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Dickens and the Workhouse FRONTISPIECE. Young Dickens. A fi ne engraving by Robert Graves for the ‘Nickleby’ portrait painted by Daniel Maclise in 1839, when Dickens was 27. This image is from the 1875 American edition of Forster’s L ife of Dickens, published in Boston by Osgood. 1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offi ces in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Ruth Richardson 2012 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2012 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc ISBN 978–0–19–964588–6 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 For All who love Dickens & everyone who helped save the Cleveland Street Workhouse from demolition & Most especially for my darling parents. This page intentionally left blank ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS M y primary thanks are to my darling parents, Hilda and Billy Richardson, who kept wonderful books on lower shelves, and encouraged early reading. I cannot fi nd words enough to thank my Brian, sweetheart of thirty years, and our lovely boy Josh who has helped with hardware, software and transcribing. I should also like to thank my headmistress, Mrs M. H. Saunders at Lancaster Road LCC Infants’ School, who generously gave me the Oxford University Press edition of O liver Twist (with a preface by Humphry House) when I left infants’ school at the age of 6. It is an enormous pleasure, now that I am grown, to be writing about Dickens, and to be published by Oxford University Press. I know she would be pleased. I should also like to thank all those involved in the Cleveland Street Workhouse Campaign, especially Nick Black, Aimery de Malet, Peter, Peter Higginbotham, Kitty, Lucinda Hawksley, all our local supporters, and participants of Howard House and Cleveland St (north) Neighbourhood Watch, and other friends. Thanks above all to Heidi, that very special person who tracked me down, and recruited me to the campaign. What a fi ne team we have all been! Acknowledgements A very special thank you goes to the Dickens Rare Books specialist Dan Calinescu of Boz and Friends Rare Books of Toronto, who in true Dickensian fashion has been our staunch supporter, a kind friend, and the most helpful correspondent in the world. Everybody at Oxford University Press with whom I have had the honour to work deserves my thanks: Luciana O’Flaherty, Matthew Cotton, Latha Menon, Emma Barber, Phil Henderson, Kate Far- quhar-Thomson and Kirsty Doole, Fo Orbell, Mary Worthington, Gail Eaton, Wilbur Wright, and three unnamed Readers whose comments have been enormously encouraging and helpful. Thanks also to the unknown designers, typesetters, printers, bookbinders, and others who have brought this book to press. I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Dickens scholars, most especially to Paul Schlicke, who has encouraged my researches so kindly, and has addressed my ignorance with great forbearance. I greatly regret that I did not make the discovery about the Work- house when Kathleen Tillotson was alive: she would have been glad to see me such a keen Dickensian, and I know she’d have put me right on a host of matters. Thanks also to friends and colleagues on the DickensForum, and to Michael Allen, Malcolm Andrews, Norman Page, John Drew, Audrey Jaffe, David Paroissien, Michael Slater, David Perdue, Joan Dicks, Judith Flanders, Lucinda H awksley, Bill Long, Patrick Macarthy, Herb Moskovitz and the BuzFuz e-newsletter, Mitsu Matsuoka, Robert Newsom, Bob Patten, Andrew Sanders, and staff at the Dickens Museum at 48 Doughty Street. Also to historians of the workhouse system and the lives of the London Poor, above all Norman Longmate, Anthony Brundage, Simon Fowler, David Green, Peter Higginbotham, Tim Hitchcock, Elaine Murphy, Simon Fowler, and Tony Wohl. viii Acknowledgements Most of my work for this book has been done at the British Library, in the Rare Books Room, and the Maps Room, Manu- scripts, and the old Offi cial Publications Library. Like Dickens, I was very young when I was granted the privilege of a Reader’s Ticket. I should like to thank every individual member of the staff there, including all those who have recently been made redundant, for their unfailing courtesy, kindness, and helpfulness. Thanks, too, to all the staff at the old British Museum Round Reading Room, the old North Library, the unseen delivery staff, the academic staff at the Library, whose scholarship is priceless, the staff in Book Pres- ervation, and the Security Staff who care for the building. And while thinking of this great institution, I salute the memory of Robin Alston, and his life’s work. S taff in charge of that extraordinary and rich resource, the B ritish Museum Prints and Drawings Collection, deserve real thanks for putting the collection online and making it freely available. M any archivists have been extraordinarily helpful, and I would like to salute their fi ne work: particularly those at the Bishopsgate Institute, the London Metropolitan Archives, at Westminster City Archives, and the Camden Local History Library, Barnet Local Studies, the University College Hospital Archives, the Wellcome Collection, and the Harry Elkins Widener Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University. Staff at English Heritage put up with enthusiastic nuisances like me asking about things not fully understood, with courtesy and forbearance during the campaign to save the Workhouse. I have n othing but thanks and respect for their work and for their scholarship. Thanks, too, to staff at the Department of Culture Media and Sport, and especially the Ministers, Jeremy Hunt and John Penrose, ix