Charles Dickens

1812/1870 Colin's Bridewell, Campbell Street, off Duke Street, Liverpool L1

He was born in Landport and moved with the family to London. At the age of 12 years old he was put to work in a blanking factory to assist the family income as his father was imprisoned in the Marshalsea for debt.



Next, from 1824 until 1827 Dickens studied at Wellington House Academy, London. From 1827 to 1828 he was a law office clerk, and then worked as a shorthand reporter at Doctor's Commons. In the 1840s Dickens founded Master Humphrey's Cloak and edited the London Daily News. Dickens's relationship with Maria Beadnell, the daughter of a banker, lasted for four years. Afterwards, he married the daughter of his friend George Hogarth, Catherine Hogart in 1836.

When Catherine's sisters, Georgiana, moved in with the Dickenses, he fell in love with her. Even though, Dickens had 10 children with Catherine, they were separated in 1858. Additionally, Dickens also had a long-lasting relation with the actress Ellen Ternan, whom he had met by the late 1850s.

From the 1840s Dickens spent much time traveling and campaigning against many of the social evils of his time. In addition he gave talks and reading, wrote pamphlets, plays, and letters. In 1844 to 1845 he lived in Italy, Switzerland and Paris. From 1858 to 1868, he gave lecturing tours in Britain and the United States. Afterwards, he moved to Gadshill Place, near Rochester, Kent. He died there on June 9, 1870.

Charles Dickens made numerous visits to Liverpool, specially from 1842/1869 when he read extracts from his novels often to large audiences in St. George's Hall and at former Masque Theatre in Duke Street. He salied to America from Liverpool on at least two occasions in 1860 was sworn in as a special constable in the Liverpool Police Force to aid his research in writing The Uncommercial Traveller. The time spent in Liverpool must have been very dear to him for he wrote Liverpool lies in my heart next only to London.

Maybe, he was not born in Liverpool and never lived here, but he spent part of his time in Pool in. I am thinking that he was a important person here with his books, his culture, and his audiences in St. George Hall and Masque Theatre.