BURNETT-L Archives

From: Burnett-web <>
Subject: What the Dickens.
Date: Fri, 02 Apr 1999 19:24:56 +0100

From John H Burnett, Lord of Normanton on Soar
per Burnett Family Ancestry
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

What the Dickens a Scrooge in Ancestry ?

Charles John Huffam Dickens, more commonly known as Charles Dickens, the
Classical Author of such books as David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, The
Old Curiosity Shop etc was born to a poor family in 1812, but what many
biographers do not tell is that he had an elder sister Frances Elizabeth
Dickens born 18 months earlier, and known more commonly as "Fanny".
Upon this sister Charles Dickens relied heavily upon in earlier life.
She accompanied him to the dame school in Rome Lane and later in his
earlier life accompanied him on the piano and in duets in the early part
of a failing stage career. Charles relied heavily upon Fanny and they
both tried to 'distance' themselves somewhat from their parents (John
Dickens and his wife Elizabeth Barrow) and other siblings.

As Charles Dickens career as an author grew and famed his physical
nearness to his sister Fanny grew further apart as his visits to foreign
climes intensified but his nearness of heart never such waned.

Fanny married Henry Burnett and they moved to and forth twixt Middlesex
and Manchester. In 1839 she gave birth to a son Henry Augustus Burnett
who was christened at St Pancras Old Church on 5th December of that
year.

Henry Augustus Burnett, known as Harry, was born a weak "crippled child"
and it is on this nephew that Charles Dickens based the character of
Paul Dombey and later the famous "Tiny Tim"

Fanny appears to have moved to and forth between Orthodox and dissenting
religions and it was her dissenting pastor from Manchester, the
Reverend James Griffin that wrote:-
" Harry was a singular child - mediative and quaint in a remarkable
degree. He was the original as Mr Dickens told his sister of little
'Paul Dombey'. Harry had been taken to Brighton, as 'Little Paul' is
represented to have been and had there, for hours lying on the beach
with his books, given utterance to thoughts quite as remarkable for a
child............"

Whilst Charles Dickens was on one of his foreign forays he was informed
of his sister Frannys' grave illness with consumption and returned to
Manchester to see the position for himself, she was gravely ill and she
was transferred back to Hornsey in London where she eventually died aged
37 years.

She was buried on 2nd September, 1847 at Highgate Cemetery where it was
noted that her brother Charles Dickens was distressed to the point of
hysteria.

The bond betwixt Dickens and his sister was so affectionately close she
endorsed with her second son who had also been christened at St Pancras
Old Church on 13th may 1841 had appropriately been named; Charles
Dickens Burnett.

This thread:

• What the Dickens. by Burnett-web <>