Elizabeth Dickens
| Elizabeth Dickens | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | 21 December 1789 |
| Died | 13 September 1863 (aged 73) |
| Nationality | British |
| Known for | Mother of novelist Charles Dickens |
| Spouse(s) | John Dickens |
| Children | Frances Charles Letitia Harriet Frederick Albert Augustus |
| Parent(s) | Charles Barrow (father) Mary Culliford (mother) |
Elizabeth Culliford Dickens (née Barrow; 21 December 1789 – 13 September 1863) was the wife of John Dickens and the mother of English novelist Charles Dickens. She was the source for Mrs. Nickleby in her son's novel Nicholas Nickleby and for Mrs Micawber in David Copperfield.
One of eight children of Charles Barrow (1759–1826) and Mary Culliford (1771–1851), Elizabeth Barrow was introduced to John Dickens by her brother, Thomas Culliford Barrow, when the two men were working at the Navy Pay Office in nearby Somerset House. When John Dickens first met Elizabeth she was "a small pretty girl of about sixteen, with bright hazel eyes, an inordinate sense of the ludicrous, and remarkable powers of comic mimicry, cheerful, sweet-tempered, and well educated". In 1810 Elizabeth's father, who also worked for the Navy Pay Office as Chief Conductor of Monies in Town, was found guilty of embezzling £5,689 3s 3d and fled to the Continent, turning up thirteen years later in the Isle of Man. Elizabeth married John Dickens on 13 June 1809 in the church of St Mary-le-Strand in London. Shortly after the marriage the couple moved to Landport in Portsmouth and here Charles Dickens, the second of their eight children, was born in 1812. As a young boy he was taught to read by his mother, and later also a little Latin, awakening, as Charles later told his friend and biographer John Forster "his first desire for knowledge and his earliest passion for reading". According to Mary Weller, the Dickenses' servant when they were living in Chatham, Elizabeth Dickens was "a dear, good mother and a fine woman".
By 1812 her husband had fallen heavily into debt and Elizabeth, like Mrs Micawber in David Copperfield, tried to help his financial situation by setting up a school called 'Mrs Dickens's Establishment' in Gower Street in London; this despite the fact that she had no experience in teaching or administering a school. Unsurprisingly, no pupils materialised. As Charles Dickens later wrote, "Nobody ever came to the school, nor do I recollect that anybody ever proposed to come, or that the least preparation was made to receive anybody." To help support the family financially the 12-year-old Charles Dickens, to his great humiliation, was taken from school to work at Warren's Blacking Factory where his wages were 6s a week. On 20 February 1824 John Dickens was imprisoned in the Marshalsea Prison for debt, with Elizabeth Dickens and their four youngest children joining her husband there in April 1824. John Dickens was released after three months, on 28 May 1824, on the death of his mother who had left him the sum of £450 in her will, allowing him to clear his debt.
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