Catherine 'Kate' Thomson Dickens (
néeA married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage, and in speaking of the many cultures where the practice is traditional for women, the maiden name is the family name that the married name replaces....
Hogarth) (May 19 1815 – 22 November 1879) was the wife of
English novelist-Romantic novel:The Romantic period saw the first flowering of the English novel. The Romantic and the Gothic novel are closely related; both imagined almost-supernatural forces operating in nature or directing human fate...
Charles DickensCharles John Huffam Dickens FRSA , pen-name "Boz", was the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era and one of the most popular of all time. He created some of literature's most memorable characters. His novels and short stories have never gone out of print...
, with whom he fathered 10 children.
Born in
EdinburghEdinburgh is the capital city of Scotland. It is the second largest Scottish city, after Glasgow, and the seventh-most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas....
in
ScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
in 1815, Catherine came to
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
with her family in 1834. She was the eldest daughter of George Hogarth, editor of the
Evening ChronicleThe Evening Chronicle is a daily, evening newspaper produced in Newcastle upon Tyne, covering Tyne and Wear, southern Northumberland and northern County Durham. It was founded in 1885 by Joseph Cowen...
where Dickens was a young journalist. They became engaged in 1835 and were married on April 2, 1836 in St.
Catherine 'Kate' Thomson Dickens (
néeA married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage, and in speaking of the many cultures where the practice is traditional for women, the maiden name is the family name that the married name replaces....
Hogarth) (May 19 1815 – 22 November 1879) was the wife of
English novelist-Romantic novel:The Romantic period saw the first flowering of the English novel. The Romantic and the Gothic novel are closely related; both imagined almost-supernatural forces operating in nature or directing human fate...
Charles DickensCharles John Huffam Dickens FRSA , pen-name "Boz", was the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era and one of the most popular of all time. He created some of literature's most memorable characters. His novels and short stories have never gone out of print...
, with whom he fathered 10 children.
Marriage
Born in
EdinburghEdinburgh is the capital city of Scotland. It is the second largest Scottish city, after Glasgow, and the seventh-most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas....
in
ScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
in 1815, Catherine came to
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
with her family in 1834. She was the eldest daughter of George Hogarth, editor of the
Evening ChronicleThe Evening Chronicle is a daily, evening newspaper produced in Newcastle upon Tyne, covering Tyne and Wear, southern Northumberland and northern County Durham. It was founded in 1885 by Joseph Cowen...
where Dickens was a young journalist. They became engaged in 1835 and were married on April 2, 1836 in St. Luke's Church,
ChelseaChelsea is an area of south-west London, England, bounded to the south by the River Thames, where its frontage runs from Chelsea Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk, Lots Road and Chelsea Harbour. Its eastern boundary was once defined by the River Westbourne, which is now in a pipe...
and honeymooned in Chalk, near
ChathamChatham is a large area within Medway, Kent, in South East England.Although the dockyard has long been closed and is now being redeveloped, into a business and residential community, its major buildings remain; so that, in addition to that more modern usage, the historical importance of the...
in
KentKent , originally Cantia, is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the River Thames estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent...
, where Dickens had spent part of his youth. They set up home in
BloomsburyThe Charles Dickens Museum is at 48 Doughty Street in the district of Holborn, London, England. It occupies a typical Georgian terraced house which was Charles Dickens' home from March 25, 1837 to December 1839...
, and went on to have
ten childrenThe Dickens family are the descendants of John Dickens, the father of the English novelist Charles Dickens. The descendants of Charles Dickens include the novelist Monica Dickens, the writer Lucinda Dickens Hawksley and the actors Harry Lloyd and Brian Forster....
:
- Charles Culliford Boz Dickens, later known as Charles Dickens, Jr
Charles Dickens, Jr, born Charles Culliford Boz Dickens , was the first child of the novelist Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine. A failed businessman, he became the editor of his father's magazine All the Year Round, and a successful writer of dictionaries...
, editor of All the Year RoundAll the Year Round was a Victorian periodical, being a British weekly literary magazine founded and owned by Charles Dickens, published between 1859 and 1895 throughout the United Kingdom. Edited by Dickens, it was the direct successor to his previous publication Household Words, abandoned due to...
and author of Dickens's Dictionary of London (1879).
- Mary Dickens
Mary 'Mamie' Angela Dickens was the oldest daughter of English novelist Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine...
- Kate Macready Dickens
thumb|Millais's Portrait of Mrs. PeruginiKate Perugini was an English painter of the Victorian era and the daughter of Charles Dickens.-Biography:...
- Walter Landor Dickens
Walter Savage Landor Dickens was the fourth child and second son of English novelist Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine. He became an officer cadet in the East India Company's Presidency armies just before the Indian Mutiny...
- Francis Jeffrey Dickens
- Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson Dickens
Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson Dickens was the sixth child and fourth son of British novelist Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine...
- Sydney Smith Haldimand Dickens
Sydney Smith Haldimand Dickens was a Royal Navy officer; the fifth son and seventh child of English novelist Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine.-Biography:...
- Sir Henry Fielding Dickens
Sir Henry Fielding Dickens, KC was the eighth of ten children born to British author Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine. The most successful of all of Dickens's children, he was a barrister, a KC and Common Serjeant of London, a senior legal office which he held for over 15 years.-Early...
- Dora Annie Dickens
Dora Annie Dickens was the infant daughter of English novelist Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine. She was the ninth of their ten children, and the youngest of their three daughters.-A short life:...
- Edward Dickens
Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens was the youngest son of English novelist Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine and was an Australian politician....
He migrated to AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
, and became a member of the New South WalesNew South Wales is Australia's most populous state, located in the south-east of the country, north of Victoria, south of Queensland and east of South Australia...
state parliament. He died in MoreeMorée is a commune in the Loir-et-Cher department of central France.-See also:*Communes of the Loir-et-Cher department...
, New South Wales.
Catherine's sister Mary Hogarth entered Dickens's Doughty Street household to offer support to her newly married sister and brother-in-law. It was not unusual for the unwed sister of a new wife to live with and help a newly married couple. Dickens became very attached to Mary, and she died after a brief illness in his arms in 1837. She became a character in many of his books, and her death is fictionalized as the death of Little Nell.
Catherine's younger sister,
Georgina HogarthGeorgina Hogarth was the sister-in-law, housekeeper and adviser of English novelist Charles Dickens and the editor of two volumes of his collected letters after his death.-Biography:...
, joined the Dickens family household in 1842 when Dickens and Catherine sailed to
AmericaThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, caring for the young family they had left behind. in 1845 Charles Dickens produced the amateur theatrical
Every Man in his Humour for the benefit of
Leigh HuntJames Henry Leigh Hunt was an English critic, essayist, poet and writer.-Early life:Leigh Hunt was born at Southgate, London, Middlesex, where his parents had settled after leaving the USA...
. In a subsequent performance, Catherine Dickens, who had a minor role, fell through a trap door injuring her ankle. In 1851, as 'Lady Maria Clutterbuck', Kate Dickens published a cookery book, 'What Shall we Have for Dinner? Satisfactorily Answered by Numerous Bills of Fare for from Two to Eighteen Persons'. It contained many suggested menus for meals of varying complexity together with a few recipes. It went through several editions until 1860. Also in 1851 she suffered a nervous collapse after the death of her daughter
Dora DickensDora Annie Dickens was the infant daughter of English novelist Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine. She was the ninth of their ten children, and the youngest of their three daughters.-A short life:...
, aged nearly 8 months.
Over the subsequent years Dickens found Catherine an increasingly incompetent mother and housekeeper and blamed her for the birth of their 10 children, which caused him financial worries. Their separation in May 1858, after Catherine Dickens accidentally received a bracelet meant for
Ellen TernanEllen Lawless Ternan , also known as Nelly Ternan or Nelly Robinson, was an English actress who is mainly known as the woman for whom Charles Dickens separated from his wife Catherine.-Life:...
, was much publicized and rumours of Dickens' affairs were numerous, all of which he strenuously denied.
Separation
Georgina Hogarth sided with Dickens in his quarrel with her sister, Catherine. This caused the family to break apart. Georgina, Charles Dickens and all of the children except
Charles Dickens, JrCharles Dickens, Jr, born Charles Culliford Boz Dickens , was the first child of the novelist Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine. A failed businessman, he became the editor of his father's magazine All the Year Round, and a successful writer of dictionaries...
, remained in their home at Tavistock House, while Catherine and Charles Jr. moved out. Georgina Hogarth ran his household. On 12 June, 1858 he published a self-justifying and cruel article in his journal,
Household WordsHousehold Words was an English weekly magazine edited by Charles Dickens which took its name from the line from Shakespeare "Familiar in his mouth as household words" — Henry V.-History:...
, explaining the situation.
"Some domestic trouble of mine, of long-standing, on which I will make no further remark than that it claims to be respected, as being of a sacredly private nature, has lately been brought to an arrangement, which involves no anger or ill-will of any kind, and the whole origin, progress, and surrounding circumstances of which have been, throughout, within the knowledge of my children. It is amicably composed, and its details have now to be forgotten by those concerned in it....By some means, arising out of wickedness, or out of folly, or out of inconceivable wild chance, or out of all three, this trouble has been the occasion of misrepresentations, mostly grossly false, most monstrous, and most cruel -- involving, not only me, but innocent persons dear to my heart.... I most solemnly declare, then -- and this I do both in my own name and in my wife's name -- that all the lately whispered rumours touching the trouble, at which I have glanced, are abominably false. And whosoever repeats one of them after this denial, will lie as wilfully and as foully as it is possible for any false witness to lie, before heaven and earth".
He sent this statement to the newspapers, including
The TimesThe Times is a daily national newspaper published in the United Kingdom since 1785 when it was known as The Daily Universal Register....
, and many reprinted it. He fell out with Bradbury and Evans, his publishers, because they refused to publish his statement in
PunchPunch was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire published from 1841 to 1992 and from 1996 to 2002. Punch material was also collected in book formats as early as the 1800s, including Pick of the Punch annuals with cartoons and text features, Punch and the War a 1941 collection of...
as they thought it unsuitable for a humorous periodical. An even more tactless public statement appeared in the
New York TribuneThe New York Tribune was an American newspaper, first established by Horace Greeley in 1841, which was long considered one of the leading newspapers in the United States...
, which later found its way into several
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
newspapers. In this statement Dickens declared that it had been only Georgina Hogarth who had held the family together for some time:
".... I will merely remark of [my wife] that some peculiarity of her character has thrown all the children on someone else. I do not know -- I cannot by any stretch of fancy imagine -- what would have become of them but for this aunt, who has grown up with them, to whom they are devoted, and who has sacrificed the best part of her youth and life to them. She has remonstrated, reasoned, suffered, and toiled, again and again, to prevent a separation between Mrs. Dickens and me. Mrs. Dickens has often expressed to her sense of affectionate care and devotion in her home -- never more strongly than within the last twelve months.
Later years
Dickens and Catherine had little correspondence after their separation, but she remained attached and loyal to her husband and to his memory until her own death from cancer. On her deathbed in 1879 Catherine gave the collection of letters she had received from Dickens to her daughter
Katethumb|Millais's Portrait of Mrs. PeruginiKate Perugini was an English painter of the Victorian era and the daughter of Charles Dickens.-Biography:...
, telling her to "Give these to the
British MuseumThe British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. It is located in London and is one of the world's largest research libraries, holding over 150 million items in all known languages and formats; books, journals, newspapers, magazines, sound and music recordings, patents,...
, that the world may know he loved me once".
Catherine Dickens was buried in
Highgate CemeteryHighgate Cemetery is a cemetery located in Highgate, London, England. It is designated Grade II* on the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England.-History and setting:...
in
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
with her infant daughter
DoraDora Annie Dickens was the infant daughter of English novelist Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine. She was the ninth of their ten children, and the youngest of their three daughters.-A short life:...
, who had died in 1851 aged nearly 8 months.
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