Blasts from the Past: Charley Dickens

First, a confession. I have read very little Dickens. I was made to study Great Expectations at school, and I raced through A Christmas Carol more recently (how many times could I watch the Muppets version without consulting the original?). So almost everything I have discovered about Charles Dickens and his son Charley was completely new to me.

A slender but useful folder in the school archive was the starting point for my research. In this I found the nomination paper, slightly stained, for ‘Charles Dickens aged ten years on the sixth of January last,’ dated 5 February 1847. Charles Culliford Boz Dickens, known as Charley, was born in 1837, the first child of Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine (several more children would follow). It was no doubt his status as eldest – and eldest boy – that brought Charley to the attention of Angela Burdett-Coutts, a friend of his father who also happened to be one of the wealthiest women in England. The same year Charley was born, Angela Burdett, aged only 23, had inherited the Coutts estate (including a large share in the bank). Almost immediately she concerned herself with charitable causes and became well known for her philanthropy. She met Charles Dickens around 1840; a social reformer as well as a writer, he was a fierce advocate for the rights of the poor. Dickens successfully encouraged Burdett-Coutts to financially support the Field Lane School ragged school; a larger project, which they planned together, was Urania Cottage, a shelter for women and girls who had fallen into prostitution or petty crime.

‘I think I shall send Charley to King’s College after Christmas. I am sorry he should lose so much French, but don’t you think to break another half year’s schooling would be a pity? Of my own will I would not send him to King’s College at all, but to Bruce Castle instead. I suppose, however, Miss Coutts [knows] best.’

Charles Dickens, letter to John Forster, 30 November 1846

The story of Charley’s education at King’s starts in 1845. It appears that Angela Burdett-Coutts was already involved in advising on the boy’s schooling. She favoured Marlborough College but Dickens was reluctant to send his son, then aged only eight, away to boarding school. King’s College School was proposed. On Charley’s nomination paper, Burdett-Coutts states that she is a ‘Governor’; certainly she was a regular donor to King's College and this gave her the right to nominate three pupils a year (Coutts bank once held the title deeds of the College and Angela Burdett-Coutts was a close friend of the Duke of Wellington).

The intention had been to send Charley to the school in 1846 but Dickens decided to move his entire household abroad for a year. He wanted to get away from London. The city was a double-edged sword: his customary walks through its streets were inspiring but the constant stream of demands on his time were exhausting. At the end of May, the family left for Lausanne with the intention of staying there for a year. In the event, they moved to Paris in November 1846 and it was decided that Charley would return to school in London.

‘He will present himself in Stratton Street, with a King’s College paper for you to sign, a day or two before the end of the month. I have arranged that he shall board at Dr Major’s in Bloomsbury Square – coming home from Saturday to Monday when we return to England.’

Charles Dickens, letter to Angela Burdett-Coutts, 12 January 1847

Charley left Paris for England on 27 January 1847 and presumably started at the school at the beginning of February (the date of payment on the nomination paper). The Dr Major with whom he boarded was the Head Master of the school, Rev Dr John Major (in the 1841 census, twenty-one schoolboys were living with Major and his wife, two daughters, and seven servants).  

Within weeks, Charley was struck down with scarlet fever. It was the third serious outbreak of the illness at the school since 1840 (records indicate that most years, during the winter months, illnesses such as cholera, typhoid and diphtheria proliferated). His parents returned from Paris at the end of February, staying at the Victoria Hotel, Euston Square, as their house in Devonshire Terrace was still being leased by Sir James Duke. Charley, meanwhile, recuperated with his maternal grandmother in Albany Street.

Although Dickens had paid the fees for the following term (this money was returned to him), he chose not to send his son back to King’s College School but to the boy’s former school master, Joseph King, who ran a small establishment at his house in Maida Hill, West London. King, known to be a fine scholar, was a personal friend of Dickens, the two having been introduced at the home of the actor William Charles Macready.

‘I removed Charley, as you are aware, to King's College, in compliance with Miss Coutts's wish. She is very much attached to him. . . . When I told Miss Coutts of my intention the other day, she proposed his going to a certain establishment in Surrey; but I mentioned to her how much grateful confidence I had in you – how interested you were in Charley – how Charley always bore you in his most affectionate remembrance – and how I thought he could not be so happy or so well placed anywhere as under your care. She readily yielded to my opinion; and the result of our deliberation was, that I would ask you to take back Charley when his health should be quite restored, and to give us the benefit of your counsel as time goes on, as to the expediency of sending him to a Public School in the end; also as to the pursuit for which he seems the best adapted, and to which he seems the most to incline.  If we can, in the course of his mental and physical developement, find this out, Miss Coutts is very anxious to look about her, and prepare his way.

I write to you in entire confidence and without the least reserve. Such a friend as this lady, is most important to the child of course; and I should hardly feel justified in placing him under your charge, without telling you his exact position.

I think it will be better after a time – if you think so too – that he should be a weekly boarder at your house. But we will talk this over, before he comes. All I am anxious to do now, is to express my hope that you will like to have him, and to say that I am very sure he cannot have a better friend and tutor.’

Charles Dickens, letter to Joseph King, 31 March 1847

In September 1847, Dickens writes of Charley and his younger brother Walter leaving for Joseph King’s school, and that, at London Bridge, they would be 'folded in the arms of Blimber’ (a reference to the schoolmaster in Dombey and Son, the book on which Dickens was still working). In 1850, Charley was sent to Eton College; the fees were paid by Angela Burdett-Coutts.  

Despite the brevity of Charley’s time at King’s – and the detrimental effect to his health of being there – Dickens clearly fostered no ill will towards to the school. In 1848, after a petition was made by pupils to Charley for books for the school library, Dickens instructed his publishers Chapman and Hall to send copies of a number of his works. I think it is time that I read another of them.  

As ever, please do email if you have stories to share: I can be contacted at archive@kcs.org.uk.

Dr Lucy Inglis | School Archivist