| On the 9th of June 1865 in Staplehurst in Kent an anonymous bridge over the River Beult was the scene of a horrific railway accident. This was caused when rails were removed whilst maintenance was taking place. Confusion as to when a train ‘The Folkestone Boat Express’ was due (it varied with the tides), the loss of a timetable, which had been destroyed by a previous train, and the incorrect use of detonators all contributed to the disaster. On this sunny afternoon the stage was set for an accident, which apart from killing ten unfortunates also in its way changed the course of English Literature.
For on that train was one of the greatest writers of the Victorian age, Charles Dickens. He was travelling with his “companion” Ellen Ternan and her mother. They were travelling in the front first class carriage, which miraculously did not fall from the bridge. After recovering his composure he (although he was in a slightly awkward position in travelling with Miss Ternan) rendered assistance to the dying and injured before being relieved of the task. Victorian Britain always on the look out for heroes soon latched onto what had happened and Dickens became a public hero. But the damage had been done psychologically and in its way helped to contribute to Dickens’s death exactly five years later to the day on the 9th of June 1870.
He wrote of his experiences in the postscript to Our Mutual Friend
“On Friday the Ninth of June in the present year, Mr and Mrs Boffin (in their manuscript dress of receiving Mr and Mrs Lammle at breakfast) were on the South Eastern Railway with me, in a terribly destructive accident. When I had done what I could to help others, I climbed back into my carriage—turned over a viaduct, and caught aslant upon the turn—to extricate the worthy couple. They were much soiled, but otherwise unhurt. The same happy result attended Miss Bella Wilfer on her wedding day, and Mr Riderhood inspecting Bradley Headstone’s red neckerchief as he lay asleep. I remember with devout thankfulness that I can never be much nearer parting company with my readers for ever, than I was then, until there shall be written against my life, the two words with which I have this day closed this book “
The event was also a catalyst for one of my favourite short stories “The Signal Man “ which is about a train crash in a tunnel (probably the Clayton Tunnel accident of 1861 but the Staplehurst experience would have sown the germ in his mind) and as a great number of people have noted deprived us all of the ending of The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
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Ellen Ternan
StaplehurstTrain Crash
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Charles Dickens
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| Pickwick Papers |
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Dickens was born on the 7th of February 1812 just under a month before Pugin and some two months before Lear and Browning. He took his first breath of air at Landport, which is part of the city of Portsmouth. He was born into a poor family and his father was imprisoned for debt forcing Dickens to leave school and work in a factory. Unlike many of his contemporaries he had little education but in spite of this he wrote some fifteen novels and a large number of short stories and articles. It was the poverty and injustice of his early life that provided his fuel and to some extent helped to burn him out at an early age. Although radically different people the same happened to Augustus Pugin who was dead at forty.
It was in 1836 that Dickens really became known with the publication of Pickwick Papers which was published in a serial format. As with the soaps that infest our televisions today Dickens was able to gauge his readers reactions so that he could pinpoint or modify the storyline as required. Unlike the soaps of today Dickens was a very astute observer of character and the social environment of the time. He was a humorist and a satirist also and this mixture proved very successful. Rather like the Harry Potter books of today the readership was from all social classes. Writers like George Orwell liked the Pickwick Papers and his other novels for their realism and social criticism. This said Virginia Woolf whilst appreciating the books does not like the sentimentalism that crept into his style.
When I read Dickens novels (I have not read them all) the thing that strikes me are his journalistic roots. Three years prior to the Pickwick Papers he was a political journalist reporting on debates and travelling around the country covering elections and the like. His work was to be found in the Morning Chronicle. He collected his pieces in Sketches by Boz, which was published in 1836. This in turn led to The Pickwick Papers. Within five years Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop And Barnaby Rudge had seen the light of day. We must remember that Dickens was under thirty years of age at the time, which in my view is some achievement. Whilst some writers and poets have extraordinary bursts of creativity at a young age (one has only to think of Arthur Rimbaud) this was something very special. |
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Domestically all was not sweetness and light for Dickens. He married Catherine Hogarth in 1836 and in time fathered ten children. One of Catherine’s sisters, Mary, came to live with them (which was not an unusual at the time). Dickens grew very close to Mary and was shattered when she died at a very young age in 1837. Mary is to be found in many of his books but most famously as Little Nell. In time another of Catherine’s sisters, Georgina, joined the household. This was to some extent a catalyst for the Dickens household. For some reason Dickens started to blame Catherine for the birth of his ten children and the increasing financial worries involved. (If you have time it would be interesting to compare Augustus Pugin’s relationship with his three wives to that of Dickens). He considered her an incompetent housekeeper – this is strange as writing as Lady Maria Clutterbuck she wrote a cookery book in 1851 which ran into several editions. They finally separated in 1858 after she has received by accident a bracelet that should have been sent to Ellen Ternan. The break-up was not helped by Georgina siding with Dickens. Two articles at the time in my view help to give insight into Dickens state of mind at the time.
Some domestic trouble of mine, of long-standing, on which I will make no further remark than that it claims to be respected, as being of a sacredly private nature, has lately been brought to an arrangement, which involves no anger or ill-will of any kind, and the whole origin, progress, and surrounding circumstances of which have been, throughout, within the knowledge of my children. It is amicably composed, and its details have now to be forgotten by those concerned in it… By some means, arising out of wickedness, or out of folly, or
out of inconceivable wild chance, or out of all three, this trouble has been the occasion of misrepresentations, mostly grossly false, most monstrous, and most cruel — involving, not only me, but innocent persons dear to my heart… I most solemnly declare, then — and this I do both in my own name and in my wife’s name — that all the lately whispered rumours touching the trouble, at which I have glanced, are abominably false. And whosoever repeats one of them after this denial, will lie as wilfully and as foully as it is possible for any false witness to lie, before heaven and earth. Household Words (1858).
I will merely remark of [my wife] that some peculiarity of her character has thrown all the children on someone else. I do not know — I cannot by any stretch of fancy imagine — what would have become of them but for this aunt, who has grown up with them, to whom they are devoted, and who has sacrificed the best part of her youth and life to them. She has remonstrated, reasoned, suffered, and toiled, again and again, to prevent a separation between Mrs. Dickens and me. Mrs. Dickens has often expressed to her sense of affectionate care and devotion in her home — never more strongly than within the last twelve months. New York Tribune (c 1858).
Whilst admiring Dickens I have always felt sympathy with Catherine Dickens who when dying in 1879 gave her daughter Kate a number of letters she had received from Dickens with the words “Give these to the British Museum that the world may know he loved me once”. I have not studied Dickens enough to really give an opinion about the influence that Catherine had over the man and his works. But quite often I can feel her presence in his writing. As with a number of larger than life writers and artists it is sometimes the woman who is shunted into the background in the shadow of a great man, and sometimes cruelly he dispenses with her. Perhaps without this characteristic Dickens would not have been the writer he was. I am unqualified to say but I have a nagging feeling that when he separated from Catherine something was lost.
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| Catherine Hogarth Dickens |
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| Mary Hogarth |
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| Georgina Hogarth |
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Although closed at present there is a fine Charles Dickens museum in London, which is easily found on the internet. His home at Gads Hill in Kent is also easy to find and well worth a visit – again I would consult the relevant web pages for details. There are many Dickens events being held in 2012 as well as various other events in the media. Sadly the very atmospheric museum in Broadstairs in Kent is no longer with us having suffered a fire. It is now I believe a private residence. I visited it a number of years ago when on a Dickens pilgrimage. Unlike the Bronte museum in Haworth it was a rather dusty and had a somewhat ill organised collection but in its way it reminded me of Miss Haversham’s faded glory. I was sad to see it go.
Away from Dickens I also decided to visit the house that Augustus Pugin built for himself in Ramsgate as well as the church that he was in the process of building when he died. Sadly at the time the house had seen better days and looked in dire need of love. Happily due to the sterling efforts of the Landmark Trust the house has been renovated and you can either stay there or visit the house (named The Grange) on specified days – again the internet will give you the detail required.
Dickens like Pugin had a lot of connections with Kent and if you are in that part of the world it would be fun to break your Dickens itinerary with a visit to Ramsgate to visit Pugin’s house and church. As I have noted both were born in 1812 and died quite young (mainly due to overwork) but there, to a great extent, the similarities end. But both were however men of their era in their separate worlds.
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Gads Hill Place
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| The Grange, Ramsgate |
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