfield also has connections with my next port of call on this journey the isle of wight [Music] dickens was always fascinated by water he features greatly in his personal life and in his novels his life was infused with what he called the splash and plop of the tide it always ran through his imagination whilst working on david copperfield in june 1849 dickens leased a house called winterbourne now in hotel here on the isle of wight this is the copperfield suite lovely thank you in the morning you'll see the little red squirrels and our resident pheasant okay gorgeous and we have the bedroom and slow bed through here so make yourself at home cheers no problem we'll see you later okay okay it's interesting to note that in both of the houses he lived in whilst writing david copperfield in broad stairs and here he sat at desks overlooking the sea the sea which features so greatly in the novel [Music] shanklin isle of wight monday night 16th of june 1849. my dear kate i have not had a moment just got back and the post going out i have taken the most delightful and beautiful house belonging to white at bond church cool airy private bathing everything delicious i think it is the prettiest place i ever saw in my life and may begin to dismantle devonshire terrace i have arranged carriage luggage everything we should be home most probably tomorrow night if i don't get back before john goes to bed tell him to leave the iron gate open that i may be able to ring him up if anything should occur to delay us until wednesday you will not be alarmed best loves to georgie and children the man with the post bag is swearing in the passage ever affectionately cd a waterfall on the grounds which i have arranged with a carpenter to convert into a perpetual shower bath dickens became an early exponent of the concept of personal hygiene bucking the victorian trend towards filth as a protection staving off ills sadly this is all that remains today concreted over and hidden by a garage more of a car wash than a shower bath but this was only a natural progression for dickens [Music] there was an old roman bath in those days at the bottom of one of the streets out of the strand in which i have had many a cold plunge [Music] it may still be there in london as a young boy dickens often visited this bath as did his character david copperfield but uh i don't think i'll be taking a plunge today now at the peak of his career and with an ever-growing family there were 10 children in all the lack of room in devonshire terrace prompted dickens to take a 45-year lease on tavistock house in bloomsbury since demolished and replaced by the offices of the british medical association in april 1851 his one-year-old daughter dora died just a fortnight after his own father's death both his parents were buried here in highgate cemetery as was one day his wife catherine [Music] following dora's death dickens set to work on bleak house which appeared in monthly installments between 1852 and 53 and once again dickens incorporated places familiar to him here at 26 newman street mr turvey drop a model of deportment had his dance academy staple in buildings dating from 1576 is another rarity to survive the fire of london dickens often mentioned how much he enjoyed the tranquility of staple inn and mr snagsby in bleak house loved to walk in staple in in the summertime and to observe how countrified the sparrows and leaves are it also features an edwin drood here in chancery lane old tom john dice blew his brains out in despair in 1855 dickens and his family took up residence here at number three albion villas foxton again overlooking the sea and it was during this day that he decided to give a public reading to assist in raising funds for the local institution the reading was of a christmas carol he insisted on reduced admission price for working men threatens as opposed to the standard price of five shillings nearly 600 people attended for the rest of his life dickens would regularly conduct public readings these rarely took place in theaters but in public halls assembly rooms and corn exchanges in towns and cities all across britain ireland and america arguably the finest remaining example of such venues is the sun george's hall liverpool dickens was a regular visitor these readings were eagerly anticipated in much the same way a concert by a leading pop star would be today they were exciting and hypnotic extremely dramatic and always sold out some observers noted that it was as if he were possessed by some of his characters such was the intensity and brilliance of his performance with his characteristic restlessness he threw himself into his next novel between 1855 and 1857 little dorit appeared in monthly installments [Music] and it was here at the george inn in the borough the only remaining gallery in in london that edward dorit wrote a begging letter to arthur clennan amy dorit loved to walk here on southern bridge indeed john chivery proposed to her here although that bridge was actually replaced by this one in 1912 and this was the hospital where john baptiste cavaletto was taken after being hit by the male coach enjoying such continued success dickens could now turn his attention to the fulfillment of his childhood dream the dream of purchasing a house that he and his father had passed many times on their walks gads hill place in 1856 he bought it for 1790 pounds he made several changes some of which still survived the restored conservatory and the false bookcase on the inside of the study door his move to north kent was a return to the ideal of his countryside childhood in nearby chatham this tunnel was constructed to join dickens's front garden with land he also owned on the other side of a busy road this was the chalet that once stood in the gardens of gadsville place dickens used to love writing in it it was a gift to him from an actor friend called charles fechter and it was one of dickens most prized possessions although his family was a constant drain upon him dickens was now a man of considerable wealth [Music] but he was also deeply unhappy in his marriage to the aging lethargic and frankly unloved catherine [Music] he was absorbed in another wilkie collins play the frozen deep which he partially rewrote and took the lead role of richard wardor [Music] there was a private performance for the queen prince albert and the king of belgium on tour the cast was joined by professional actresses mariah and ellen turner there were rumors of an affair between dickens and ellen by 1858 dickens and catherine had separated divorce of course was out of the question but from now on they lived apart gads hill place became his permanent home away from catherine she remained in london at number 70 gloucester crescent charles and ellen began a relationship which many believe was consummated in 1859 whilst working to dissolve his household words journal dickens was already determined to start its successor which he called all the year round its first issue contained the opening installment of a tale of two cities this publication had offices here in wellington street cotton garden dickens would also stay here when in london exterior thank you so how long have you lived here my family moved in in 2006 so a couple of years yeah and did you know that there was a connection with dickens we didn't know and there's there's a blue plaque on the on the on on the building itself yeah was that a selling point for you it was it was it's knowing that this great britain was really uh lived and worked in this building would you feel his presence does it does it uh you do to a degree yes yes and uh you have some original features such as his his uh fireplace which is still in in the building so sitting by that you feel that 150 years ago he was in that exact spot is actually very special we actually have here uh the original lease signed by charles dickens which went uh at auction uh for a considerable sum of money many thousands uh early earlier this year and what's the other one this is just a copy we found on uh of the publication uh of a tale of two cities serialized uh on the front cover so so just that brings it home as well the all year round is a very very popular journal yes they used to queue around the block though the new addition apparently so fascinating by 1860 disenchanted with tavistock house because of its unpleasant associations suffering rheumatism down his left side and neuralgia of the face both harbingers of a more serious illness which he chose to ignore dickens plans were interrupted by the sudden death of his brother alfred he immediately brought his brother's family to a cottage near gadsville place and it was in this transitional period that he launched into his next masterpiece great expectations it appeared in monthly installments between 1860 and 1861 joe's forger joined our house which was a wooden house as many of the dwellings in our country were most of them at that time this old forge in chalk kent is believed to be the inspiration for joe gargery's forge in great expectations [Music] this is restoration house in rochester used as the inspiration for miss havisham's house in great expectations [Music] in 1863 in an atmosphere permeated by the death of his hated mother-in-law mrs hogarth and a curious premonition of a funeral dickens learned that his son walter had died in calcutta after more than two years of attempting to write he began our mutual friend which appeared in weekly installments in the years 1864-65 the grapes public house was renamed the six jolly fellowship porters in our mutual friend in its whole constitution it had not straight floor and hardly a straight line but it had outlasted and would clearly yet outlast many a better trimmed building many a sprucer public house on the 9th of june 1865 dickens was returning from france by the beloy foxton ferry with him were adam turner and her mother and were seated in a first-class carriage just behind the guardsman at around 10 past three they were approaching the river belt near staplehurst in kent but unknown to the passengers on board they were traveling at 50 miles an hour towards some repair work that was being carried out on a viaduct and the rails had been removed the foreman in charge of the work had checked the wrong timetable so he wasn't expecting the title train for another two hours [Music] the flag man who was supposed to warn oncoming trains was only 550 yards from the construction site [Music] for him to have any positive effect he would have to have been much further down the line and so the engine driver although he saw the red flag and applied the brakes the stopping time wasn't enough and all the first-class carriages plunged into the void and then down into the river all that is except the carriage where dickens and his party were dickens carriage was saved purely by the weight of the second-class carriages behind it but it was left angling precariously over the bridge dickens age 53 managed to clamber out and help his friends to safety then he started to help the injured he came across one poor fellow with a cracked skull he gave him some brandy laid him out on the grass all the man said was i am gone and then he died there was a woman with her face and body covered with blood he gave her some brandy but she also died a fellow passenger described how dickens with his hat full of water was rushing about with it doing his best to revive and comfort any poor creature he met who suffered serious injury then as he was about to leave dickens remembered that the manuscript for the latest installment of our mutual friend was still inside the carriage that teetered precariously above the river so he climbed back inside to retrieve it and this dull looking concrete bridge now crosses the site of this tragic accident dickens was deeply affected by the experience and was thereafter extremely nervous of travel by rail which he tried to avoid as often as possible from then on in 1868 despite numerous warnings another grueling tour of america earned 20 000 pounds after expenses almost a million pounds in today's money but cost him dearly in declining health his doctors forced him to rest when he showed early signs of paralysis in his left side this park is called the vines and it features in dickens as monk's vineyard it's also the presumed route that pip took to visit miss havisham of course in dickens day it was a meadow and he was seen here leaning on a fence two days before he died [Music] even rochester castle which dickens knew very well from his childhood only reminded him of his own mortality he wrote i surveyed the massive ruin from the bridge and thought what a brief little practical joke i seem to be in comparison with its solidity stature strength and length of life [Music] after organizing theatricals for some of his friends dickens returned to cancel place on the 3rd of june to resume work on the mystery of edwin drude only six parts were ever published on the 8th of june after writing all day in his chalet he collapsed at 6 p.m whilst dining with georgina hoggarth the following evening the 9th of june 1870 at 6 10 pm he died of a brain hemorrhage ironically this was exactly five years to the day since the staplehurst train crash he was 58 years old and had endeavoured to fill every moment of his life leaving a total estate valued at around 93 000 pounds over 4 million pounds in today's money his bequest to mankind was far far in excess of this his description of rochester in the mystery of edwin drude taken from the last few paragraphs he would ever write and written here in this shelley is particularly poignant a brilliant morning shines in the old city its antiquities and ruins surprisingly beautiful changes of glorious light from moving boughs songs of birds scents from gardens woods fields [Music] although he'd stipulated that he wanted to be buried quietly somewhere in rochester without any pomp or ceremony several other locations were suggested including cobham and shawn churches and even the moat of rochester castle but then several members of the establishment demanded that he'd be buried here in westminster abbey his family agreed providing the funeral adhere to the terms dictated in his will that it be quiet private unadvertised and unostentatious and that his name be carved very plainly the admission cards for the memorial service in westminster abbey contained his words from his final public reading from these garish lights i vanish now forevermore with a heartfelt grateful respectful affectionate farewell his grave here in perth's corner was kept open for several days so great was the constant possession of people of all walks of life who came to pay their respects and bid their final farewells the grave disappeared under a vast mound of floral tributes but at last balls could rest although it is said that his ghost still haunts the moat at rochester castle in a gesture that could have come from the pages of any one of his stories his daughter kate donated the couch on which charles dickens died to the birthplace museum in portsmouth in order that the places of his birth and death might be united in another strangely dickensian twist dickens's first love mariah beadle and his last love ellen turman are both buried here in highland road cemetery portsmouth the town of his birth [Music] this is the end of our journey through charles dickens's england however it can only touch the surface of the country he loved so much understood so well and explored so thoroughly as the backdrop for all his stories although so much in england and particularly london has changed in the one and a half centuries since he died it is surprising how much still remains [Music] gone of course the workhouses the cruel educational establishments the debtors prisons the no-go areas of seven divers they are all long gone thanks in no small part to charles dickens who highlighted the plight of the poor and dispossessed the weak and the unfortunate and even though his creations were all the fictitious products of his astonishing and incisive mind he gave a voice to the thousands of actual people upon whom they were based far more than any charitable religious or government institution could possibly have done i was fortunate enough to be part of a delightful cinema version of little torrid just one of over 250 adaptations that have appeared in film and television so far if charles dickens england has gone his literary legacy remains unchallenged and will continue to live on for generations to come and thanks to the latest available technologies such as the internet his wealth of creations are now available free of charge for a future audience to discover his genius for itself his stories will never die through them we can glimpse not just the harsh realities he observed throughout his lifetime but also the enchanting array of life-affirming experiences seen through the eyes of the colorful characters he met along the way either in life itself or drawn from his unique and unrivaled imagination taking on the role of scrooge next tonight on sky arts 2 hd simon callow proves he's in love with dickens after the break [Music] you

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Length: 94min 36sec (5676 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 19 2021