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DICKENSLAND
i
ii
DICKENSLAND
THE CURIOUS HISTORY OF
DICKENS’S LONDON
LEE JACKSON
iii
Copyright © 2023 Lee Jackson
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form
(beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and
except by reviewers for the public press) without written permission from the publishers.
All reasonable efforts have been made to provide accurate sources for all images that
appear in this book. Any discrepancies or omissions will be rectified in future editions.
For information about this and other Yale University Press publications, please contact:
U.S. Office: [email protected] yalebooks.com
Europe Office: [email protected] yalebooks.co.uk
e-ISBN 978-0-300-27505-6
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
iv
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations vi
Acknowledgements vii
v
ILLUSTRATIONS
vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
viii
1
1
DICKENSLAND
CHARLES DICKENS
BORN 7th FEBRUARY 1812
DIED 9th JUNE 1870
2
dead: to begin with
3
DICKENSLAND
4
dead: to begin with
5
DICKENSLAND
Burns (‘The secret to success is sincerity. If you can fake that, you’ve
got it made’). Manufactured authenticity, likewise, can prove very
appealing.
***
‘Dickens’s London’ flourished as a tourist experience c. 1870–1930,
and, of course, although public interest has waxed and waned, it can
still be enjoyed to this day. The origins of the phenomenon, however,
are quite complex. Obviously, Dickens’s own topographic specificity
is fundamental. He seems to have regularly prowled the streets of
London, scouting for suitably interesting locations that he might use
in his fiction. Whilst writing The Old Curiosity Shop, he famously
penned a note to John Forster which read, ‘intended calling on you
this morning on my way back from Bevis-marks, whither I went to
look at a house for Sampson Brass’ (the venal solicitor in the novel).14
This reference to Bevis Marks also highlights his interest in the older
parts of the metropolis. Situated on the border of the City of London,
the run-down district was particularly quaint, containing a number
of Elizabethan buildings, such as the timbered, gabled Blue Pig
public house, on the corner of St Mary Axe and Bevis Marks, later
known as the Golden Axe.15 In fact, a fascination with old buildings
runs through Dickens’s fiction and was noted by his critics. John
Ruskin, writing in a private letter shortly after the great author’s
death, criticised Dickens for being ‘a pure modernist . . . with no
understanding of any power of antiquity except as a sort of jackdaw
sentiment for cathedral towers . . . [who] uses everything for effect
on the pit’.16 The accusation was that Dickens appropriated historic
locations as picturesque scenic backdrops for his novels – a superfi-
cial engagement with the past. Walter Bagehot, similarly, imagined
the author drawing upon an extensive memory bank of (real-world)
‘old buildings and curious people’.17 Bagehot, however, differed from
Ruskin, praising Dickens for assembling a peculiar sort of modernist
literary collage. The novels, he argued, recalling these random and
6
dead: to begin with
7
DICKENSLAND
8
dead: to begin with
9
DICKENSLAND
10
dead: to begin with
11
DICKENSLAND
12
dead: to begin with
***
Modern-day Dickens fans may legitimately ask why I have limited
my research to London. Naturally, I must concede that a complete
survey would extend beyond the metropolis. Rochester, Chatham
and their surrounds, associated with Dickens’s childhood, feature in
several of his books, and he resided at nearby Gads Hill from 1857
until his death. This corner of Kent, therefore, has long been a site for
Dickensian tourism. By the turn of the twentieth century, for example,
Thomas Cook was laying on tours of Rochester and its environs
entitled ‘A Day’s Pilgrimage to Dickens’ Country’.42 Growing interest
in ‘Dickens’s Kent’, in particular, went hand in hand with the late
Victorian cycling craze and then, a decade or two later, the advent of
the motor car, opening up the county to new waves of visitors.
Motoring, in fact, breathed new life into Kent’s ‘Dickensian’ coaching
inns, which had teetered on the brink of extinction (as well as
resulting in some peculiar advertisements, such as Mr Pickwick
advertising the likes of the Bean Tourer, a 1920s automobile).43 I do
make a brief diversion to Gads Hill, and I take a tour of Chatham’s
Dickens World, but a full exploration of the county’s ties with
Dickens is beyond the scope of this book. Any complete study of
13
DICKENSLAND
14
2
15
DICKENSLAND
16
great rambling queer old places
before Dickens’s death, noted, ‘Half the fun and the humorous
description in “Pickwick” is about mail-coaches and drivers, and
guards, and country inns, which the young Londoner of today never
saw even in a picture.’ Indeed, the whole milieu of The Pickwick Papers
now seemed thoroughly quaint and antiquated, ‘older than the Elgin
marbles’.4 Dickens’s literary topographers, consequently, would come
to paint him as a sort of accidental historian of this bygone era.5
A review of the 1886 ‘Jubilee edition’ of Pickwick (an annotated
edition of the novel, complete with historical and topographical foot-
notes) remarked that coaching inns had been ‘frightened away by
the whistle and roar of the steam engine’ and expressed gratitude that
Dickens had fictively preserved them.6 John Camden Hotten, an
early Dickensian biographer, likewise claimed that the great author
had gifted posterity with the best possible description of ‘those old
coaching days and that old tavern life that have passed out of actual
existence, to live forever in Dickens’s pages’.7
London’s coaching inns, of course, were particularly hard hit by
the coming of the new railway termini. Their generous galleried
yards which allowed coaches space to turn, robbed of their trade in
passengers, would generally come to serve as goods depots for the
railways and local hauliers, before being demolished altogether. Inns
situated outside the capital, on the other hand, tended to have greater
longevity, facing less pressure from the railway and land-hungry
developers and still serving local communities as large public houses.
Regardless, by the latter part of the nineteenth century, those old
inns which stubbornly clung to life were increasingly hailed as rare
historic survivals. Tourists began to seek them out, both in London
and beyond. Literary tourists, in particular, were keen to discover the
‘great rambling queer old places’ which Dickens had so eloquently
described and to mentally populate them with Dickens’s characters.
This chapter considers three examples of Dickensian inns: the
White Hart Inn in Southwark (demolished in 1889), the King’s
Head in Chigwell (nowadays a restaurant) and the George Inn in
17
DICKENSLAND
***
Not everyone, it must be said, was enamoured of the old-fashioned
coaching inn. The writer Albert Smith would pen a damning portrait
entitled ‘Of the Good Old Coaching Days’ in his satirical magazine
The Month in 1851.8 The article does not mention Dickens but
Pickwickian nostalgia is plainly in the author’s sights.9 Coaching inn
dinners, according to Smith, were coarse; fellow passengers usually
drunk (the only way to get through the trundling rigours of the
journey, even when vehicles were fitted with the latest in spring
suspension); the accommodation wretched. Indeed, Smith lists every
possible inconvenience belonging to antiquated coaching inns, from
the soap (‘that little inconvenient latherless cube’), to ineffectual wax
candles, to airless rooms dominated by a single giant four-poster
bed, with the poor traveller barely able to move or draw breath (a
‘heavy expensive, elaborate mass of serge, chintz, feathers, mahogany,
horsehair, sacking, holland, ticking, quilting, winch-screws, brass
rings, castors and watch pockets’). Smith documents his sundry
discontents in minute detail – the article even includes a diagram-
matic plan of the typical cramped room – before concluding that, for
the benefit of the public, ‘Every inn ought to be entirely burnt down
every ten years’.
The various inns depicted in Pickwick, in fact, are not treated
identically. Some are cosy and welcoming, such as the Saracen’s Head
18
great rambling queer old places
19
DICKENSLAND
Here, Pickwick also meets the ‘boots’ (boot cleaner) of the inn, Sam
Weller, a fast-talking, indefatigable individual who swiftly becomes
his servant and cherished companion on his travels. The scene is illus-
trated by Phiz, showing the galleried inn courtyard with its latticed
windows and wooden balustrades, an enormous goods wagon, and
Pickwick and his companions addressing Sam, the cheeky Cockney
with his hat tipped rakishly askew. It is notable that late Victorian
literary tourists would often seek out scenes which had originally been
illustrated in Dickens’s novels. The translation from printed text to
image seems to have suggested the further possibility of encountering
the place in three dimensions. Hence the act of illustration itself made
the White Hart a likely destination for literary pilgrimage.
Sam Weller, of course, would become one of Dickens’s most
memorable characters, the Sancho Panza to Pickwick’s Don Quixote.
Weller was soon recognised as a literary phenomenon and a crucial
factor in turning Pickwick into a bestseller – ‘the prime character in
the whole book’.14 His comic sayings or ‘Wellerisms’ were endlessly
copied and reproduced, his character given pride of place in stage
adaptations (such as W.T. Moncrieff ’s farce ‘Sam Weller, Or the
Pickwickians’, which played at the New Strand Theatre in June
1837). The initial encounter at the White Hart Inn, therefore, would
be remembered as a key scene in the novel purely for its introduction
of the irrepressible Cockney bootblack. Theatrical adaptations, in
turn, rarely scorned reproducing the coaching inn yard. Moncrieff ’s
farce opened at the White Hart Inn (‘Entrance to Coach Yard of the
White Hart Inn – Bar and Coffee-Room on one side – Staircase,
leading to a range of bedrooms, on the other’).15 When a desultory
20
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to the danger to a certain extent. I swear, however, that not all the
gold in the world would induce me to do again what we did on this
trip under similar conditions. Ten times a day at least we had to face
these awful rapids, to go through all the agony of suspense,
succeeded by the awful sensation of passing over the obstacles
before us, whilst the boat seemed to rush from beneath us and
plunge into the foam, from which it seemed simply impossible that
she should ever again emerge.
Or again some rock barred our passage, and only by force of
moving were we able to make our way inch by inch against the
current which threatened to sweep us away. Then, as we literally
scraped the rock, we knew that two or three inches made all the
difference between life and death! For there would have been no
hope of escape if we were once upset in these awful rapids. Death
would have been inevitable, for the best swimmer could not have
made head against such currents as these, but would have been
dashed to pieces by them against the rocks.
Or supposing that by a miracle he should escape death by
drowning or by being flung upon the rocks, a yet more awful danger
awaited him after he had safely passed the rapids, for beneath all of
them many terrible crocodiles lie concealed, on the watch for the
luckless fish, which, rendered giddy by the whirling turmoil of water,
simply swim into their jaws. Crocodiles, you must know, do not kill
their prey as sharks do, and no death could be more terrible than
that inflicted by these awful denizens of the Niger, for they plunge
their victims under water and drown them. Imagine what it must be to
feel oneself gripped by the huge teeth of a merciless brute and
dragged along until death from suffocation ensues.
THE ‘AUBE’ IN THE LAST LABEZENGA RAPID.
General Skobeleff said one day, “If any one says to you that he
has never been afraid, spit in his face and tell him he is a liar!”
I don’t in the least mind owning that we were afraid, that we knew
what fear was day by day for a whole month; fear in the day at the
passage of every fresh obstacle, and yet greater fear in the night, for
then nightmare exaggerated the horrors of the light, crocodiles and
rapids haunting our sleep in dreams more awful even than the reality
had been.
I challenge in advance the next person who goes down the Niger
to say whether I have exaggerated anything in this account.
LOOKING UP STREAM FROM KATUGU.
We had to push on, however, and the first thing to be done was to
replace the burnous of Mamé, which still served as a plug in the hole
in the Davoust, with something a little more suitable for the purpose.
We had brought with us a piece of aluminium to meet just such an
emergency as this, but we had neither the time nor the means to
rivet it now. So we cut a piece of wood the right size to serve
provisionally, and fitted it into the hole, interposing a kind of mattress
of tarred oakum, and making the whole thing taut with the aid of two
strong bolts. Some putty made it more or less watertight, and
anyhow we could now keep our Davoust afloat.
The next day, the 16th, was as exciting as the 15th had been.
Three very strong rapids succeeded each other, completing the
awful pass of Labezenga. At each one the barges were halted above
the fall, and a reconnaissance was made, then they passed over one
by one, with the crew strengthened by every man who could be
pressed into the service. Digui continued to show wonderful
intrepidity, a quiet audacity and courage, and a readiness to grasp
the bearings of every situation, which were beyond all praise. We
can really say without exaggeration that we owed not only the safety
of our boats, but our very lives to him.
AT SANSAN-HAUSSA.
We went with Father Hacquart to return the visit the chief of the
village had paid us the evening before. He did not seem to wish us to
remain long in his country. He was afraid, he said. Why? we asked. It
was evident that the Toucouleurs, of whom there were a good many
in the village, had prejudiced him against us.
Two people came and asked us to give them a passage, one a
Fulah named Mamadu of Mumi in Massina, who had been here for
nine years unable to get away. We were to have a good deal to do
with him during our stay at Say.
The other was a Toucouleur named Suleyman, who spoke Wolof,
and had followed Amadu Cheiku in his exodus from Nioro to Dunga.
He was a poor deaf old man, but had a very intelligent face. He told
us that the whole recompense Amadu had given him for his long and
faithful service was to take away his gun, his only wealth, to give it to
one of his sofas or captives taken in war. This last misfortune had
disgusted Suleyman with the Holy War, in which he said more blows
than pay were received, and he wanted to go back with us to his own
land of Footah on the Senegal, the reigning chief of which was a
relation of his.
He did not know what we had come here for. He did not know
what route we meant to take on our way back, and surely nothing
could have been a greater mark of confidence in us than this
readiness of one of our worst enemies to trust himself to us.
At first I rather distrusted the man, who might be a spy, or worse,
a traitor sent to try and seduce my men from their duty. However,
whilst resolving to watch him closely, I decided to take him with us,
but I gave him a good talking to to begin with, saying—“I don’t know
whether you are a liar or an honest fellow, but most of your relations
are deceivers and humbugs, and it is no recommendation in my eyes
that you belong to the Toucouleur race. However, I will not be unjust,
for I may be mistaken about you. So you can come with us, and you
will be treated as if you were one of my own men. If we have plenty
you shall have your share, and if we run short of food you will have
to tighten your waistband like the rest of us. But deceive us once,
only once, and your head will not remain on your shoulders for a
moment. You are warned, please yourself about going or stopping.”
I must add here that Suleyman, the Toucouleur, or, as he was at
once called amongst us, Suleyman Foutanké, was always true to us.
I took him with me to Saint Louis, and he is now enjoying in his natal
village a repose which must indeed be grateful to him after his thirty
years’ wanderings.
We started again at two o’clock in the afternoon, and in the
evening we halted for the night not far from Sorbo, where we were to
see the chief of the Kurteyes.
We went to see him the next day, and passed the morning at
Sorba. We were very well received by Yusuf Osman. Don’t tell him
that I have revealed his name to the public, for amongst the Kurteyes
it is very bad form to call any one by his name. I have noticed that
there is a similar superstition in the Bambara districts of the Upper
Niger.
Yusuf is a big, good-looking fellow of about forty years of age,
who has recently succeeded his father as chief. When we arrived he
was suffering from some affection of the eyes. Taburet prescribed for
and cured him, thus contributing to establishing us in his good
graces.
The former chief of Sorba had been a great friend of Amadu, and
had given him canoes for crossing the river. If therefore the
Toucouleurs had succeeded in establishing their authority in the
districts torn from the Djermas of Karma and Dunga, it was in some
measure due to him.
Yusuf, however, did not disguise that he was becoming rather
uneasy about the future, and as far as was possible without
compromising himself he had tried to be useful to us. If ever we
succeed, as I hope we shall, in driving Amadu from the
neighbourhood of Say, we shall certainly find auxiliaries in the
Kurteyes.
Yusuf gave us as a guide to take us to Say, a man named Hugo,
chief of his own slaves, a capital fellow, and an excellent pilot.
Needless to add that we all at once dubbed him Victor in honour of
the great French author.
Relieved on the point about which I had been so anxious, the
securing of a guide to take us to Say, we went down to the village of
Kutukole, and anchored near it for the night, the river between it and
Sarbo being quite easy to navigate.
On the 3rd we passed Karma, and were now amongst the
Toucouleurs. On every side our approach was announced by the
lighting of fires, and the beating of the tabala or war-drum. A group of
horsemen followed us along the bank, watching us closely, but now
the stream was quite quiet, only one more rapid, that of Bobo, had to
be crossed, and that we left behind us the same evening. All we had
to do was to steer carefully clear of the few rocks which still impeded
the course of the river.
Bobo, opposite to which we passed the night, is, like Karma,
under the direct authority of Ali Buri, that venerable Wolof chieftain,
who, driven out of Cayor by the French, went to seek an asylum at
Nioro near Amadu, whose fortunes he followed. Captain Toutée was
mistaken in thinking that Ali Buri had been killed in the attack on his
expedition at Kompa. He was still alive, unfortunately for us, and we
were told was now in the Sorgoé district near the country of the Kel
Gheres, where he busied himself in winning partisans for Amadu.
On the right bank opposite our anchorage, Bokar Wandieïdu had
fought the year before with the Futankes, and had inflicted on them a
serious defeat. More than two hundred of Amadu’s warriors are still
prisoners in the hands of the Tuareg chief. Unfortunately, however,
after the Sinder affair, the chief of Say succeeded in reconciling the
enemies, and, as we have seen, the truce between them was
brought about at the expense of the French.
The 5th of April was Easter Sunday, and Father Hacquart
celebrated mass as we slipped easily down stream through
charming scenery, preceded by Hugo in his canoe acting as guide.
We passed several big villages belonging to the chiefs under
Amadu, and anchored opposite Saga.