Dickens and Beastly London

To celebrate Charles Dickens' 200th birthday (one day out), I went on a search to see if I could find out what he thought of animals.

From his writing: I know from reading Oliver Twist that he could describe the animal life in London perfectly - in this extract he's describing market day at Smithfield Market, which was near to St Paul's Cathedral:

'It was market morning. The ground was covered nearly ankle deep with filth and mire; and a thick steam perpetually rising from the reeking bodies of the cattle, and mingling with the fog, which seemed to rest upon the chimney tops, hung heavily above ...Countrymen, butchers, drovers, hawkers, boys, thieves, idlers, and vagabonds of every low grade, were mingled together in a dense mass: the whistling of drovers, the barking of dogs, the bellowing and plunging of beasts, the bleating of sheep, and the grunting and squealing of pigs; the cries of hawkers, the shouts, oaths, and quarrelling on all sides, the ringing of bells, and the roar of voices that issued from every public house; the crowding, pushing, driving, beating, whooping and yelling; the hideous and discordant din that resounded from every corner of the market; and the unwashed, unshaven, squalid, and dirty figures constantly running to and fro, and bursting in and out of the throng, rendered it a stunning and bewildering scene which quite confused the senses.'

Sounds horrendous, doesn't it?! Not just for the animals, but for the residents who lived next to the market and witnessed the cruelty, smelt the pong and had to negotiate irate beasts on the streets.

Dickens as an animal campaigner: He was one of the only public figures to endorse the 'Home for Lost Dogs' proposed by Mrs Mary Tealby, from Holloway in September 1860, when papers such as The Times ridiculed the idea because it took pity and charity away from children. Dickens argued:


‘I think it is rather hard to laugh this humane effort to scorn. If people really think it wrong to spend a very very little money on that poor cur whose face I frankly own often haunts my memory, after I have hardened myself successfully against him – if people really do consider it an injustice to the poor, to give to this particular institution, let them leave it to its fate; but I think it is somewhat hard that they should turn the whole scheme into ridicule, or assail it with open ferocity as a dangerous competitor, with other enterprises for public favour.’


In later years this dog's home became known as Battersea Dogs' and Cats' Home!

Dickens as an animal lover: Probably Dickens' most famous pet was a raven called 'Grip' which found immortality in his Barnaby Rudge as the companion to the 'idiotic' (Dickens' description) Barnaby. Grip is now stuffed and can be visited at the Free Library of Philadelphia. While Dickens was distraught at the death of his bird in 1841, it seems that Grip did have a dark side: he had a taste for coach seat linings, wheel paint, the ankles of Dickens' children and was well-known for molesting the butcher in nearby streets. 


I've only scrapped the surface of my findings about Dickens....much more can be seen in my new book 'Beastly London' which will be published just as soon as I can find a publisher who will do the book, or the animals contained in it, justice. (Images from Wellcome Images)