What the Dickens?

Charles Dickens, India and the life of Walter Dickens in Calcutta

Dickens has been so much a part of many Indian generations since the mid-19^th century, we have read his works as part of school studies, and many others have read him for pleasure and enjoyed his works. We got to know his characters such as David Copperfield and Oliver Twist, we have clapped for his stand against social injustice, bureaucracy and oppression of the downtrodden. But what many of you may not know is that he had another side, a dark one.

With all that, you may wonder what made him say this in 1857, writing to Angela Burdett Coutts – And I wish I were Commander in Chief in India. The first  thing I would do to strike that Oriental race with amazement (not in the least regarding them as if they lived in the Strand, London, or at Camden Town), should be to proclaim to them in their language, that I considered my holding that appointment by the leave of God, to mean that I should do  my utmost to exterminate the race upon whom the stain of  the late cruelties rested; and that I was there for that purpose and no other, and was now proceeding, with all convenient  dispatch and merciful swiftness of execution, to blot it out of  mankind and raze it off the face of the Earth.

Well he did and it was just after he heard about the 1857 revolt. The mutiny itself which engulfed much of middle and North India, involving the triumvirate of Nana Saheb, Tayta Tope and the Rani of Jhansi is a subject which is difficult to maneuver through, for the literature produced since the event has been so heavily English sided, to say the least. But there have also been recent attempts to create revisionist works swinging wildly to the other side of the balance. Perhaps the truth and reality are somewhere in between and to sift it out from the Burra Saheb’s masterful manipulation of the language and the media in those days, takes much time and effort, what with time having obliterated many a track.

Though Charles the pater had not ventured into India, his desire to send his sons to the imperial colony resulted in two of them securing positions in India. Walter lived in Bengal for some six years and Frank spent a brief sojourn in Bengal, returning to England when his father passed on. It was while searching for information on Louise Ouwerkerk that I came across Dick Kooiman’s paper on Walter Dickens, Charles’s son and his career in India. One thing led to the other and I ended up studying Dickens and his Indian connections.

A recap of the so-called rebellion - The rebellion of 1857 was an unsuccessful uprising in India in 1857–58 against the oppressive rule of the British East India Company. Starting around May 1857 in the form of a mutiny of sepoys at Meerut, it spread along as many civilian rebellions across central, North and East India. It was eventually suppressed with the rebels' defeat in Gwalior in June 1858. Violence and cruel actions were perpetuated by both sides and British reprisals were severe, with entire cities laid waste in British retaliation. When news of the events reached Britain, the populace there were aghast, unable to understand that their realm was no longer invincible, that it was being threatened by the lowly masses. The press went on an overdrive and newspapers published exaggerated accounts. While the majority of writings available today voice the British story, two books cover the revisionist Indian side, written by Parag Tope and Amarish Mishra.

An example of the fake news (London Times – 25^th Aug 1857) and the Brits as you can see were masters at it - They took 48 females, most of them girls of from 10 to 14, many delicately nurtured ladies, violated them, and kept them for the base purposes of the heads of the insurrection for a whole week. At the end of that time they made them strip themselves, and gave them up to the lowest of the people to abuse in broad daylight in the streets of Delhi…..British investigators as early as 1858 concluded that the allegations of rape, cannibalism, and mutilation were fabrications, but that did not halt the circulation of such sordid fake tales, especially those related to the rape of delicate British ladies.

As the news of the events and violence in Kanpur spread in England, the Sahib was enraged. Many wanted the race which took to their brave soldiers and fair women, exterminated. Dickens following the general opinion, said those very words which we started out with and then he went silent. Never did he write a novel set in India, nor did he visit country. Instead he wrote “the tale of two cities’ talking about the throes of the French revolution and a mutiny. Did he really mean to put an undercurrent of the Indian mutiny in his two cities?

Joshi explains - Always contemporary and already thinking about fictionalizing events, Dickens wrote to Henry Morley, a colleague at Household Words, asking him to research whether an English colony existed, or could have, in South America. In his 18 October letter to Morley, Dickens explained that he “wish[ed] to avoid India itself” but wanted a setting “in which a few English people—gentlemen, ladies, and children—and a few English soldiers, would find themselves alone in a strange wild place and liable to hostile attack” (Letters, VIII,469). The language - “strange wild place,” “hostile attack”- reveals Dickens’s siege mentality, self-righteousness, and un-complicated response to events in India.

Well, he did get influenced by it in his writings and we can see its impact on the work "The Perils of Certain English Prisoners," around the events in India co-authored with Wilkie Collins late in 1857. Dickens wrote the first and last chapter of "Perils," a tale set in the British West Indies and narrated by an English soldier, Gill Davis, sent to protect the island of Silver Store from attacks by pirates.

Thus, we can conclude that while Dickens was probably one with a somewhat balanced view of life, it was restricted to the life in his world, the British one. The imperial subjects, the masses in the colonies had their place way down below and were not worthy of study. Affected by the rumored treatment of the women and brave men of the EIC, he turned a blind eye into the workings of the EIC, that huge organization which was stripping the country dry and massacring hundreds of thousands in the name of mutiny.  But let’s leave Dickens now in Britain, nursing his hatred and shift to the life of his son.

Many types of youngsters made their way to India in the steamers bound east. Fortune seekers, truant youngsters from well-to-do families, career soldiers who had the needed training rearing up as mercenaries of a sort and of course administrators, who had never administered anything. There were businessmen who saw great opportunity to prosper, then there were professionals such as engineers, missionaries, doctors etc. who saw a great demand in the far away India. Yes, plenty of good men who wanted to do something for the people also went to India, not to forget the numerous missionaries who traveled to implant a new religion and uplift the downtrodden, or so they explained. Finally, there were women who went out fishing, as part of the fishing fleet, to hook a husband in India. Not mentioned often, there were also the undesirable of Britain, the scum and the criminal, heading out East.

Dickens had his fair share of problems, and when you have ten children and when many of his sons fail to succeed, the worry on a pater can be manifest. Charles, the eldest went bankrupt toying with banking and business, Walter the second, we’ll get to him later, Frank joined the Bengal police, then moved to Canada, was considered incompetent and alcoholic, Alfred racked up debts and fled to Australia, Sydney went to sea but was also beset with financial difficulties and died young. Among the last two, Henry did well in the law field, lived the longest but was killed crossing the road and Edward went to Australia to work at petty jobs and died penniless.

As the children grew, one by one, Dickens’s enthusiasm plummeted. Having earned his success and having overcome childhood poverty while still a teenager through his own impressive energy and drive, his children’s complacency and lack of ambition drove him to a depression. Perhaps if only to escape a disappointing marriage, in 1857, the same year as the mutiny, Dickens fell in love with Ellen Ternan, an 18-year-old actress and drifted away from his wife Catherine. Dickens was 45 when he met her and began an affair with Ternan, but kept the relationship secret. She became his "magic circle of one". Matters eventually came to a head in 1858 when Catherine opened a gift for Ellen wrongly delivered to her. It contained a gold bracelet meant for Ternan with a note written by her husband. As the embitterment peaked, Catherine was ‘persuaded’ to leave home that year, after signing a deed of separation!

As the late Girish Karnad opined - “His novels have good and kind descriptions of women, but in his real life he treated women poorly. He fought with his daughter, despised his mother and there are several examples of how he treated his wife, whom he was married for 21 years, had 10 children with and then divorced. Not only did he divorce but he publicly announced her as incapable of being a good wife and a mother,” he said in an interview with The Pioneer (24th Feb 2014).

Walter Landor Dickens

Walter Landor Dickens, called Wally by some and “Young Skull” by his father due to his high cheekbones, was born on 8th February 1841. Originally to be named Edgar, his father decided to christen him after the poet Walter Savage Landor, whom he admired. Walter was schooled at Kings Private school at St Johns Wood and then continued with his preparatory courses for the military at Wimbledon School. Finding that Walter was deaf, Dickens had him examined and it appears that the subsequent treatment brought about some relief. Walter seems to have done well for himself there and got ready for the cadetship exams in 1857. As Walter prepared, Dickens politely refused Burdett-Coutts’s offer of financial assistance, but accepted her glowing recommendations and character reference for the boy as part of his application.

The immensely rich society lady Angela Bourdett Coutts whom we talked about earlier, a benefactor of Dickens, a close friend and to whom Dickens confided about wanting to exterminate the Indian natives, was the one instrumental in sponsoring Water’s visit to India as a soldier. Bourdett was a large shareholder in the East India Company. Using her special influence, she managed to get him a direct entry into the Bengal infantry as a cadet, subject to him passing the requisite exams in April 1857, which he did, all of 16 years of age and slightly deaf! Not to stop, Dickens decided to try and get his next son Alfred also to a post in India.

Walter went through the many rigors required for a career in India, he learnt to fence, swim and ride, use guns and even learnt a bit of Hindustani! By July, youngster just 16 years old, had boarded the P and O liner Indus at Southampton, bound for Calcutta. He was just one of the many thousands of young people who ventured East, to enrichen themselves in the Indian colony. Many were to thrive and flourish, some lived their entire lives in that distant land, some died in war or of disease, some built vast families who survived and thrived through many generations. Some went native, some intermixed with the local populace to create the Anglo Indian race, while others ended up as abject failures.

As the ship was headed to Calcutta, the situation in India had reached a boiling point and the mutiny was well under way having started around May 1857. By June the siege at Kanpur was on. Britain still did not know the details and the first bits came through only after Walter had sailed away. He arrived in Calcutta around 30th August to join the 26th, but it had been disbanded. He joined the 42nd which was instrumental in taking back Kanpur and Lucknow from the rebels.

Back in England, father Dickens was seething with rage, perhaps also worried stiff about his son wallowing in the thick of things, and venting about wanting to destroy the Indian race. He blamed the politicians and administrators of the EIC and Britain for not sending quick reinforcements to defend the cities of Kanpur and Lucknow, he also took to blaming the Hindu character as totally untrustworthy. Dickens was equally vehement that mercy should not be accorded to any Indian prisoner, and remonstrated against Canning who proposed it. And to top it, he castigated British women flocking to serve or see Hindu princes.

Walter seems to have been doing well in the military which was on the move and in action, and got quickly promoted to lieutenant, was awarded a mutiny medal and of course some prize money or bounty - the spoils of war. His regiment was involved in the operations at Kanpur and later in the retaking of Delhi. It is also apparent that not only was he fighting during the mutiny, but also in the NW frontier province later. Anyway, he settled down to a routine life in India but seems to have been invalided and carried in a litter to a hill station, according to a letter written by his pater. We do know from his father’s writing that he had fallen sick, fainted of sun stroke, suffered from Smallpox, and caught smart fever, after which he moved to a hill station to recuperate and rally out of the ailments.

But things went south very quickly and before long Walter was deeply indebted and no longer popular in his company, being placed low on account of his debts. What could have happened? Was it due to illness, combat fatigue or pain from his wounds? Did he get involved with vice and opium? We do not know, but we do hear that he was always in debt. From the family letters, we can glean that he had asked his father for money, but Charles refused help, and we see Walter writing to Mary (Mamie) his sister that he had resolved to write home no more until he was out of debt. I guess this is when Charles, his brother arrived (when he was a tea trader in Hong Kong) to settle his debts, during his fortnights stay in India in 1861. Walter then planned to join the home service but was advised not to do it as it would reduce his income. Mary did get another short letter in the fall of 1863 that Walter was unwell. By Christmas he wrote stating that he was very ill and traveling to Calcutta to get a medical certificate in order to head back to Britain on medical leave.

Dickens quickly sent his son Frank to check things out but he arrived in India too late, in January 1864, only to hear that Walter had passed away, after coughing blood, of an aneurysm of the aorta on 31st Dec 1863. The gory details go thus – He arrived in Calcutta from the station where his regiment was, on the 27th of Dec. He was consigned by the regimental doctor to the officer’s hospital there, which is a very fine place. On the last day of the old year at a quarter past five in the afternoon he was talking to the other patients about his arrangements for coming home, when he became violently excited, coughed violently, had a great gush of blood from the mouth, and fell dead; all this, in a few seconds.

Dickens writing to Miss Coutts said – I could have wished it had pleased god to let him see his home again, but I think he would have died at the door.

Among his possessions Walter had left nothing of value: only a small trunk, changes of linen, some prayer books, and a colored photograph of a woman believed to be a member of the family. According to his captain, everything else had been turned into cash in preparation for the return to England. But it is not clear where that money went, though. The officers' mess, the regimental store, the billiard table, the native servants, a merchant or two, all remained to be paid. We notice that Walter left behind, considerable debts and his regiment passed along to the family a claim for a substantial debt of 140 pounds, including a humble written request from one Ganga Ram for Rs 18 and annas 8.

Walter was buried in the Bhowanipore Military Cemetery at Calcutta. Charles Dickens, his father received the news of his passing on Feb 6th, 1864, on his birthday. His original tombstone read - In memory of Lieut. Walter Landor Dickens, the second son of Charles Dickens, who died at the Officers' Hospital, Calcutta, on his way home on sick leave, Dec 31st 1863, Aged 23 years.

In April 1987, a group of students from Jadavpur University collected funds and moved the tombstone to the South Park Street Cemetery, more as a tribute to the author, his father. The tombstone is now placed among the memorials of the notable Europeans who died in the 18th century, but is grave is no longer marked or traceable, from what I understood. Walter’s story comes to a sudden stop here and Kooiman, who was responsible for all the original research into this topic in 2002, had been unable to dredge much more. Will the days ahead reveal something more? I doubt it, for few are interested in such forays!

The boy was surely attached to his mother and she to him, for Catherine’s will mentions leaving an Ivory elephant miniature complete with a houdah (sitting platform on an elephant), gifted by Walter. In fact, Charles Dickens did not even tell her of her son’s passing, such was the depth of the animosity between them. The sad part was that Dickens saw his wife’s genes as the root cause for all the problems his sons faced. Several of the children “were undermined by drink” or had gambling addictions. Dickens with his huge ego, maintained that their flaws came from their mother, them acquiring her “curse of limpness”, the lack of purpose and energy, and a natural defect of character.

William Hardman, editor of The Morning Post wrote succinctly: "Poor Mrs. Charles Dickens is in great grief at the loss of her second son, Walter Landor Dickens, who has died with his regiment in India. Her grief is much enhanced by the fact that her husband has not taken any notice of the event to her, either by letter or otherwise. If anything were wanting to sink Charles Dickens to the lowest depths in my esteem, this fills up the measure of his iniquity. As a writer, I admire him, as a man, I despise him."

Charles Dickens died in 1870 leaving a legacy of £1,000 to Ternan in his will and sufficient income from a trust fund to ensure that she would never have to work again. In 1876, six years after Dickens's death, Ternan married George Wharton Robinson, 12 years her junior. She died of cancer in 1914.

Dickens as you see, was a man with great many virtues, but like many others, one with a lot of failings.

References

Priti Joshi, “Mutiny Echoes: India, Britons, and Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities” (pp. 48–87)

Dickens and the Indian Mutiny - William Odie

The short career of Walter Dickens in India – Dick Kooiman

Georgina Hogarth and the Dickens circle - Adrian, Arthur A

Catherine Dickens and Her Colonial Sons - Lillian Nayder

Pics – Wikimedia, thanks to the contributors

What the Dickens – is an idiom unrelated to Charles Dickens and was apparently in use even before Charles Dickens was born. It seems to predate Shakespeare as well and is considered to mean 'What the devil?' The Oxford English Dictionary explains that the expression “the dickens!” is “an interjectional exclamation expressing astonishment, impatience, irritation, etc.; usually with interrogative words, as what, where, how, why, etc.” and explains it as a slang or colloquial term meaning “the deuce, the devil.” The exclamation is “apparently substituted for ‘devil,’ as having the same initial sound.”