Behind the Scenes of Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol'

by Nancy Bilyeau

It may well be the most beloved Christmas story ever written. Charles Dickens' novella, originally titled Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, was published on December 19, 1843, and sold 6,000 copies by Christmas Day. It has never gone out of print and is the basis for countless adaptations, giving way to debates over who is the best Ebeneezer Scrooge: Alastair Sim or Reginald Owen, George C. Scott or Patrick Stewart.

Autographed manuscript of the title page of 'A Christmas Carol,' signed by Dickens. Purchased byJohn Pierpont Morgan before 1900. Image courtesy of Morgan Library & Museum Media Department.

While the story itself is both touching and mythic, taking a closer look at Dickens' decision to write the book and the personal history that he poured into it is illuminating.

Dickens, to put it bluntly, wrote A Christmas Carol because he needed the money. He'd found literary fame due to the success of The Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist, but his new book, Martin Chuzzlewit, was not as successful.

Dickens had a wife and four children to support; his wife, Catherine, was pregnant with their fifth. He came up with the idea to rent the family’s London home and live on the Continent for a year. A Christmas Carol was written to fund this move. A story of spirits who appear at Christmastime was not invented by Dickens. For centuries, during the longest and darkest nights of the year, it was thought that the barrier between this world and the afterlife was at its thinnest. This was the time for ghosts to show themselves to the living.

The original cover of A Christmas Carol. Dickens insisted that it be bound in crimson morocco, a  durable goatskin leather. The binding is elegantly decorated in gilt with the name "Thomas Mitton Esqre." Dickens presented the bound manuscript to Mitton, his close friend and creditor, possibly as a Christmas gift. From the J.P. Morgan collection, courtesy of the Morgan Media Department 

Dickens penned the book in six weeks. He wrote in a concentrated burst from 9 am to 2 pm every day. Writing would be followed by long brainstorming walks.

He scribbled many notes in the margins as he went, making swift corrections. According to curators of a Dickens exhibit at the Morgan Library & Museum, owner of the original manuscript, "Deleted text is struck out with a cursive and continuous looping movement of the pen and replaced with more active verbs—to achieve greater vividness or immediacy of effect—and fewer words for concision. This heavily revised sixty-six-page draft—the only manuscript of the story—was sent to the printer in order for the book to be published on 19 December, just in time for the Christmas market."

Page 2 of the original manuscript of A Christmas Carol,
showing Dickens' corrections.
From the collection of the Morgan Library & Museum,
image courtesy of the Media Department 

Literary historians believe that because he needed to write so fast, Dickens focused on a topic already close to his heart. He fueled the story with his own feelings about the terrible conditions for the poor in England. The 1834 New Poor Law went far toward criminalizing poverty. Dickens was furious about the grim fate of the working class, and he used this novella to write about it.

As for the book's characters, debates go on about which real-life "misers" Dickens based the elderly Ebeneezer Scrooge on or his partner Jacob Marley. When it comes to the younger Scrooge, though, Dickens' own youth can be seen in glimpses. His years of loneliness and resentment come through.

In the story, the boy Ebeneezer Scrooge has been sent away to a boarding school (one with dirty rooms and cracked windows) by a father who seems to want nothing to do with him.

 Dickens had a complicated relationship with his father, John Dickens. When he was 12, Charles Dickens was removed from school and forced to work at a blacking factory for 10 hours a day, six days a week. The reason: his father, John Dickens, had been sentenced to Marshalsea Prison because he was unable to pay a debt of 40 pounds; his wife and younger children joined him there, while Charles lived alone in lodgings. 

This means that when still a child, Charles Dickens was under intense pressure to make money and relieve this debt. It was the family's only way out of prison. These memories never left Dickens: “My whole nature was so penetrated with grief and humiliation,” he told a friend.

Charles Dickens,
photo courtesy of the Morgan Library & Museum, media department.

The character of Bob Cratchit, Scrooge's weak, hapless, but warm-hearted clerk, bears some resemblance to Dickens' father. This makes Scrooge's abuse of Cratchit in the first three-quarters of the story all the more interesting.

A crucial character in A Christmas Carol is Scrooge's older sister Fan, who is the only person to love him unconditionally but dies as a young woman after giving birth to her son, Fred.

"Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have withered," said the Ghost. "But she had a large heart."
"So she had," cried Scrooge.

Fan, it seems clear, was based on Dickens' older sister Frances, known in the family as Fanny, who was close to her brother when they were children. 

She was "clever and accomplished," according to Dickens biographer Claire Tomalin. A talented musician,  in 1823 she became a student at the Royal Academy of Music in London.  She was expected to become the star of the family, not Charles. Biographers believe that he was often envious of Fanny.

According to the Charles Dickens Museum, "Fanny’s schooling was, however, often marred by her father’s inability to pay her fees. A letter survives from John Dickens, dated 25 May 1826, in which he suggests a payment plan, offering to pay '£10 quarterly from the 24th June next and the same to continue until the account is finally closed.' "

 Christmas Carol, London: Chapman & Hall, 1843
Illustration by John Leech depicting Marley's Ghost.
Photo courtesy of Morgan Library & Museum, media department

Fanny did have a career as a professional singer, with a "pure" singing style. In 1837, she married a fellow musician and they settled in Manchester. The couple had two sons. Harry was a bright child with some sort of physical handicap. "Once Fanny Dickens married and had children, her career declined," wrote Tomalin.

Fanny became ill with tuberculosis and went into a long decline. When Fanny died, Harry passed away shortly afterward at the age of 8. Some have speculated that the child was Dickens' inspiration for Tiny Tim.

Such family tragedies would seem to provide strong inspiration for Dickens in his character creations of Fan and Tiny Tim. What is chilling is that Fanny and Harry died years after Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol.  

By the time his sister fell ill, Dickens was in a much better financial position. He hired the best doctors for Fanny, but nothing could save her. She died at the age of 38 on September 2, 1848. Dickens arranged for her burial in Highgate Cemetery. Harry was buried there too, as were Charles Dickens' parents and other members of his family.

Charles Dickens, the great writer, did not join them. He is buried elsewhere.

Highgate cemetery, where many members of Dickens' family were
buried, including his sister Fanny and his nephew Harry

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nancy Bilyeau is a novelist and magazine editor. She has published four historical novels. Nancy recently published a novella, The Ghost of Madison Avenue, set in 1912 New York City and telling a Christmas story. For more information, visit Nancy's website at http://www.nancybilyeau.com/.

The Dangers of the Victorian Pleasure Garden

by Mimi Matthews

The Dancing Platform at Cremorne Gardens by Phoebus Levin, 1864.

When thinking of nineteenth century pleasure gardens, most of us instantly conjure up images of Vauxhall. But those in the Georgian era weren’t the only ones to enjoy a pleasure garden in London. In 1830 Cremorne Gardens was opened in Chelsea. Over the decades that followed, it offered concerts, circuses, dancing, and fireworks. It also offered military exhibitions and feats of dangerous daring, including high-wire acts and balloon ascents. Though many of these feats were successful, earning acclaim for various wire-walkers and aeronauts, still others ended in tragedy. Gruesome injuries and even fatalities occurred with some regularity—in full view of the Victorian public.

The Collapsed Platform

In 1855, during a military fete at Cremorne Gardens, a platform collapsed under the weight of sixty soldiers carrying their muskets and bayonets. According to an 18 August 1855 edition of the Huddersfield Chronicle, the soldiers were comprised mostly of Grenadier Guards who were enacting “the capture of the Mamelon and rifle pits by the allied troops before Sebastapol.” The performance had received the patronage of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, as well as of “the highest military authorities.” Both the Household Troops and Royal Artillery were in attendance.

Banqueting halls at Cremorne Gardens, mid-19th century.

To enact the mock siege, stages of various heights had been constructed. As the Huddersfield Chronicle reports:

“Just as the spectacle was reaching its close, when the defenders of the Mamelon and the rifle-pits had been drive to the highest part of the staging by the assaulting columns below, the gallery on which they stood gave way, bringing some 60 men, with bayonets fixed on their muskets, crashing to the ground through a fall of at least 20 feet.”

During the fall, some of the men were bayoneted on their own weapons. Others broke their legs or fractured their ribs and limbs. No soldiers died at the scene, but one is reported to have suffered serious internal injuries.

The Broken Wire

An even more frightful accident occurred at Cremorne Gardens in June of 1863. The public had gathered to watch a show put on by the acclaimed acrobat Carlo Valerio. For the past two months, the twenty-five year old Valerio had been performing a high-wire act at the Gardens during which he walked along a wire cable that measured 600 feet across. The 27 June 1863 edition of The London Daily News reports that, on the night in question:

“He had advanced nearly to the point from which he usually returned backwards, when the wire rope suddenly gave way, and he fell heavily to the grassplat, a distance of upwards of sixty feet.”

Valerio’s injuries were severe. He suffered a fractured skull, a broken collar-bone, and many other injuries. According to a graphic first-hand account published in the 30 June 1863 edition of the Dundee, Perth, and Cupar Advertiser:

“When the wire slackened the unfortunate man staggered, and was precipitated violently to the ground on the back of his head, the blood pouring profusely from the wound and from his ears. Numbers of persons, particularly the females, were dreadfully shocked and affected, many of the corps de ballet being afterwards scarcely able to go through their performance. He was immediately removed, and the dance and music proceeded.”

The Ashburnham Pavilion at Cremorne Gardens, Illustrated London News, 1858.

The London Daily News states that Valerio was taken to Chelsea Hospital where he “lingered in great pain” until three o’clock in the morning, at which point “he expired” from his injuries. His death prompted an outcry against dangerous exhibitions. It was reasoned that, since acrobats would continue to test their skills in ever increasing feats and since the public would continue to arrive in droves to see such performances, it was up to the proprietors of places like Cremorne Gardens to prohibit exhibitions which put performers’ lives at risk.

In fact, Valerio’s death prompted Mr. E. T. Smith, then the proprietor of Cremorne Gardens, to write to the editor of The Era declaring just that. His letter, printed in the 28 June 1863 edition of The Era, reads in part:

“The sad accident that occurred at these Gardens on Thursday evening to the unfortunate Carlo Valerio during his performance on the wire rope, and which no person can more deeply regret than myself, induces me, with your permission, to seek the earliest moment of announcing, through your columns, that no such exhibition will ever again be permitted to take place here as long as I remain the Proprietor.”

The Flying Man's Shroud

Unfortunately, Valerio’s death was not the last fatality to occur as a result of an exhibition at Cremorne Gardens. In 1874, crowds again gathered to watch a death-defying feat. This time, the stunt was performed by M. Vincent de Groof, a thirty-five-year-old performer known as the Flying Man. According to the 11 July 1874 edition of the Belfast News-Letter, M. de Groof promised to:

“Fly a distance of 5,000 feet through the air by means of a pair of wings shaped like a bat’s, which were fixed to his shoulders and worked by his arms.”

Balloon Ascent at Cremorne Gardens, Walter Greaves, 1872.

M. de Groof ascended into the air by means of a balloon, from which he was suspended by a rope “about twenty feet below the car.” As the balloon rose to a height of approximately 1000 feet, M. de Groof flapped his wings, making for a churchyard some fifty years away. When he hit a favourable current of wind, he cut the rope, fully expecting to fly free of the balloon by virtue of the wings attached to his arms. Instead, as the Belfast News-Letter grimly relates:

“He came crashing through the air; the wing closed around him like a living shroud, and narrowly escaping the outer parapet, he fell with fearful violence on his head and right side in the road, immediately opposite the front entrance of St. Luke’s Church. Hundreds of persons immediately rushed to his assistance, and found him bleeding violently from the nose and ears, and without any sign of life.” 

In Conclusion

As the decade progressed, Cremorne Gardens’ reputation as a popular venue for wholesome entertainment began to sink. After the sun had set and Victorian families had departed, it transformed into what one Baptist minister of the 1870s referred to as “a nursery of vice.” Robberies and assaults were regularly reported, as were the goings on of prostitutes and their clients. In the end, it was this less gruesome but rather more unsavoury aspect of Cremorne Gardens which led to its closure in 1877. An increasingly prudish Victorian public objected to the goings on there, especially after dark.
________________________________________

Sources

Belfast News-Letter (Antrim, Northern Ireland), 11 July 1874.
Dundee, Perth, and Cupar Advertiser (Angus, Scotland), 30 June, 1863.
Elgin Courier (Moray, Scotland), 17 August 1855.
The Era (London, England), 28 June 1863.
Guard, Richard. Lost London. London: Michael O’Mara Books, Ltd., 2012.
Huddersfield Chronicle (West Yorkshire, England), 18 August 1855.
Illustrated London News (London, England). 5 June 1847.
London Daily News (London, England), Saturday 27 June 1863.
Thomas, Donald. The Victorian Underworld. London: Orion Publishing Group, 2014.

This article is an Editor's Choice and was originally published September18, 2017.
________________________________________

USA Today bestselling author Mimi Matthews writes both historical nonfiction and award-winning proper Victorian romances. Her novels have received starred reviews in Library Journal and Publishers Weekly, and her articles have been featured on the Victorian Web, the Journal of Victorian Culture, and in syndication at BUST Magazine. 

In her other life, Mimi is an attorney. She resides in California with her family, which includes a retired Andalusian dressage horse, a Sheltie, and two Siamese cats.

For more information, see Mimi's website MimiMatthews.com or connect with her through Facebook and Twitter. 

The Bad Boy Prince Who Became a King

by Nancy Bilyeau

He was a younger brother in a royal family, not expected to ascend to the throne of England when born. He threw himself into a military career. He was wild and boisterous, given to carousing, and fell deeply in love with an actress. During their many years together, she financially supported him. Sometimes mocked by the public, he had a warm heart, a generous nature, and a willingness to listen that gave him a popularity few others in his family enjoyed.

Meet William, Duke of Clarence, and later King of England from 1830 to 1837.

A slightly disheveled William, Duke of Clarence.
Photo: ©National Trust Images/Angelo Hornak 

In present circumstances, when the life of a younger prince in the British royal family is under scrutiny, William's career presents some interesting comparisons.

Born on August 21, 1765, he was the third son of George III and Queen Charlotte. As was common in the age, his parents did not see that much of him. He was in the hands of private tutors at Richmond and Kew and seems to have been emotionally closest to his sister Augusta.

His high spirits made him difficult to handle, and King George decided to install him in the Royal Navy. This was not an honorary position, as had happened with a few other royals. At the age of thirteen, William joined a ship's company as a midshipman. This was the usual age to begin a naval career in the 18th century and he was the first royal to seriously pursue such a career.

From the first, William was an enthusiastic sailor. He served on several ships in the Caribbean and the Americas for the next decade and more. Much later he bore the nickname "Sailor King." But he was rash, with a "roughness of manner" that stuck with him through most of his life.

William formed a strong friendship with Horatio Nelson and was the best man at Nelson's wedding. But he quarreled with others, both below and above him in rank. When in command of a ship, he was capable of disregarding orders and doing as he pleased.

To the distress of his parents, William had a well-deserved reputation for womanizing. He had affairs with married women, frequented brothels, and pursued young women talking marriage when it was impossible for him to offer matrimony.

One of his most infamous episodes took place in Bridgetown in Barbados. After dining with the mess of a regiment stationed on the island, William and his companions "went to Rachel's brothel in the town and, in a drunken orgy of destruction, smashed glass, broke furniture and threw feather beds into the street," wrote Roger Knight in his biography William IV. "Rachel herself sat watching all this in a chair outside the building with equanimity...The next morning she presented William with a bill for 700 pounds and he signed a draft on a Jamaican merchant house without question."

By 1790 his career in the Royal Navy was over. About this time, he was created Duke of Clarence by his father, but only under family pressure. He had nothing official to do.

Instead of marrying a princess, William fell in love with the talented Irish actress Dorothea Bland, whose stage name was Mrs. Jordan, and they lived together for years, becoming the parents of a huge family. She seemed happy in this domestic setting, yet through all her pregnancies she continued to perform on stage. William had little money--Parliament was not inclined to grant large incomes to dissolute princes--and rapidly spent what he did have. Mrs. Jordan supported the family, with their ten children taking the last name "FitzClarence."

"Mrs. Jordan," the mother of William's 10 children

George III accepted the reality of his son's personal life, probably because there were two older sons before him. He created William "Ranger of Bushy Park," which brought with it Bushy House, where the family all lived, fairly quietly.

This lifestyle did not impress everyone. "His life has hitherto been passed in obscurity and neglect, in miserable poverty, surrounded by numerous progeny of bastards, without consideration or friends," said Charles Greville, clerk of the council to the king.

Caricature of George IV, William's oldest brother

The death of Princess Charlotte, the only child of George, the Prince Regent, in 1817 changed everything for William. He moved up the line of succession following his brother Frederick, the Duke of York, who had no legitimate children. It now seemed possible that William would be King of England.

Mrs. Jordan retreated from the scene--she died later in Paris--and William married Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, half his age. At least three princesses or heiresses had already declined to marry him. As part of the negotiation, Adelaide agreed she would be kind to his many children.

On their wedding day, William's main feeling seems to have been remorse. He wrote in a letter to his oldest son, "She is doomed, poor dear innocent young creature, to be my wife...I cannot, I will not, I must not ill use her."

Adelaide, William's royal wife

As unlikely as it may have seemed, the marriage was a happy one. Adelaide got her older husband to drink less and economize more. One of the main reasons he married was to provide the nation with a legitimate royal family, but Adelaide suffered miscarriages or their children died shortly after birth. They faced these tragedies together.

William was now in the public eye. The Royal Collection Trust, in a foreword to William's papers, wrote, "Only a few years before it had not been considered a remote possibility that William could become king, but by the late 1820s it was becoming a certainty....previously he had been free of the burdens and responsibilities that are usually placed on an heir presumptive, or the next in line."

Historian A.N. Wilson has declared that most of his contemporaries considered William a "buffoon." But there were differing views. "The British people liked him because he was a sailor, if for nothing else, and men's eyes turned hopefully to him when it became apparent that not much good was any longer to be looked for from George the Fourth," wrote Justin McCarthy in A History of the Four Georges and William IV.

George IV, who had lived as an unpopular recluse, hugely obese, for the last years of his life, died on June 26, 1830, and William became King of England at the age of 64. (York had already died.) "The public was in the mood to make the best of him," wrote one chronicler.

William IV as King

William IV was determined to set a much more financially prudent example than his extravagant brother. His coronation cost less than one-fourth as much as George's. Justin McCarthy wrote,"His manners were frank, familiar, and even rough. He cared little for court ceremonial of any kind, and was in the habit of walking along the streets of London with his umbrella tucked under his arm, like any ordinary Londoner."

King William was even known to offer rides to people in his royal carriage. When he offended anyone, he was quick to apologize. He did have a tendency to ramble strangely at state dinners. The only time his temper flared was over small things, such as a guest drinking water instead of port wine at the table.

William and Adelaide gave money to the poor, arranged dinners for the hungry, and endowed hospitals and charities. What is sometimes overlooked was the critical part William IV played in setting the future of the kingdom and keeping a British monarchy in play. His father and brother had adamantly opposed any parliamentary reform. Now, in the 1830s, a revolution was in the air.

The Reform Bill of 1832 enacted changes to the electoral system of England and Wales, making it more representative of the people and strengthening the House of Commons. It is hailed as bringing much-needed modern democracy to the nation.

Some historians ascribe William's passing it to being "weak." But others say that his years in the Navy followed by life with Mrs. Jordan gave him a view of life from outside the royal bubble. He knew that change had to happen.

William was very fond of his young niece, Victoria, the only child of his younger brother the Duke of Kent. But he distrusted her mother and loathed the looming Sir John Conroy. William said publicly that he would do his best to live long enough for Princess Victoria to ascend to the throne without the need of a regency.

And William did just that, dying of heart failure at the age of 71 on June 20, 1837, at Windsor Castle. Victoria was 18 years and one month old, and thus became Queen of England.

Adelaide, who refused to leave William's side for the 10 days of his last decline, outlived her husband by just 12 years. She was godmother to Victoria and Albert's firstborn child, Victoria, the future mother of Kaiser Wilhelm.

The city of Adelaide in Australia is named after William's queen.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nancy Bilyeau is the author of five historical novels, including The Blue, an espionage thriller revolving around the art and porcelain world of 18th century England. Her most recent novel is Dreamland, set in 1911 Coney Island. To learn more, go to www.nancybilyeau.com

Romancing the Tower of London: William Harrison Ainsworth

By Nancy Bilyeau

On a December night in 1840, a sizable group of writers, editors, publishers, printers and illustrators gathered at the Sussex Hotel, in the fashionable town of Royal Tunbridge Wells, for a dinner party. It is possible that Charles Dickens, the young author of Oliver Twist and The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, was invited to the party. Most definitely in attendance was George Cruikshank, the talented illustrator of Oliver Twist.

The host of this lavish affair was the famed 35-year-old novelist William Harrison Ainsworth. The occasion: the successful serialization over the last year of his fifth novel, The Tower of London: A Historical Romance, which told the story of the tragic Lady Jane Grey, beginning with her arrival by barge at the Tower to launch her nine-day-reign and ending with her decapitation on Tower Green on July 10, 1553.

William Harrison Ainsworth

The novelist was sure to have cut quite the dash at his own party: He was tall, slim and dark, with a fondness for stylish clothes that earned him the description dandy. From the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: "Lady Blessington, whose salon he attended, said he and Count D'Orsay were the two handsomest men in London."

In a passage accepted as autobiographical, a character in one of Ainsworth's novels says, "Some people told me I was handsome, and my tailor (excellent authority, it must be admitted) extolled the symmetry of my figure, and urged me to go into the Life Guards."

Ainsworth was at perhaps the zenith of his career in 1840. He was a friendly rival to Dickens; in fact, his 1839 novel Jack Shepard outsold Oliver Twist in early editions, and Ainsworth had recently replaced Dickens as editor of Bentley's Miscellany, the predominant fiction magazine.

The rivalry with Dickens would not last; nor would the friendship. Dickens would become a colossus as Ainsworth slowly sank into oblivion. His 39 historical novels, all of them romances and adventures, were astoundingly popular with the reading public of Victorian England, but not with the critics. Although Ainsworth was himself a genial and generous man, he was often on the receiving end of literary volleys almost hysterical in their dislike. When his books no longer sold as well, he had no circle of supporters to buoy him. Quite the opposite. One writer said of him in 1870: "Let us start with an opinion fearlessly expressed as it is earnestly felt, that the existence of this writer is an event to be deplored." Ainsworth was still alive when this sentiment was published, and in reduced circumstances.

That dazzling night at Royal Tunbridge Wells, Ainsworth, mercifully, could not know that his books would go out of print, that fellow writers such as Edgar Allan Poe would describe his prose as "turgid pretension."

Yet he is not without a legacy. The book celebrated that night, The Tower of London: A Historical Romance, triggered a new kind of interest in William the Conqueror's castle keep. It was an interest that deepened through the Victorian age, and is part of the reason visitors pour into the Tower, to the tune of 2 million a year.

Ainsworth was born on February 4, 1805, in Manchester, as the city became the center of the industrial movement. Thomas Ainsworth was a prominent lawyer and pressured his oldest son to follow him in that profession, which he did for a time, but without much enthusiasm. There was a younger son, Thomas Gilbert Ainsworth, who at university suffered a "brain fever" and was incapicitated by mental illness his entire life.

Two years after the father died, Ainsworth, newly married, published his first novel, the romance Sir John Chiverton. It brought him to the attention of Walter Scott, who befriended Ainsworth but privately referred to him as an "imitator." His next two books, the historical novels Rockwood and Jack Schepard, both featuring famous outlaws, were tremendous successes. Yet some criticized the romanticizing of criminals, a complaint Dickens was also hearing with Oliver Twist.

It was time to try something different.

When Ainsworth, along with his illustrator, George Cruikshank, researched the Tower of London, it was far from the smoothly operating tourism operation of today. It had been two centuries since the last monarch, Charles II, resided there. Dickens wrote: "Once a fortress, a royal residence, a court of justice and a prison, {the Tower} is now a government storehouse and armory." An outbreak of disease caused by poor water supply (and blamed on the filthy moat) killed three men of the garrison.

A visitor in 1851 wrote:

"Every one must be struck with the incivility and want of accommodation therein. Upon entering the gates this afternoon I found some hundreds of persons, male and female, huddled together, striving to obtain tickets from a window under a portico where no two persons can pass abreast, and the scene there reminded me of what might be expected at the gallery entrance of a theatre on boxing night. After waiting just one hour we obtained our tickets and were ordered into what is called the ante or refreshment room. This room is about 12ft. by 18ft., with a counter containing ginger pop, buns, &c., immediately behind which are two waterclosets (I understand recently erected). I will not attempt to describe the stench one had to contend with, the place being completely crammed with persons waiting their turns or numbers to be called, but merely add that this room seems to be the resort of pickpockets, two ladies having been eased of their purses, containing some pounds, during the half hour I was present therein."

Ainsworth opened the door to a more illustrious period in the Tower's history. It's true that the novel's prose is melodramatic ("heaving bosoms," "piercing black eyes" and "sinister smiles") and the pages are crowded with Gothic characters (not one or two but three supporting characters who are giants--and a dwarf!) along with august personages of the past. But Ainsworth's diligent research brings to life the grounds, the kitchens, the passageways, the prison cells and the beautiful chapels of the Tower. He made full, imaginative use of the Tower of London, as a setting for a story of high drama. And Cruikshank's 40 engravings and 58 woodcuts play their suggestive part.

Cruikshank's depiction of Lady Jane Grey

And in the center of it all is Lady Jane Grey, a character of undeniable pathos, surrounded by conspiracies. Ainsworth invests the Spanish ambassador, Simon Renard, with the malevolent abilities of a Blofeld straight from Bond. Northumberland is formidable indeed.There is an energy to the book, and an eerie, even frightening atmosphere. The rack, the Scavenger's Daughter and the infamous Little Ease are all present and accounted for.

The current official Historical Royal Palaces Tower of London "fact sheet" on torture emphasizes how little actual torture has taken place within its walls: "Myth-making reached its peak in the 19th century, spurred on by novelists who wished to evoke the Tower of London in its former days as an ancient fortress and stronghold e.g. Ainsworth’s The Tower of London." Ainsworth may have put the devices of torture to Gothic uses, but they were very much present in the 16th century. Ironically, government-approved torture of prisoners ebbed during the reigns of Edward VI, Jane Grey, and Mary, only to rise to highest levels during reign of Elizabeth.

After The Tower of London, Ainsworth's career went on for more than thirty years. The characters in his books were not dimensional; bosoms continued to heave and black eyes to snap. R.H. Horne, Dickens' friend and collaborator, described Ainsworth as "a reviver of old clothes" whose novels are "generally dull except when revolting." Punch satirized Ainsworth as an aging Tudoresque dandy with the caption "The Greatest Axe-and-Neck Romancer of Our Time."

By the time of the Punch jab, Ainsworth, a widower, was responsible for his mentally ill brother. He had accepted a government pension because...he needed it. A year after a dinner in his honor in Manchester, arguably the only place where he was still esteemed, William Harrison Ainsworth died at the age of 77.

But the Tower felt the lingering impact of Ainsworth. In the foreword of his book, he had called for the opening to the public of Beauchamp Tower, the place of imprisonment of the Lady Jane Grey, where she is thought to have written on the wall of her cell. The cause was taken up by powerful patrons, including Prince Albert. Beauchamp was restored by architects and made available to visitors; other buildings were opened too.

Ainsworth's influence, as explained in The Tower of London: The Official Illustrated History:

"In The Tower of London: A Historical Romance, the Tower was first and foremost the setting for an endless series of heart-rending events and foul play. The author tells of dungeons though in fact the Tower has very few basement rooms and of a time when Tower Hill boasted a scaffold and "its soil was dyed with the richest and best blood in the land.” Such fantasies, backed by the relentless march of the romantic movement, helped create and fuel an ever-increasing demand to see and experience such events.”

No matter how much the novel's violence veers into fantasy, the faintly menacing image of the Tower that draws the throngs of the curious today was created in part by William Harrison Ainsworth. He was the greatest neck-and-axe romancer of his time...and perhaps of ours too.

This article is an Editor's Choice and was originally published August 19, 2012. 

~~~~~~~~~~

Nancy Bilyeau is a historical novelist and magazine editor based in New York. She wrote the Joanna Stafford trilogy, a trio of thrillers set in Henry VIII’s England, for Simon & Schuster. Her fourth novel is The Blue, an 18th century thriller revolving around the art & porcelain world. Her latest novel is Dreamland, set in Coney Island of 1911, is published by Endeavour Quill. A former staff editor at Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, and InStyle, Nancy is currently the deputy editor at the Center on Media, Crime and Justice at John Jay College and contributes to Town & Country, CrimeReads, and Mystery Scene magazine.

For more information, visit www.nancybilyeau.com.

Henry Mayhew and the London Poor: The Lives of Street Sellers

By Mark Patton.

In an earlier blog-post, I followed the experiences of a stranger from the English countryside, newly arrived in London at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century, and I quoted the campaigning journalist, Henry Mayhew, describing the "sauntering forth of the unwashed poor" at the beginning of the day, as observed from the vantage-point of the balcony on the dome of Saint Paul's Cathedral.

Mayhew is one of the most important historical sources for anyone seeking to understand the life of London's streets in the first half of the Nineteenth Century. His writings on downward social mobility were surely coloured, at least in part, by his personal experience. Born in London in 1812, and educated at Westminster School, he ran away to sea as a teenager. On top of a failed career as a merchant seaman, he had failed careers as a lawyer, a playwright, and a theatre impresario, and spent much of his adult life on the brink of bankruptcy. He co-founded Punch magazine in 1841, but was manoeuvred out before it became a profitable venture.

Henry Mayhew, based on a Daguerrotype by Richard Beard (image is in the Public Domain).

He is best remembered for a series of articles that he wrote for The Morning Chronicle in 1849, based on interviews with some of London's poorest residents, ranging from barrow-boys and chimney-sweeps, to mudlarks and prostitutes. These articles were brought together, in 1851, in a three-volume work entitled London Labour and the London Poor, to which a fourth volume was added in 1861. His interviews are thought to have influenced many of the fictional accounts of the time, including Charles Dickens's novel, Our Mutual Friend, Charles Kingsley's Alton Locke, and Elizabeth Gaskell's Ruth.

A young man or woman arriving in London from the countryside between 1800 and 1850 might hope, depending on his or her level of skill and literacy, to find employment as a clerk, a shop-worker, a dress-maker, or a domestic servant, but such positions were rarely secure: employers hired and fired at will; businesses often failed; and few bosses would keep positions open for employees who suffered illness or injury. In such circumstances, people had to fall back on their own resources, and many of those interviewed by Mayhew were, one way or another, precariously self-employed.

A street seller of nutmeg-graters and funnels: this man was crippled from birth, and had to pay someone to help dress him in the mornings (image is in the Public Domain).

A street seller of apples (image is in the Public Domain).

A street seller of oysters (image is in the Public Domain).

A street seller of combs (image is in the Public Domain).

One such was a man who sold ham sandwiches on the streets of the West End. "I hardly remember my father," he told the journalist, "but I believe, if he'd lived, I should have been better off ... My brother had gone into the sandwich trade ... and he advised me to be a ham sandwich-man, and so I started as one. At first, I made 10s., and 7s., and 8s. a week - that's seven years or so - but things are worse now, and I make 3s. 6d. some weeks, and 5s. others ... My rent's 2s. a week, but I haven't my own things ... I used to buy my sandwiches at 6d. a dozen, but I found that wouldn't do; and now I buy and boil the stuff, and make them myself. What did cost me 6d., now only costs me 4d. ... "

The sandwich seller might have been, in modern terms, "just about managing" (he did, at least, have a home to go to at night, with facilities for boiling ham); and, in Victorian terms, one of the "deserving poor" (making a living through his own efforts, rather than seeking charity or resorting to crime), but this did not always protect him from abuse by those better off than he was:

"Six times I've been upset by drunken fellows on purpose, I've no doubt, and lost all my stock. Once, a gent kicked my basket into the dirt ... I've been bilked by cabmen, who've taken a sandwich; but, instead of paying for it, have offered to fight me ... we're knocked about sadly by the Police."

Unlike many on the streets, this man was literate:

"I read a bit, if I can get anything to read, for I was at St Clement's School; or I walk out and look for a job. On summer-days I sell a trotter or two. But mine's a wretched life, and so is most ham sandwich-men. I've no enjoyment of my life and no comfort."

Most of Mayhew's interviews provide us only with a snapshot of an individual's life, and we do not know what became of this young man. On the one hand, he might have found employment a few days later; on the other, the briefest of illnesses could have ended his business and left him destitute, with few opportunities to claw his way back.

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Mark Patton blogs regularly on aspects of historical fiction and non-fiction at https://mark-patton.blogspot.co.uk. He is a published author of historical fiction and non-fiction, whose books may be purchased from Amazon.

Sir John Soane: Georgian Neo-Classical Architect

by Mark Patton

In an earlier blog-post, Grace Elliot explored the remarkable London home (now a museum) of the Georgian architect, Sir John Soane (1753-1837). I have visited the museum many times, sometimes with friends, sometimes with my students, and, each time, have discovered something new, but my intention here is rather to explore his life and the buildings he designed, some of which are still standing, some of which have subsequently been demolished, and some of which were never built at all. At some point in the next few weeks, I will visit the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition, where, among the paintings and the sculptures, I will see designs by some of our greatest living architects. Soane was there before them; he was Professor at the Royal Academy and regularly exhibited his designs at the Summer Exhibition.

Sir John Soane, in the regalia of the
Masonic Grand Lodge of England

Soane's father has sometimes been described as a bricklayer, but it is probably more accurate to think of him as a builder. He was wealthy enough to secure for his son a private education, albeit not at one of England's great public schools. Soane went on to serve his apprenticeship as an architect with George Dance the Younger, and then, at the age of 25, embarked on a Grand Tour, travelling via Versailles to Rome and Naples and returning via Switzerland after three years.

A Grand Tour would not normally have been a possibility for a man of limited means, such as John Soane, but he had a travelling scholarship, courtesy of the Royal Academy. Travelling with another young architect, Robert Furze Brettingham, he seems to have approached the experience with rather more seriousness than many of his wealthier contemporaries, earnestly sketching the ruins of the Forum Romanum, Hadrian's villa at Tivoli, and the recently excavated buildings of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

During his travels, he also proved himself an effective networker, meeting a number of influential men who would later become his clients and patrons and would recommend him to their friends. On his return to England, he struggled, at first, to win commissions, but he landed a particularly important one in 1788 with the Bank of England. His scheme for the bank was executed, but almost nothing of it survives. Inspired, however, by the ruins that he had seen in Italy, he even considered how his own buildings might appear as ruins, many centuries after his death.

Lothbury Court, part of Soane's design for the
Bank of England, by Thomas Malton Junior, 1801

Soane's ground-plan for the Bank of England

Soane's Bank of England,
imagined as a ruin, by J.M. Gandy, 1830 

One commission led to another; he designed private homes, churches (although he was not, personally, religious), and even, at Dulwich, in South London, one of Europe's very first purpose-designed art-galleries. He designed an extension to the Freemasons' Hall in central London, having been initiated into the craft in 1813 (this was built, but no longer survives), and he drew up plans for a new royal palace (probably on the site of London's Green Park), which was never built. All of his designs show the influence of the Roman and Renaissance buildings that he had seen in Italy in his formative years.

The Dulwich Picture Gallery. Soane's use of skylights to light the building was inspired by Roman "cryptoportico" structures. Photo: Bridgeman (licensed under GNU).

The Mausoleum of the Bourgeois and Desenfans families, Soane's patrons at the Dulwich Picture Gallery: Soane's use of coloured glass to create light effects was a characteristic and innovative element of his design. Photo: Fae (licensed under CCA). 

Soane's design for a royal palace, 1821

Unlike his aristocratic contemporaries, Soane had not returned from his Grand Tour with a large collection of antiquities, but he made up for this, as a successful architect, by buying up the Greek vases and sculptures brought back by younger tourists, who had (after the fashion of many Grand Tourists), overstretched their budgets.

When his beloved wife, Elizabeth, died, Soane designed a funerary monument at Old Saint Pancras Churchyard, which would, in time, become his own sepulchre, as well as hers. It would also become his most ubiquitous and visible legacy, since it inspired a much later architect, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, in his (1935) design for a telephone kiosk, which was rolled out across the British Isles.

The burial vault of the Soane family, at Old Saint Pancras Churchyard.
Photo: David Edgar (licensed under CCA).

Telephone kiosks designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott,
Covent Garden, London.
Photo: Enzo Plazzotta (licensed under GNU).

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Mark Patton is a published author of historical fiction and non-fiction, whose books can be purchased from Amazon.

Augustus Pugin: Architect of the Victorian Gothic

By Mark Patton.

The skylines of Britain's great cities, London, Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, are dominated by two great architectural styles, which compete with one another for the attention of the visitor: the "Gothic," and the "Classical." Whilst some really significant buildings (Westminster Abbey, York Minster, the Cathedrals of Salisbury, Winchester, Ely and Durham prominent among them) are genuinely Gothic (i.e. Medieval), none are genuinely Classical (i.e. Roman - this is in contrast, say, to France, where significant Roman buildings are still standing). Most of the prominent buildings in British cities are more accurately described as "Neo-Gothic" or "Neo-Classical," and were built in the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.

The skyline of Edinburg in c 1895. Photo: Library of Congress (image is in the Public Domain).

Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-1852) was one of the leading architects of Victorian Neo-Gothic. He was not the first British architect of the modern era to look to the Medieval past for inspiration, but he took the attachment to the Gothic world view to a new level, and, in doing so, created some of Britain's most iconic buildings.

Augustus Pugin, c 1840. Image: National Portrait Gallery (Public Domain).

Pugin's father, A.C. Pugin, himself an architectural illustrator, came to England as a refugee from the French Revolution. As a boy, Augustus traveled through Germany and the Netherlands with his father, helping to survey and sketch the great Gothic churches and cathedrals of the continent. By the age of fifteen, he himself was designing Gothic furniture for Windsor Castle.

"Specimens of Gothic Architecture," by A.C. Pugin (image is in the Public Domain).

Pugin's great break came in 1834, when a fire destroyed the greater part of the Palace of Westminster. A committee was established to commission a replacement, and the contract went to Pugin's collaborator, the architect, Charles Barry. The committee had specified that the new building should be either in the Gothic or the Elizabethan style: the capital already had its share of Neo-Classical buildings - Somerset House, St Paul's Cathedral, the Greenwich Hospital, the British Museum, still under construction - and the style had been discredited by association with the nation's defeated enemy, Napoleon Bonaparte. Britain was not a secular republic, it was argued, but a Christian kingdom, and this identity should be reflected in the nation's most prominent public building. Pugin argued, successfully, for a Neo-Gothic building, not least because one of the few surviving elements of the original Medieval building was Westminster Hall, built during the reign of Richard II.

The Medieval Westminster Hall, as depicted by Pugin's father (image is in the Public Domain).

Arguments have subsequently raged over which man was responsible for which elements of the building, but it seems likely that, whilst Barry designed the floor-plan and managed the budget, Pugin took responsibility for much of the detail, including the design of what is now referred to officially as the Elizabeth Tower (but, popularly, as "Big Ben" - actually the name of the bell), and almost all the features of the interior.

The Palace of Westminster, as designed by Barry & Pugin. Photo: Alvesgaspar (licensed under GNU).

The thrones in the House of Lords, as designed by Pugin. Photo: US Government (image is in the Public Domain).

For Pugin, however, the choice of Gothic was not simply an aesthetic, but also a moral, even a religious one. In 1836, he converted to Roman Catholicism, and, in the same year, he published a tract called Contrasts, arguing that the Gothic was the authentic Christian style, which embodied the principles of true religion. Classicism, on the other hand, he saw as rationalistic, atheistic, and ultimately utilitarian, going hand in glove with the tendency to treat human beings merely as means to an end. His tract came with a series of provocative illustrations.

"Contrasted Towns," by Augustus Pugin, showing the supposed contrast between a civilised Medieval town and a dehumanised modern one (image is in the Public Domain). The Medieval image, however, is highly sanitised, with no evidence (for example) for capital punishment or poverty.

"Contrasted Residences for the Poor," by Augustus Pugin (image is in the Public Domain). In fact, the "modern" design at the top (a modified, but not a true, "pan-opticon"), though widely used for Victorian prisons, was never used for workhouses; and the corpses of workhouse inmates, though they may have been buried in mass-graves, were never supplied to anatomists.   

As a refugee, Pugin's father had adopted the Anglican faith to avoid the prejudices that might have prevented him from finding work. During the reign of Queen Victoria, however, Britain became more tolerant of other religious traditions, including Catholicism and Judaism. The Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy of bishops, and new Catholic churches sprang up around the country, largely in response to the influx of Catholic, Irish labourers. Pugin was well-placed to be the architect of preference to the new dioceses, although he sometimes came into conflict with the bishops, both over budgets (like many architects, he didn't like working within them), and over his ultra-traditional views on church architecture.

The Roman Catholic Church of St Giles, Cheadle, Staffordshire, designed by Pugin. Photo: Oosoom (licensed under GNU).

Pugin did not only design public buildings and churches, however, but also private houses, schools and colleges.

Scarisbrick Hall, Lancashire, designed by Pugin as a private home, now a school. Photo: PC78 (licensed under CCA).

His later years were troubled by apparent mental health difficulties: syphilis and hyperthyroidism have been suggested as possible causes of these, but he had also suffered tragedy in his personal life (his first two wives died young), and he seems to have responded to this by immersing himself in his work, so perhaps exhaustion was also a factor. He would have died in the Bethlehem Hospital had his third wife, Jane, not engineered his release, against medical advice. He died at home in Ramsgate shortly afterwards, at the age of just forty, and is buried nearby, in St Augustine's Church, which he designed himself.

Mark Patton is a published author of historical fiction and non-fiction, whose books can be purchased from Amazon.