Group Side Read - Dickens and the Workhouse by Ruth Richardson

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

This is the thread to discuss:

Dickens and the Workhouse: Oliver Twist and the London Poor by Ruth Richardson



The Cleveland Street Workhouse

This is our side read for Oliver Twist. Reading and discussion begin on 1st June, and continue all through the main read.

Please note that there are some spoilers for a few of Charles Dickens's novels, including Oliver Twist, and adjust your reading accordingly. The first 4 chapters are spoiler-free. I'll include specifics about where the spoilers are, in the next post.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Ch. 1-4 spoiler-free

Ch. 5 (top of p. 131) - just two spoilerish words about "Monks" in Oliver Twist Not too bad.

Ch. 6 has many spoilers:

p. 146 big spoiler for the end of David Copperfield

p. 157, 159 and 162 spoilers about the end chapters of Oliver Twist

Ch. 7 p.197 one slight spoiler about Fagin in Oliver Twist

Ch. 8 - Don't read this chapter at all until you have finished reading (or know the story of) Oliver Twist

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

I'm posting this thread a couple of weeks early, as I feel I feel it is only fair to tell you that this book is not what I expected! I'll keep it as a group side read though, as your personal opinion might be different.

The problem is that there is very little about the workhouse, and a lot of speculation about what Charles Dickens and others might have done, or what they might have thought or done, at certain times. This rapidly got irritating (for me), and I was shocked, as it was written by an historian. She does include facts about Charles Dickens's early life, but these are already well documented by others.

It's the workhouse which is the "hook" here, and I'm afraid there's very little about it.

Anyway, you might enjoy the book, speculative though the tone is, but please feel free to pass on this one!

[Beth]

This is an excerpt from a message I sent to Jean about this book after I read the first chapter. She recommended I post it to this thread, so here it is. :)

"My preferences make no difference to a published book, I know. But my "better" version of it would have deeper information about either workhouses, or--since a specific one was discovered a few doors from one of Dickens' many youthful residences--that particular workhouse, using the records from that workhouse, or eyewitness accounts of it (at any point in history), if any still exist. An account of the research and other effort that it takes to preserve a historical site could be interesting, but it isn't what I was looking for.

I'm not as solid on the Dickens or Victorian London basics as I could be, so there may be some interesting tidbits to glean in between the historical preservation stuff."

I haven't "gotten back to it" since then, and since Jean's and/or the group's enthusiasm about the book feels low, I'm not in a huge hurry to do so. I'd be interested in seeing different opinions, though, if anyone else has read, or tried to read it.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Thanks Beth!

[Connie]

I started the book, and gave up at page 70 without learning anything new about workhouses. The Dickens family lived in the neighborhood of the Cleveland Street Workhouse when Dickens was 3-4 years old, and again when he was 16-17 years old. The author kept speculating about what information Dickens would have picked up about events in England and the streets in London when he was 3-4 years old. She seemed to have no idea about what a youngster remembers at a young age. The book also went on and on about the layout of the streets of London which didn't mean much to someone who lives in the United States.

An organization is trying to preserve the historic workhouse on Cleveland Street. I got the impression that the author is trying to make a Dickens connection to the workhouse to help pull in donors. Dickens walked all over London, thinking and making observations, so he probably was aware of many workhouses. I have no idea of whether the Cleveland Street Workhouse influenced him.

A large hospital complex and some other buildings separated the workhouse from the rental where the Dickens resided. The Dickens family lived over a store at that time. Dickens took John Forster as a confidante about his family's financial problems, and he includes Dickens' work at the blacking factory in his biography. It may have been difficult for the author to find anything concrete linking Dickens with knowledge of the nearby Cleveland Street Workhouse. But I didn't finish the book so I don't know what she found.

[Connie]

Ruth Richardson, the author, wrote an article for the British Library which I found more interesting than the book. It is titled "Oliver Twist and the Workhouse":

https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victo...

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

I'm almost at the end of chapter 7 of Dickens and the Workhouse: Oliver Twist and the London Poor, but have to force myself to listen to all the "might have beens" and "perhapses". The author keeps speculating, as you say Connie, the entire time. It is not how I expect an historian to write - nor you either I think - Beth. And I agree, even for a local lass, the naming of streets, buildings and routes feels interminable. I do apologise for inflicting this on you all 🙄 Thanks for the article Connie, which is much better as it is strictly factual.

The beginning part annoyed me from the start, as Ruth Richardson spent a long time boasting about all the maps she had pored over and papers she had looked through to try to ascertain exactly where Charles Dickens had lived during the two periods you mention, firstly from when he was nearly 3 to nearly 5 years old. They moved several times, and as we all know, Dickens's father was then arrested for debt and the family was forced to live inside the Marshalsea Debtors' Prison in Southwark, with Charles Dickens himself living in a boarding house.

The family returned to the same house in Norfolk/Cleveland Street several years later, when Dickens was nearly seventeen, and stayed until he was almost twenty. During that time, he was out at work as a young legal clerk, and training himself to become a shorthand court reporter. Ruth Richardson claimed that most biographers never mentioned Norfolk Street, and seemed to be saying that she had new evidence. She did not.

Back in 1903, F.G. Kitton wrote an excellent book called The Dickens Country, focusing on the houses Charles Dickens had lived in. F.G. Kitton was a Dickens scholar and had already written several books about him, plus other books on authors' houses, so was asked to write this one. Sadly he died the next year.

It's quite easy to find. I used to have a first edition, but now have it on kindle, and it is very cheap! The Dickens Country is illustrated with whole page monochrome photographs by T.W. Tyrell of all the homes Charles Dickens lived in. The third one is quite clearly captioned:

"Norfolk (now Cleveland) Street, Fitzroy Square. (p.7)
Dickens and his parents resided in Norfolk Street in 1816, after their removal from Hawke St., Portsea"

Evidently Ruth Richardson cannot have read F.G. Kitton's book, or she would not have written the entire first chapter! So apparently she pored over maps, trying to find whether the street had changed its name, and where the numbers were? I felt rather embarrassed on her behalf. For the author to have made such a claim, when you know of F.G. Kitton's classic book, seems absurd.

Dickens and the Workhouse: Oliver Twist and the London Poor continues with very little about the workhouse, in fact, but is mostly a short biography of Charles Dickens and rambling thoughts about what the young boy might have experienced. The factual parts are based on John Forster's biography - but then to be fair, Ruth Richardson does admit that all biographies on Charles Dickens are! Perhaps there will be a little about the workhouse in the final few chapters, but I doubt it somehow.

I think it is in chapter 5 when she finally mentions the Canadian (Toronto) Dickens enthusiast Dan Calinescu (in passing). He lives and breathes Charles Dickens. Dan Calinescu was responsible for financing and unveiling a commemorative blue plaque for Charles Dickens's early childhood home in 2013 (a few months after this book was published). Another Canadian Charles Dickens enthusiast and friend knew Dan Calinescu, and told me that he used to come to England almost every year to haunt the bookstores, walk the paths and even drink in the inns where Charles Dickens did. Dan Calinescu was a teacher, and had a sideline as a seller of antiquarian book and Charles Dickens memorabilia. Ruth Richardson's interest though, seems more to be general: Victorian history and literature.

Although it may have provided the idea, the Cleveland Street Workhouse was not the only model for the one in Oliver Twist. Apparently he also based it on the Kettering Workhouse, in Northamptonshire, which he said had been his inspiration. The Kettering Workhouse's bad reputation for ill-treatment was apparently widely known.

Connie, yes, Ruth Richardson was prominent in the campaign to save the Cleveland St. Workhouse building, and I suspect that she (mis)named this book to keep it high profile. It was very nearly demolished in 2013!

Specifically, part of the workhouse building continues to be maintained by the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and part of the site is also now occupied by Kier, the construction company responsible for demolishing the adjacent building. Some damage or loss of historical information may already have occurred while this was being sorted out, but it looks as if preservation of the original building is now settled.

I don't really want to put anyone off reading Dickens and the Workhouse: Oliver Twist and the London Poor, as everyone should really decide for themselves. But I am heartened that you both feel it to be lacking, even after not reading very much of it! For anyone not conversant with the facts of Charles Dickens's life, it's an easy read and has quite good ratings on GR, but it is meandering and often fanciful. There are better short biographies of him.

There is no misinformation as with all the historical fiction (or faction) about Charles Dickens, apart from the initial great gaffe, that is. But you do have to take the author's daydreams about him possibly shopping at a certain butchers and putting that into Oliver Twist as life being like streaky bacon, or gazing in a window showing artistic landscape pictures and that informing his books, with a pinch of salt! Whenever she says "I like to think he might have ...", beware!

[Connie]

I'm glad that the Cleveland Street Workhouse is being preserved, and maybe this book helped the effort. Thanks for all the additional information, Jean.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

I am about to start chapter 8, (out of 10 chapters in total). It is titled "Workhouse". Finally 😁

(That's true Connie.)

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Chapter 8 is really quite good, with lots of facts and nary a "maybe" or "might have". 😊 Ruth Richardson should have started her book here ...

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

I have finally reviewed this book:

Dickens and the Workhouse: Oliver Twist and the London Poor by Ruth Richardson ⭐⭐

Jean's review

Off to the charity shop it goes!