A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land Part 20

[16] This was written soon after our first visit to Strood at the end of August, 1888. Within little more than two years afterwards, on Thursday, 7th August, 1890, I had the mournful pleasure of being present at the funeral of my friend, which took place at Frindsbury Church on that day, in the presence of the sorrowing relatives and of a large concourse of admirers, both local and from a distance. There were also present many representatives of distinguished scientific societies, including Dr.

John Evans, F.R.S., Treasurer of the Royal Society, and President of the Society of Antiquaries.

The kindness which I received from Mr. Roach Smith, to whom I presented myself in the first instance as a perfect stranger, and which was extended during the period of two years that I was privileged to enjoy his friends.h.i.+p, and at times his hospitality, would be ill requited if I did not here place on record my humble tribute of appreciation. Born about the commencement of the present century at Landguard Manor House, near Shanklin, Isle of Wight, after a somewhat diversified education and experience, he finally settled in London as a wholesale druggist, from which business he retired in 1856, and came to live at Temple Place, Strood. The bent of his mind was, however, distinctly in favour of archaeology, and in this science, which he commenced in the early years of his business, his work has been enormous. In the matter of the identification of Roman remains he was _facile princeps_, and for many years stood without a rival, his investigations and explorations extending over England and Europe. His princ.i.p.al works are _Collectanea Antiqua_, seven volumes; _Ill.u.s.trations of Roman London_; _Catalogue of London Antiquities_; _Richborough, Reculver, and Lymne_, and numberless contributions scattered over the journal of the Society of Antiquaries, the _Archaeologia Cantiana_, and other publications. He was an enthusiastic Shakespearean, the author of the _Rural Life of Shakespeare_, and of a little work on _The Scarcity of Home-Grown Fruits_. He also published two volumes of _Retrospections: Social and Archaeological_, and was engaged at his death in completing the third volume. He contributed many articles to Dr. William Smith's _Cla.s.sical Dictionaries_, and other similar works.

He was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries so far back as 1836, and at the time of his death was an Honorary Member or Fellow of at least thirty learned societies of a kindred nature in Great Britain and on the continent, and had been honoured by his colleagues and admirers in having his medal struck on two occasions.

"He was," says one of the highest of living scientists and writers, "one of the chief representatives of the _science_ of archaeology as understood in its broadest and widest sense. He has never been a mere collector of remains of ancient art, regarded only as curiosities, but has always had in view their use as exponents of the great unwritten history--the history of the people--which is not to be obtained from other sources; his writings have tended to the same end. Hence he stands as one of the foremost amongst those few of the present day who understand the science in its best and widest sense, his works being referred to as _the_ authority at home and abroad."

Speaking with his friend and companion for many years, Mr. George Payne, F.S.A., Hon. Sec. to the Kent Archaeological Society, on my last visit, about several personal characteristics of our mutual friend, such as his persistent energy and his indomitable disposition to stoically resist the infirmities of approaching age, and decline any a.s.sistance in helplessness, and especially as to the _quaestio vexata_, "Bill Stumps, his mark," Mr. Payne expressed his opinion, that at the bottom of his heart Mr. Roach Smith may probably have had a feeling that d.i.c.kens in some way (however unintentionally) slighted the science of archaeology, which he (Mr. Roach Smith) had all his life tried to elevate.

A most distinguished antiquarian, a thoroughly honourable man, a versatile and accomplished gentleman, and a kind-hearted and liberal friend, the town of Strood, to which he was for so many years endeared, will long and deservedly mourn his loss.

[17] It is interesting to place on record here, that the germ of Charles d.i.c.kens's "Readings," which afterwards developed so marvellously both in England and America, originated in Birmingham. On the 27th of December, 1853, he read his _Christmas Carol_ in the Town Hall in aid of the funds of the Inst.i.tute. On the 29th he read _The Cricket on the Hearth_, and on the 30th he repeated the _Carol_ to an audience princ.i.p.ally composed of working men. The success was overwhelming.

[18] Miss Hogarth informs me that her brother-in-law frequently dined out in the neighbourhood, accompanied by his daughter and herself.

CHAPTER IX.

CHATHAM:--ST. MARY'S CHURCH, ORDNANCE TERRACE, THE HOUSE ON THE BROOK, THE MITRE HOTEL, AND FORT PITT. LANDPORT:--PORTSEA, HANTS.

"The home of his infancy, to which his heart had yearned with an intensity of affection not to be described."--_The Pickwick Papers._

"I believe the power of observation in numbers of very young children to be quite wonderful for its closeness and accuracy. Indeed, I think that most grown men who are remarkable in this respect, may, with greater propriety, be said not to have lost the faculty than to have acquired it; the rather, as I generally observe such men to retain a certain freshness, and gentleness, and capacity of being pleased, which are also an inheritance they have preserved from their childhood."--_David Copperfield._

THE naval and military town of Chatham, unlike the Cathedral city of Rochester, has, at first sight, few attractions for the lover of d.i.c.kens. Mr. Phillips Bevan calls it "a dirty, unpleasant town devoted to the interests of soldiers, sailors, and marines." We are not disposed to agree entirely with him; but we must admit that it has little of the picturesque to recommend it--no venerable Castle or Cathedral to attract attention, no scenes in the novels of much importance to visit, no characters therein of much interest to identify. Mr. Pickwick's own description of the four towns of Strood, Rochester, Chatham, and Brompton, certainly applies more nearly to Chatham than to the others; but things have improved in many ways since the days of that veracious chronicler, as we are glad to testify:--

"The princ.i.p.al productions of these towns," says Mr. Pickwick, "appear to be soldiers, sailors, Jews, chalk, shrimps, officers, and dockyard men.

The commodities chiefly exposed for sale in the public streets are marine stores, hard-bake, apples, flat-fish, and oysters. The streets present a lively and animated appearance, occasioned chiefly by the conviviality of the military. . . .

"The consumption of tobacco in these towns,"

continues Mr. Pickwick, "must be very great; and the smell which pervades the streets must be exceedingly delicious to those who are extremely fond of smoking. A superficial traveller might object to the dirt, which is their leading characteristic; but to those who view it as an indication of traffic and commercial prosperity, it is truly gratifying."

And yet for all this, there are circ.u.mstances to be noticed of the deepest possible interest connected with Chatham, and spots therein to be visited, which every pilgrim to "d.i.c.kens-Land" must recognize. At Chatham,--"my boyhood's home," as he affectionately calls it,--many of the earlier years of Charles d.i.c.kens (probably from his fourth to his eleventh) were pa.s.sed; here it was "that the most durable of his earlier impressions were received; and the a.s.sociations around him when he died were those which at the outset of his life had affected him most strongly."

Admirers of the great novelist are much indebted to Mr. Robert Langton, F. R. Hist. Soc., for his _Childhood and Youth of Charles d.i.c.kens_, a book quite indispensable to a tramp in this neighbourhood, the charming ill.u.s.trations by the late Mr. William Hull, the author, and others rendering the identification of places perfectly easy. d.i.c.kens says, "If anybody knows to a nicety where Rochester ends and Chatham begins, it is more than I do." "It's of no consequence," as Mr. Toots would say, for the High Street is one continuous thoroughfare, but as a matter of fact, a narrow street called Boundary Lane on the north side of High Street separates the two places.

A few words of recapitulation as to early family history[19] may be useful here. John d.i.c.kens, who is represented as "a fine portly man,"

was a Navy pay-clerk, and Elizabeth his wife (_nee_ Barrow), who is described as "a dear good mother and a fine woman," the parents of the future genius, resided in the beginning of this century at 387, Mile End Terrace, Commercial Road, Landport, Portsea,[20] "and is so far in Portsea as being in the island of that name." Here Charles d.i.c.kens was born, at twelve o'clock at night, on Friday, 7th February, 1812. He was the second child and eldest son of a rather numerous family consisting of eight sons and daughters, and was baptized at St. Mary's, Kingston (the parish church of Portsea), under the names of Charles John Huff_h_am; the last of these is no doubt a misspelling, as the name of his grandfather, from whom he took it, was Huffam, but d.i.c.kens himself scarcely ever used it. In the old family Bible now in possession of Mr.

Charles d.i.c.kens it is Huffam in his father's own handwriting. The d.i.c.kens family left Mile End Terrace on 24th June, 1812, and went to live in Hawke Street, Portsea, from whence, in consequence of a change in official duties of the elder d.i.c.kens, they removed to Chatham in 1816 or 1817, and resided there for six or seven years, until they went to live in London.

Bearing these circ.u.mstances in mind, it is very natural that we should determine on an early pilgrimage to Chatham, and Sunday morning sees us at the old church--St. Mary's--where d.i.c.kens himself must often have been taken as a child, and where he saw the marriage of his aunt f.a.n.n.y with James Lamert, a Staff Doctor in the Army,--the Doctor Slammer of _Pickwick_,--of whom Mr. Langton says:--"The regimental surgeon's kindly manner, and his short odd way of expressing himself, still survive in the recollections of a few old people." Dr. Lamert's son James, by a former wife, was a great crony of young Charles d.i.c.kens, taking him to the Rochester theatre, and getting up private theatricals in which they both acted.

Surely there is a faint description of those times in the second chapter of _David Copperfield_:--

[Ill.u.s.tration: St. Mary's Church, Chatham.]

"Here is our pew in the church. What a high-backed pew! With a window near it, out of which our house can be seen, and _is_ seen many times during the morning's service by Peggotty, who likes to make herself as sure as she can that it's not being robbed, or is not in flames. But though Peggotty's eye wanders, she is much offended if mine does, and frowns to me, as I stand upon the seat, that I am to look at the clergyman. But I can't always look at him--I know him without that white thing on, and I am afraid of his wondering why I stare so, and perhaps stopping the service to enquire--and what am I to do? It's a dreadful thing to gape, but I must do something. I look at my mother, but _she_ pretends not to see me. I look at a boy in the aisle, and _he_ makes faces at me. I look at the sunlight coming in at the open door through the porch, and there I see a stray sheep--I don't mean a sinner, but mutton--half making up his mind to come into the church. I feel that if I looked at him any longer, I might be tempted to say something out loud; and what would become of me then!"

The church, now undergoing reconstruction, is not a very presentable structure, and has little of interest to recommend it, except a bra.s.s to a famous navigator named Stephen Borough, the discoverer of the northern pa.s.sage to Russia (1584), and a monument to Sir John c.o.x, who was killed in an action with the Dutch (1672). The name of Weller occurs on a gravestone near the church door.

We cross the High Street, proceed along Railway Street, formerly Rome Lane, pa.s.s the Chatham Railway Station (near which is a statue of Lieutenant Waghorn, R.N., "pioneer and founder of the Overland Route,"

born at Chatham, 1800, and died 1850),[21] and find ourselves at Ordnance Terrace, a conspicuous row of two-storied houses, prominently situated on the higher ground facing us, beyond the Station. In one of these houses (No. 11--formerly No. 2) the d.i.c.kens family resided from 1817 to 1821. The present occupier is a Mr. Roberts, who kindly allows us to inspect the interior. It has the dining-room on the left-hand side of the entrance and the drawing-room on the first floor, and is altogether a pleasantly-situated, comfortable, and respectable dwelling.

No. 11, "the second house in the terrace," is overgrown with a Virginia creeper, which, from its possible a.s.sociation with d.i.c.kens's earliest years, may have induced him to plant the now magnificent one which exists at Gad's Hill. "Here it was," says Forster, "that his first desire for knowledge, and his greatest pa.s.sion for reading, were awakened by his mother, who taught him the first rudiments, not only of English, but also, a little later, of Latin. She taught him regularly every day for a long time, and taught him, he was convinced, thoroughly well." Mr. Langton also says that "It was during his residence here that some of the happiest hours of the childhood of little Charles were pa.s.sed, as his father was in a fairly good position in the Navy Pay Office, and they were a most genial, lovable family." Here it was that the theatrical entertainments and the genial parties took place, when, in addition to his brothers and sisters and his cousin, James Lamert, there were also present his friends and neighbours, George Stroughill, and Master and Miss Tribe.

Mr. Langton further states that "Ordnance Terrace is known to have formed the locality and characters for some of the earlier _Sketches by Boz_." "The Old Lady" was a Miss Newnham, who lived at No. 5, and who was, by all accounts, very kind to the d.i.c.kens children. The "Half-pay Captain" was also a near neighbour, and he is supposed to have supplied one of the earliest characters to d.i.c.kens as a mere child. Some of the neighbours at the corner house next door (formerly No. 1) were named Stroughill,--p.r.o.nounced Stro'hill (there was, it will be remembered, a _Struggles_ at the famous cricket-match at All-Muggleton)--and the son, George, is said to have had some of the characteristics of Steerforth in _David Copperfield_. He had a sister named Lucy, probably the "Golden Lucy," from her beautiful locks, and who, according to Mr. Langton, "was the special favourite and little sweetheart of Charles d.i.c.kens." She was possibly the prototype of her namesake, in the beautiful story of the _Wreck of the Golden Mary_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: No. 11, Ordnance Terrace, Chatham. _Where the d.i.c.kens Family lived 1817-21._]

About the year 1821 pecuniary embarra.s.sments beset and tormented the d.i.c.kens family, which were afterwards to be "ascribed in fiction" in the histories of the Micawbers and the Dorrits, and the family removed to the House on the Brook. In order to follow their steps in perfect sequence, we have to return by the way we came from the church, cross the High Street, and proceed along Military Road, so as to visit the obscure dwelling, No. 18, St. Mary's Place, situated in the valley through which a brook, now covered over, flows from the higher lands adjacent, into the Medway.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The House on the Brook, Chatham. _Where the d.i.c.kens Family lived 1821-3._]

The House on the Brook--"plain-looking, whitewashed plaster front, and a small garden before and behind"--next door to the former Providence (Baptist) Chapel, now the Drill Hall of the Salvation Army, is a very humble and unpretentious six-roomed dwelling, and of a style very different to the one in Ordnance Terrace. Here the d.i.c.kens family lived from 1821 to 1823. The Reverend William Giles, the Baptist Minister, father of Mr. William Giles, the schoolmaster, formerly officiated at the chapel. This was the Mr. Giles who, when d.i.c.kens was half-way through _Pickwick_, sent him a silver snuff-box, with an admiring inscription to the "Inimitable Boz." d.i.c.kens went to school at Mr.

Giles's Academy in Clover Lane (now Clover Street), Chatham, and boys of this and neighbouring schools were thus nicknamed:--

"Baker's Bull-dogs, "Giles's Cats, "New Road Scrubbers, "Troy Town Rats."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Giles's School, Chatham.]

It was in the House on the Brook that he acquired those "readings and imaginings" which in "boyish recollections" he describes as having been brought away from Chatham:--"My father had left a small collection of books in a little room up-stairs, to which I had access (for it adjoined my own), and which n.o.body else in our house ever troubled. From that blessed little room _Roderick Random_, _Peregrine Pickle_, _Humphry Clinker_, _Tom Jones_, _The Vicar of Wakefield_, _Don Quixote_, _Gil Blas_, and _Robinson Crusoe_, came out, a glorious host to keep me company. They kept alive my fancy, and my hope of something beyond that place and time,--they and the _Arabian Nights_, and the _Tales of the Genii_,--and did me no harm; for whatever harm was in some of them was not there for me. _I_ knew nothing of it."

It is very probable that his first literary effort, _The Tragedy of Misnar, the Sultan of India_, "founded" (says Forster), "and very literally founded, no doubt, on the _Tales of the Genii_," was composed after perusal of some of the works above referred to, but it is to be feared that it was never even rehea.r.s.ed. The circ.u.mstances of the family had so changed for the worse, that here were neither juvenile parties nor theatrical entertainments.

A view from one of the upper windows of the house in St. Mary's Place gives the parish church and churchyard precisely as described in that pathetic little story, _A Child's Dream of a Star_. Charles d.i.c.kens was the child who "strolled about a good deal, and thought of a number of things," and his little sister f.a.n.n.y--or his younger sister Harriet Ellen--was doubtless "his constant companion" referred to in the story.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mitre Inn, Chatham.]

We leave with feelings of respect the humble but famous little tenement, its condition now sadly degraded; proceed along the High Street, and soon reach "The Mitre Inn and Clarence Hotel," a solid-looking and comfortable house of entertainment, at which Lord Nelson and King William IV., when Duke of Clarence, frequently stayed, and (what is more to our purpose) where we find a.s.sociations of Charles d.i.c.kens. There are a beautiful bowling-green and grounds at the back, approached by a series of terraces well planted with flowers, and the green is surrounded by fine elms which const.i.tute quite an oasis in the desert of the somewhat prosaic Chatham. The Mitre is thus immortalized in the "Guest's Story" of the _Holly Tree Inn_:--

"There was an Inn in the Cathedral town where I went to school, which had pleasanter recollections about it than any of these. I took it next. It was the Inn where friends used to put up, and where we used to go to see parents, and to have salmon and fowls, and be tipped. It had an ecclesiastical sign--the 'Mitre'--and a bar that seemed to be the next best thing to a Bishopric, it was so snug. I loved the landlord's youngest daughter to distraction--but let that pa.s.s. It was in this Inn that I was cried over by my rosy little sister, because I had acquired a black-eye in a fight. And though she had been, that holly-tree night, for many a long year where all tears are dried, the Mitre softened me yet."

About the year 1820 the landlord of the Mitre was Mr. John Tribe, and his family being intimate with the d.i.c.kenses, young Charles spent many pleasant evenings at the "genial parties" given at this fine old inn.

Mr. Langton mentions that the late Mr. Alderman William Tribe, son of Mr. John Tribe, the former proprietor, perfectly recollected Charles d.i.c.kens and his sister f.a.n.n.y coming to the Mitre, and on one occasion their being mounted on a dining-table for a stage, and singing what was then a popular duet, _i. e._--

"Long time I've courted you, miss, And now I've come from sea; We'll make no more ado, miss, But quickly married be.

Sing Fal-de-ral," &c.

The worthy alderman is also stated to have had in his possession a card of invitation to spend the evening at Ordnance Terrace, addressed from Master and Miss d.i.c.kens to Master and Miss Tribe, which was dated about this time.

In consequence of the elder d.i.c.kens being recalled from Chatham to Somerset House, to comply with official requirements, the family removed to London in 1823,[22] "and took up its abode in a house in Bayham Street, Camden Town." d.i.c.kens thus describes his journey to London in "Dullborough Town," one of the sketches in _The Uncommercial Traveller_:--

"As I left Dullborough in the days when there were no railroads in the land, I left it in a stage-coach. Through all the years that have since pa.s.sed, have I ever lost the smell of the damp straw in which I was packed--like game--and forwarded, carriage paid, to the Cross Keys, Wood Street, Cheapside, London? There was no other inside pa.s.senger, and I consumed my sandwiches in solitude and dreariness, and it rained hard all the way, and I thought life sloppier than I had expected to find it. . . ."

Mr. W. T. Wildish, the proprietor of the _Rochester and Chatham Journal_, kindly favours us with some interesting information which has recently appeared in his journal, relating to Charles d.i.c.kens's nurse--the Mary Weller of his boyhood (and perhaps the Peggotty as well), but known to later generations as Mrs. Mary Gibson of Front Row, Ordnance Place, Chatham, who died in the spring of the year 1888, at the advanced age of eighty-four. Very touchingly, but unknowingly, did d.i.c.kens write from Gad's Hill, 24th September, 1857, being unaware that she was still living:--