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CHARLES DICKENS AND MISS BETSEY TROTWOOD
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When Charles Dickens came to stay in Broadstairs for the first time, in 1837, he was twenty-five years old and already a famous author. 'The Pickwick Papers', the first of his novels to appear in monthly parts, was nearly completed. He took lodgings at no. 12 High Street where he worked on the book. He was to return to the town again and again until 1851, with a final visit at the end of the decade. It was in Broadstairs that he found much of the inspiration for one of his most famous characters, Miss Betsey Trotwood, David Copperfield's aunt. In what is now The Dickens House Museum there lived a Miss Mary Pearson Strong. According to the reminiscences of Dicken's son (also Charles), she was a kindly and charming old lady who fed him tea and cakes. He also remembered that she was firmly convinced of her right to stop the passage of donkeys in front of her cottage!
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While he used the donkey incident for the character of Betsey Trotwood, Charles Dickens described her cottage, with its square gravelled garden full of flowers, and the parlour with its old fashioned furniture, through the eyes of young David Copperfield. In the novel its location was moved to Dover; it is thought that this was done it to avoid any embarrassment to Miss Strong. The house, that was named 'Dickens House' before the end of the 19th century, was bought by the Tattam family in 1919. Their daughter Dora devised it to the town, and in 1973 it was opened, according to the terms of Dora's will, as a museum. |