DICKENS' QUAINT NAMES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21296, 24 September 1932, Page 9 (Supplement)

DICKENS' QUAINT NAMES

FINDS IN CHURCH REGISTER Secrets of Charles Dickens, which were believed to have died with him, are being tapped by the verger of a London church in the course of his normal work. For many years the verger has been compiling a list of names found in Dickens' works from the files of the parish register of St- Andrew, Holborn,. between the years 1735 and 1059. He has made a list of upward of 40 names of people probably living in Holborn during Dickens* stay there.

Among this "hoard" of queer names, says a writer in tho Morning Post, aro Varden, Krook, Higden and Boffin, Pell, Don-it and Mold, Tippin and Chadband. How did the names of Boffin, the Golden Dustman, of the oily minister, Mr. Chadband—"who had a good deal of train-oil in his system"—of the "very amiable and very helpless middle-aged gentleman, Mr. Dorrit the debtor, and of so many others, come to bo in tho registers of Holborn ?.

The problem of the origin of Dickens peculiar names, so easily remembered, has always fascinated Dickensians, and gradually a few names have been traced in Kent, where he spent his earliest years, and elsewhere. Even Mr. Pickwick, as is well known, is a name Dickens found in Bath and treasured up for use. Light on Author's Methods If the theory suggested by the finds at St. Andrew, Holborn, can be proved, a flood of light will be cast both on .Dickens' methods and on where and how to find more of his characters. • Both the verger, Mr. A. Jones, and his Rector, the Rev. E. C. Bedford, who are keen Dickens readers, sav they believe that the discovery of all these names in their registers is not a coincidence. Dickens worked in Gray's Inn Road at a lawyer's office when he was little mora than a boy. Then, in 1837, he occupied three rooms in Furnival's Inn, and wrote some of his famous novels there. Later he lived at No. 48 Doughty Street, now tho Dickens museum. All this time, then, during his impressionable years, he was living in the old parish of St. Andrew. On shoji-entrances and gates he w-ould, of course, see the names of the parishioners, and doubtless he would store up those that fitted his taste for strange names. That would give a natural explanation of the verger's discovery, for the existence of Spenlow, Pell, Dorrit and Guppy in the Holborn of that day is proved by the parish register. Rich Vein ol Information Interesting though this theory of the discovery of 40 or 50 Dickens names in old Holborn is, the possibilities are even greater. For Mr. Jones has never searched the numerous files for Dickens names. In the course of confirming pedigrees he has had to consult them, and the number of such names naturally interested him. Occasionally he noted down a name; often he did not; and in this haphazard manner lie has compiled his list. The results which a methodical search of all the files might reveal, perhaps would give the clue at last to "Micawber," "Chuzzlewit," "Copperfield," and other names whose origin has never been discovered. Among other Dickens names on Mr. Jones* list are some which are common, like Dawkin's, the Artful Dodger of "Oliver Twist," and Mold, the undertaker in "Martin Chuzzlewit.'' But .it is interesting to see from the register that a real Mold was born in Holborn in a workhouse, which might well have been a training for artful dodgers. Then there is Varden (the locksmith with a daughter Dolly, who lived at Clerkenwell), and a Varden lived at Clerkenwell, but he was a shopkeeper. Tigg recalls Montague Tigg, murdered in "Martin Chuzzlewit," Pank suggests Pancks, Casby's agent in "Little Dorrit, ' and there are many others. Sir Henry Dickens' View

Finally, a comment of Sir Henry Dickens, son of the novelist, seems almost to clinch the whole argument. Although Sir Henry remains critical, he admits that a memorandum-book which Charles Dickens kept for ten years when he was afraid that his memory might be deteriorating, contains practically .all the names found in St. Andrew's. This seems to confirm the theory that Dickens was using real names. When it is added that the " Pickwick Papers," "Bleak House," "David Copperfield," " Barnaby Rudge," " Little Dorrit," and"" Our Mutual Friend " are the novels ' that contain most Holborn names, and are also Dickens' earlier novels, the suggestion that the verger has tapped a rich source of Dickens names seems verging upon proof.