When
Charles Dickens died, he had spectacular fame, great wealth and an adoring
public. But his personal life was complicated. Separated from his wife and
living in a huge country mansion in Kent, the novelist was in the thrall of his
young mistress, Ellen Ternan. This is the untold story of Charles Dickens’s
final hours and the furore that followed, as the great writer’s family and
friends fought over his final wishes.
My new
research has uncovered the never-before-explored areas of the great author’s
sudden death, and his subsequent burial. While details such as the presence of
Ternan at the author’s funeral have already been discovered by Dickensian
sleuths, what is new and fresh here is the degree of manoeuvring and
negotiations involved in establishing Dickens’s ultimate resting place.
Dickens’s
death created an early predicament for his family. Where was he to be buried?
Near his home (as he would have wished) or in that great public pantheon,
Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey (which was clearly against his wishes)?
“The
Inimitable” (as he sometimes referred to himself) was one of the most famous
celebrities of his time. No other writer is as closely associated with the
Victorian period. As the author of such immortal classics as Oliver Twist,
David Copperfield and A Christmas Carol, he was constantly in the public eye.
Because of the vivid stories he told, and the causes he championed (including
poverty, education, workers’ rights, and the plight of prostitutes), there was
great demand for him to represent charities, and appear at public events and
visit institutions up and down the country (as well as abroad – particularly in
the United States). He moved in the best circles and counted among his friends
the top writers, actors, artists and politicians of his day.
Dickens
was proud of what he achieved as an author and valued his close association
with his public. In 1858 he embarked on a career as a professional reader of
his own work and thrilled audiences of thousands with his animated
performances. This boost to his career occurred at a time when his marital
problems came to a head: he fell in love with Ternan, an 18-year-old actress,
and separated from his wife Catherine, with whom he had ten children.
Dickens
was careful to keep his love affair private. Documentary evidence of his
relationship with Ternan is very scarce indeed. He had wanted to take her with
him on a reading tour to America in 1868, and even developed a telegraphic code
to communicate to her whether or not she should come. She didn’t, because
Dickens felt that he could not protect their privacy.
Ellen Ternan
On
Wednesday June 8 1870, the author was working on his novel Edwin Drood in the
garden of his country home, Gad’s Hill Place, near Rochester, in Kent. He came
inside to have dinner with his sister-in-law, Georgina Hogarth, and suffered a
stroke. The local doctor was summoned and remedies were applied without effect.
A telegram was sent to London, to summon John Russell Reynolds, one of the top
neurologists in the land. By the following day the author’s condition hadn’t
changed and he died at 6.10pm, on June 9.
Accepted
wisdom concerning Dickens’s death and burial is drawn from an authorised
biography published by John Forster: The Life of Charles Dickens. Forster was
the author’s closest friend and confidant. He was privy to the most intimate
areas of his life, including the time he spent in a blacking (boot polish)
warehouse as a young boy (which was a secret, until disclosed by Forster in his
book), as well as details of his relationship with Ternan (which were not
revealed by Forster, and which remained largely hidden well into the 20th
century). Forster sought to protect Dickens’s reputation with the public at all
costs.
Last
Will and Testament
In his
will (reproduced in Forster’s biography), Dickens had left instructions that he
should be:
Buried in an inexpensive, unostentatious,
and strictly private manner; that no public announcement be made of the time or
place of my burial; that at the utmost not more than three plain mourning
coaches be employed; and that those who attend my funeral wear no scarf, cloak,
black bow, long hat-band, or other such revolting absurdity.
Forster
added that Dickens’s preferred place of burial – his Plan A – was “in the small
graveyard under Rochester Castle wall, or in the little churches of Cobham or
Shorne”, which were all near his country home. However, Forster added: “All
these were found to be closed”, by which he meant unavailable.
Plan B
was then put into action. Dickens was set to be buried in Rochester Cathedral,
at the direction of the Dean and Chapter (the ecclesiastical governing body).
They had even dug a grave for the great man. But this plan too was scuppered,
in favour of interment in Poets’ Corner, in Westminster Abbey – the resting place
of Geoffrey Chaucer, Samuel Johnson, and other literary greats.
Forster
claims in the biography that the media led the way in agitating for burial in
the abbey. He singles out The Times, which, in an article of January 13 1870,
“took the lead in suggesting that the only fit resting place for the remains of
a man so dear to England was the abbey in which the most illustrious Englishmen
are laid”. He added that when the Dean of Westminster, Arthur Penrhyn Stanley,
asked Forster and members of the Dickens family to initiate what was now Plan
C, and bury him in the abbey, it became their “grateful duty to accept that
offer”.
The
private funeral occurred early in the morning of Tuesday June 14 1870, and was
attended by 14 mourners. The grave was then left open for three days so that
the public could pay their respects to one of the most famous figures of the
age. Details of the authorised version of Dickens’s death and burial were
carried by all the major and minor newspapers in the English-speaking world and
beyond. Dickens’s estranged wife Catherine received a message of condolence
from Queen Victoria, expressing “her deepest regret at the sad news of Charles
Dickens’s death”.
The
effect that Dickens’s death had on ordinary people may be appreciated from the
reaction of a barrow girl who sold fruits and vegetables in Covent Garden
Market. When she heard the news, she is reported to have said: “Dickens dead?
Then will Father Christmas die too?”
The
funeral directors
My
investigation has revealed, however, how Dickens’s burial in Poets’ Corner was
engineered by Forster and Stanley to satisfy their personal aims, rather than
the author’s own. While the official story was that it was the “will of the
people” to have Dickens buried in the Abbey (and there were articles in The
Times to this effect), the reality was that this alteration suited both the
biographer and the churchman.
Forster
could conclude the volume he was contemplating in a fitting manner, by having
Dickens interred in the national pantheon where so many famous literary figures
were buried. He thus ensured that a stream of visitors would make a pilgrimage
to Dickens’s grave and spread his reputation far and wide, for posterity.
Stanley
could add Dickens to his roll of famous people whose burials he conducted. They
included Lord Palmerston, the former UK prime minister, mathematician and
astronomer Sir John Herschel, missionary and explorer David Livingstone, and
Sir Rowland Hill, the postal reformer and originator of the penny post.
The
efforts of Forster and Stanley to get Dickens buried exactly where they wanted
enhanced the reputations of both men. For each of them, the interment of
Dickens in the abbey might be considered the highlight of their careers.
‘Mr
Dickens very ill, most urgent’
The new
evidence I have found was gathered from libraries, archives and cathedral
vaults and prove beyond a doubt that any claims about the Westminster burial
being the will of the people are false.
What
emerges is an atmosphere of urgency in the Dickens household after the author
collapsed. Dickens’s son Charley sent the telegram to the author’s staff in
London, requesting urgent medical assistance from the eminent neurologist, John
Russell Reynolds:
Go without losing a moment to Russell
Reynolds thirty eight Grosvenor St Grosvenor Sqr tell him to come by next train
to Higham or Rochester to meet… Beard (Dickens’s physician), at Gadshill … Mr
Dickens very ill most urgent.
Dickens’s
sister-in-law, Georgina Hogarth, who ran his household and cared for his
children after the separation from Catherine, was clearly disappointed that the
specialist could do nothing for her much-adored brother-in-law. She sent a note
to her solicitor with the doctor’s fee: “I enclose Dr Reynolds’ demand (of £20)
for his fruitless visit.”
Dean
Stanley had met Dickens in 1870, after being introduced by the churchman’s
brother-in-law, Frederick Locker, who was a friend of the novelist. Stanley
confided to his private journal (now housed in the archives of Westminster
Abbey) that he was “much struck” by his conversation with Dickens and
appreciated the few opportunities he had to meet the author before he died.
Locker’s
memoir also records an interesting conversation he had with Stanley before this
1870 meeting, which sheds light on the Dean’s attitude towards the novelist,
his death and funeral. Locker writes about talking to Stanley “of the burials
in the abbey” and they discussed the names of some “distinguished people”.
Stanley told him there were “certain people” he would be “obliged to refuse”
burial, on account of personal antipathies. But his attitude changed when the
name of the author “came up” and he said he “should like to meet Dickens”.
Then, to “gratify” Stanley’s “pious wish”, Locker asked Dickens and his
daughter to dine. Thus even while Dickens was still alive, Stanley privately
expressed a desire to bury him.
When the
end came, Locker conveyed the news to his brother-in-law on that very day –
June 9. The Dean wrote to Locker to say:
Alas! – how soon we have been overtaken by
the event which we were anticipating as so distant. I cannot amply thank you
for having given me the opportunity of having met Charles Dickens while there
was yet time. You will gather from what I have already said that I am quite
prepared to raise any proposals about the burial that may be made to me.
The
letter is fascinating. On the very day of the famous author’s death, the Dean
was already thinking about burial in the Abbey. But there was a catch: Stanley
could only entertain such a proposal if it came from the family and executors.
He could not act unilaterally.
Locker
quickly seized the opportunity hinted at in Stanley’s letter and sent a copy of
it to Charley Dickens (the author’s son) on June 10. He wrote in his covering
note: “I wish to send you a copy of a letter that I have just received from
Dean Stanley and I think it will explain itself. If I can be of any use pray
tell me.”
False
claims and ambition
Meanwhile,
the idea of getting Dickens to Poets’ Corner was growing in Stanley’s
imagination. He wrote to his cousin Louisa on Saturday June 11 to say “I never
met (Dickens) till this year… And now he is gone … and it is not improbable
that I may bury him”. It’s interesting how quickly the plan crystallised in the
Dean’s mind. Within the space of 48 hours, he went from hypothetical proposals
from the family for burial, to foreseeing a key role for himself in the
proceedings.
However,
an answer from Charley Dickens wasn’t forthcoming. Stanley waited until the
morning of Monday June 13, before seeking another way of making his wishes
known to the family. He got in touch with his friend Lord Houghton (formerly
Rickard Monckton Milnes – a poet, politician and friend of Dickens),
reiterating his preparedness “to receive any proposal for (Dickens’s) burial in
the Abbey” and asking Houghton to “act as you think best”.
It was
at this point in the proceedings that Forster took charge of the planning. He
had been away in Cornwall when Dickens died and it took him two days to reach
Gad’s Hill. When he reached Dickens’s country home on Saturday June 11 he was
overcome with grief at the death of his friend and clearly unprepared for the
suddenness with which the blow was struck. His first thoughts, and those of the
immediate family, were to accede to Dickens’s wishes and have him buried close
to home. While the official account, in his Life of Dickens, claims that the
graveyards in the vicinity of his home were “closed”, an examination of the
records of the churches in Cobham and Shorne demonstrate this to be false.
The
proposed burial in Rochester Cathedral was not only advanced, but in fact
finalised, costed, and invoiced. The Chapter archives demonstrate that a grave
was in fact dug in St Mary’s Chapel by the building firm Foord & Sons. The
records also show that the Cathedral authorities “believed, as they still
believe (after Dickens was buried in the Abbey), that no more fitting or
honourable spot for his sepulture could be found than amidst scenes to which he
was fondly attached, and amongst those by whom he was personally known as a
neighbour and held in such honour”.
These
views are reinforced by the claims of Hogarth, Dickens’s sister-in-law, in a
letter to a friend:
We should have preferred Rochester Cathedral, and it was a great
disappointment to the people there that we had to give way to the larger
demand.
This
“larger demand” came – at least in part – from a leader that appeared in The Times on Monday June 13. It concluded:
Let
(Dickens) lie in the Abbey. Where Englishmen gather to review the memorials of
the great masters and teachers of their nation, the ashes and the name of the
greatest instructor of the nineteenth century should not be absent.
Despite
this appeal appearing in the press, Stanley’s private journal records that he
still “had received no application from any person in authority”, and so “took
no steps” to advance his burial plan.
Stanley’s
prayers must have seemed answered, then, when Forster and Charley Dickens
appeared at the door of the Deanery on that same day. According to the Dean,
after they sat down, Forster said to Stanley: “I imagine the article in the
‘Times’ must have been written with your concurrence?” Stanley replied: “No, I
had no concern with it, but at the same time I had given it privately to be
understood that I would consent to the interment if it was demanded.” By this
Stanley meant the letter he had sent to Locker, which the latter had forwarded
to Charley. Stanley of course agreed to the request from Dickens’s
representatives for burial in Poets’ Corner. What he refrains from saying is
how much he personally was looking forward to officiating at an event of such
national significance.
While
it’s clear, from the private correspondence I have examined, that Stanley
agitated for Dickens’s burial in the abbey, the actions of Forster are harder
to trace. He left fewer clues about his intentions and he destroyed all of his
working notes for his monumental three volume biography of Dickens. These
documents included many letters from the author. Forster used Dickens’s
correspondence liberally in his account. In fact, the only source we have for
most of the letters from Dickens to Forster are the passages that appear in the
biography.
But as
well as showing how Forster falsely claimed in his biography that the
graveyards near his home were “closed”, my research also reveals how he altered
the words of Stanley’s (published) funeral sermon to suit his own version of
events. Forster quoted Stanley as saying that Dickens’s grave “would
thenceforward be a sacred one with both the New World and the Old, as that of
the representative of the literature, not of this island only, but of all who
speak our English tongue”. This, however, is a mis-quotation of the sermon, in
which Stanley actually said:
Many, many are the feet which have trodden
and will tread the consecrated ground around that narrow grave; many, many are
the hearts which both in the Old and in the New World are drawn towards it, as
towards the resting-place of a dear personal friend; many are the flowers that
have been strewed, many the tears shed, by the grateful affection of ‘the poor
that cried, and the fatherless, and those that had none to help them’.
Stanley
worked with Forster to achieve their common aim. In 1872, when Forster sent
Stanley a copy of the first volume of his Life of Dickens, the Dean wrote:
You are very good to speak so warmly of
any assistance I may have rendered in carrying out your wishes and the desire
of the country on the occasion of the funeral. The recollection of it will
always be treasured amongst the most interesting of the various experiences
which I have traversed in my official life.
For the
ages
My
research demonstrates that the official, authorised accounts of the lives and
deaths of the rich and famous are open to question and forensic investigation –
even long after their histories have been written and accepted as canonical.
Celebrity is a manufactured commodity, that depends for its effect on the
degree to which the fan (which comes from the word “fanatic”) can be
manipulated into believing a particular story about the person whom he or she
adores.
In the
case of Dickens, two people who had intimate involvement in preserving his
reputation for posterity were not doing so for altruistic reasons: there was
something in it for each of them. Stanley interred the mortal remains of
Dickens in the principal shrine of British artistic greatness. This ensured
that his tomb became a site of pilgrimage, where the great and the good would
come to pay their respects – including the Prince of Wales, who laid a wreath
on Dickens’s grave in 2012, to mark the bicentenary of his birth.
Such
public commemorations of this Victorian superstar carry special meaning and
mystique for his many fans. This year, on February 7 (the anniversary of his
birth), Armando Iannucci (director of the new film adaptation The Personal
History of David Copperfield) is scheduled give the toast to “the immortal
memory” at a special dinner hosted by the Dickens Fellowship – a worldwide
association of admirers. The 150th anniversary of his death will be observed at
Westminster Abbey on June 8 2020.
Whether
it’s the remembrance of the author’s death or his birth, these public acts
symbolise how essential Dickens is to Britain’s national culture. None of this
would have been possible, however, had it not been for the involvement of
Dickens’s best friend and executor, John Forster. Forster organised the private
funeral in Westminster Abbey in accordance with Dickens’s wishes, and ensured
that his lover Ellen Ternan could discreetly attend, and that his estranged
wife would not. But he is also the man who overruled the expectations of the
author for a local burial. Instead, through an act of institutionally
sanctioned bodysnatching, the grave in Poets’ Corner bound Dickens forever in
the public mind with the ideals of national life and art and provided a fitting
conclusion to Forster’s carefully considered, strategically constructed
biography. It ends with these words:
Facing the grave, and on its left and right,
are the monuments of Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Dryden, the three immortals who
did most to create and settle the language to which Charles Dickens has given
another undying name.
Charles
Dickens: newly discovered documents reveal truth about his death and burial. By
Leon Litvack. The Conversation, February
3, 2020.
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