When Dickens came to call (From The Northern Echo)

When Dickens came to call

4:02pm Tuesday 7th February 2012 in Leader By Stuart Arnold

On the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens’ birth, Stuart Arnold recounts the great author’s impressions of Teesdale and how he included the area in his books.

MOST of us associate Charles Dickens with the grimy, Victorian backstreets of London that his colourful characters inhabited.

But he also drew inspiration from Bowes, near Barnard Castle, and Greta Bridge, in Teesdale, for one of his most famous novels, Nicholas Nickleby Dickens was 25 and had been buoyed by the success of The Pickwick Papers when he spent three nights in the area in February 1838.

The author, who began his career as a political journalist, had heard of the reputation of the “Yorkshire Schools”, a collection of private schools – some of which were considered notorious for their brutal treatment of boys – and wanted to find out more.

On his first night in the dale, Dickens stayed at the George Inn, in Greta Bridge, before spending two nights at the King’s Head, in Barnard Castle.

It was during his stay that he met schoolmaster William Shaw, who taught at the Bowes Academy. Shaw is claimed to have influenced the character of Wackford Squeers, dreamt up by Dickens, a cruel, one-eyed Yorkshire schoolmaster, who in Nicholas Nickleby ran Dotheboys Hall, a horrible school where unwanted children were sent by wealthy parents.

However, some say this association is unfair and it is still disputed by Shaw’s great-greatgrandson Ted, who lives in Etherley, County Durham.

“Dickens made a note in his diary of the meeting, so after that people assumed Squeers had been based on my great-great-grandfather,” says Mr Shaw.

“However, I dispute that William was anything like Wackford Squeers. I have letters from former pupils that would confirm that he was a much kinder man than what was portrayed.”

Mr Shaw, 78, says that while the family connection with the author has given him a great deal of interest and pleasure over the years, at the time his great-great grandfather was “very upset” about his and his school’s apparent portrayal in Nicholas Nickleby.

Local historian Alan Wilkinson, a retired teacher who taught at Barnard Castle School, also says the link between Shaw and Squeers is unfair and says conditions in the Yorkshire Schools have to be put in context.

“The two men had the same initials – WS – and Shaw had some complaint of the eye, as did Squeers, but he made Shaw rather grotesquely fit into Squeers and quite unfairly.

“He certainly was not the illiterate person that Dickens portrays and while there were no doubt things wrong with him, there were also things right with him that are not apparent in the novel.

“In terms of these particular schools, there were considerable instances of savage, corporal punishment, but that happened in schools of all types at that time. They were also unsanitary, but so were factories in those days.”

Dickens’ journey from London to Greta Bridge – now just off the busy A66 – took two days by coach in the middle of a severe winter, so it was a great relief when he and his illustrator arrived at The George.

Dickens later said the coaching inn was one of the best he had stayed at, although his first impressions were not so enthusiastic.

“We reached a bare place with a house standing alone in the midst of a dreary moor which the guard informed us was Greta Bridge,” he wrote in his diary.

“It was fearfully cold and there were no outward signs of anyone being up at the house.

But to our great joy we discovered a comfortable room with drawn curtains and a most blazing fire. In half an hour, they gave us a smoking supper and a bottle of mulled port.”

The author spent the next few days soaking up the atmosphere in Teesdale, interviewing local characters, visiting places of interest and dining out.

He spoke to clockmaker Thomas Humphries at his workshop in Barnard Castle, and took the name to inspire Master Humphrey’s Clock, a successful periodical he wrote and edited.

But it was his impact on the Yorkshire Schools that resonated most from his stay.

“Boarding schools were big business,” says Michael Fryer, who together with his wife, Val, set up the Dickens in Teesdale group in 1987 to promote Dickens’ links to the area.

“There were about a dozen in the area and four in Bowes alone, with 800 schoolchildren.

Bowes only had a population of 200. Such was the impact of what Dickens wrote in Nicholas Nickleby that within two years, all of those schools had shut down.”

Mr Fryer says Dickens was the equivalent of a tabloid journalist in his day.

“He had already got the story for the book and had come up to put some faces to the characters.

However, he was a bit of a London dandy and would have been sussed straightaway by the locals. He would have stood out like a sore thumb.”

Mrs Fryer, who shares her birthday today with Dickens, says he thoroughly enjoyed his visit to Teesdale.

“He was celebrating having a decent pay packet in his pocket for the first time and was spending it on himself,” she says. “He was into fancy waistcoats and clothes and had every hair in place, and it showed.”

IN 1988 the Fryers helped organise a series of events to mark the 150th anniversary of Dickens’ stay, which culminated in a stagecoach and horses travelling from Greta Bridge to Barnard Castle and on to Bowes.

This included a meeting between Christopher Dickens, great-great-grandson of the author, and Ted Shaw, which garnered worldwide publicity. Today, they remain united in their admiration of the author.

“Dickens touches everybody,” says Mrs Fryer. “His characters are still a reflection of people’s lives, even today, and there are many to identify with in all of his books.”

• Today, there is a guided walk and Dickens lunch at The Ancient Unicorn, Bowes.

• On Friday, there will be a costumed Dickensian Ball at the Morritt Arms Hotel, Greta Bridge. To book, visit relax@themorritt.co.uk

• On Wednesday, February 15, the there will be an illustrated talk at the Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, by Valerie Browne Lester, great great-granddaughter of Habolt Browne “Phiz”, Dickens’ illustrator. For tickets, call 01833-690606.