Debtor's Prison

The theme of the debtor's prison is central to several of Charles Dickens' novels and to his personal life as well. In 1824, when Charles was 12 years old, his father was arrested for debt and imprisoned in the Marshalsea debtor's prison in Southwark. His father's imprisonment, and Charles' subsequent consignment to Warren's Blacking factory to help support the family, was an extremely traumatic experience that young Dickens never got over, and which proved to be a major influence in his life's work (Forster, 1899, v. 1, p. 20-27).

Typically, a debtor was accused by the person to whom money was owed. The accused was held several days in a sponging house, such as Coavin's in Bleak House or Moss's, in which Rawdon Crawley is held in Thackeray's Vanity Fair. If, in a few days, the money cannot be raised, the debtor is imprisoned until the debt is paid (Wikipedia).

There were three prominent debtor's prisons in London: The Fleet, where Mr Pickwick (Pickwick Papers) was held, The King's Bench, where Micawber (David Copperfield) was an inmate, and the Marshalsea, where Dickens' father was imprisoned, as well as the fictional William Dorrit (Little Dorrit).

John Chetwode Eustace
A Tour Through Italy (1802)

Mrs General uses Eustace's text to guide the Dorrits on their classical tour through Italy (Little Dorrit, p. 612). The Dorrit's travels draw heavily from Charles Dickens' own travels through Europe in 1844-45 and chronicled in his travel book Pictures from Italy.

Little Dorrit (2008)
Claire Foy, Matthew Macfadyen

Mansions of Misery: A Biography of the Marshalsea Debtors’ Prison
by Jerry White

For Londoners of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, debt was a part of everyday life. But when your creditors lost their patience, you might be thrown into one of the capital’s most notorious jails: the Marshalsea Debtors’ Prison.

Flora Finching

An old flame revisited

In 1830, when Charles Dickens was 18 years old he fell madly in love with the daughter of a successful banker, Maria Beadnell. He courted Miss Beadnell for three years, although her parents objected to the relationship and the courtship ended with Dickens heartbroken (Slater, 2009, p. 33-39).

Dickens never forgot Maria, Dora Spenlow in David Copperfield was based on his memory of her (Davis, 1999, p. 23).

In 1855, with his marriage to Kate breaking down, Dickens received a letter from Maria, now married and describing herself as "toothless, fat, old and ugly" (Ackroyd, 1990, p. 729) Dickens memory of Maria would not allow him to believe this description and, after several passionate letters were exchanged, a meeting was arranged. When Dickens met Maria he was devastated, her description of herself being fairly accurate. Thereafter his few letters to her were short and formal.

Dickens used the new Maria as the basis for Flora Finching, Arthur Clennam's former lover in Little Dorrit. Flora is fat and tiresome, although sincerely good natured. Dickens would later write "We have all had our Floras, mine is living, and extremely fat" (Schlicke, 1999, p. 35).

The Wisdom of Mr F's Aunt

Mr F's Aunt after an illustration by Henry Furniss 1910

Amy Dorrit and Maggy outside the Marshalsea gate. the church of St George the Martyr looms behind.

St George the Martyr church in 1910.

Little Dorrit immortalized in the stained glass window in the St George the Martyr church.

St George the Martyr Church today

Little Dorrit - The Marshalsea Revisited

Little Dorrit - Published in monthly parts Dec 1855 - June 1857

In his eleventh novel, illustrated by Phiz and published by Bradbury and Evans, Charles Dickens' childhood memories of his father's imprisonment in the Marshalsea for debt are brought forth again as the centerpiece of the story of William Dorrit, whose family is also imprisoned there.

Dickens sets the novel in the 1820's, around the time his father was an inmate in the Marshalsea (Little Dorrit, p. 1), but virtually ignores that time period during the novel to address issues that relate to the 1850s (Davis, 1999, p. 215). The theme of imprisonment, both physical and psychological, carries throughout the novel.

Dickens notes in the preface for the completed novel that he had never had so many readers, indeed, sales of the monthly installments topped both Bleak House and David Copperfield (Slater, 2009, p. 407). Critic's responses to the novel were mixed with some saying that Dickens should stick with comedy rather than political satire (Kaplan, 1988, p. 340). George Bernard Shaw called the book "more seditious than Das Kapital" (Laurence and Quinn, 1985, p51,64 as cited in Schlicke, 1999, p. 341).

This book, along with its predecessor, Hard Times, marked a turn in Dickens' writing toward a darker and gloomier outlook on life.

Complete List of Characters:

Character descriptions contain spoilers

Bangham, Mrs Barbary, Captain Barbary, Mrs Captain Barnacle, Clarence (Junior) Barnacle, Lord Decimus Barnacle, Ferdinand Barnacle, John Barnacle, Lady Jemima Barnacle, Mrs (nee Stiltstalking) Barnacle, Tite Barnacle, William Barronneau, Monsieur Henri Barronneau, Madame Bawkins Bellows, Brother Blandois/Rigaud/Langnier Bob Casby, Christopher Cavalletto, John Baptist Charlotte Chivery, John Chivery, Young John Chivery, Mrs Clennam, Arthur Clennam, Gilbert Clennam, Mrs Clive, Mr Cripples, Mr Cripples, Master Dawes Dorrit, Amy Dorrit, Edward (Tip) Dorrit, Fanny Dorrit, Frederick Dorrit, Mrs Fanny Dorrit, William Doyce, Daniel

Finching, Flora Flintwinch, Affery Flintwinch, Ephraim Flintwinch, Jeremiah General, Mrs Gowan, Henry Gowan, Mrs Haggage, Dr Jackson Jenkinson Langnier/Rigaud/Blandois Maggy Maroon, Captain Martin, Captain Mary Anne Meagles, Lillie Meagles, Mr Meagles, Mrs Meagles, Minnie (Pet) Merdle, Mr Merdle, Mrs Mr F's Aunt Nandy, John Edward Pancks Peddle and Pool Plornish, Sally Plornish, Thomas Rigaud/Blandois/Langnier Rugg, Anastatia Rugg, Mr Sparkler, Edmund Stiltstalking Family Tattycoram/Harriet Beadle Tickit, Mrs Tinkler, Mr Wade, Miss Wobbler, Mr

Little Dorrit Links:

The Victorian Web
Bartleby.com
Bibliomania
Wikipedia

Back to Top

The Marshalsea Prison

In the preface to Little Dorrit Charles Dickens describes a visit to Southwark to see what, if anything, remained of the Marshalsea Prison, which closed in 1842.

It is curious that in the thirty years since his father was imprisoned there Dickens seems not to have visited the site just across the Thames. He found that 'the front courtyard, often mentioned [in the story], metamorphosed into a butter-shop' and the former walls and blocks of the prison assimilated into the neighborhood.

Charles Dickens' readers were not aware of his intimate relationship to the prison, the story of his father's imprisonment there not being told until his first biographer, John Forster, revealed it after Dickens' death in 1870 (Forster, 1899, v. 1, p. 22-39).

At the beginning of Book the First, Chapter 6 of Little Dorrit Dickens introduces the reader to the prison:

Thirty years ago there stood, a few doors short of the church of Saint George, in the borough of Southwark, on the left-hand side of the way going southward, the Marshalsea Prison. It had stood there many years before, and it remained there some years afterwards; but it is gone now, and the world is none the worse without it. It was an oblong pile of barrack building, partitioned into squalid houses standing back to back, so that there were no back rooms; environed by a narrow paved yard, hemmed in by high walls duly spiked at top. Itself a close and confined prison for debtors, it contained within it a much closer and more confined jail for smugglers. Offenders against the revenue laws, and defaulters to excise or customs who had incurred fines which they were unable to pay, were supposed to be incarcerated behind an iron-plated door closing up a second prison, consisting of a strong cell or two, and a blind alley some yard and a half wide, which formed the mysterious termination of the very limited skittle-ground in which the Marshalsea debtors bowled down their troubles (Little Dorrit, p. 57).

The Marshalsea Prison of John Dickens and William Dorrit 1811-1842

The medieval Marshalsea Prison dated from the 14th century. In 1811 the decaying prison was torn down and a new Marshalsea was built a few blocks further down Borough High Street. This was the prison in which Dickens' father was incarcerated in 1824 and to which Dickens sent William Dorrit in Little Dorrit (White, 2016, p. 177-178).

Back to Top

Key:
A - Gate
B - Keeper's House and lodge
C - Block of eight back-to-back four-storey houses containing 56 rooms for debtors. The average room was 10 feet 10 inches square containing one window.
D - Privies
E - Suttling House which included a day room and an ale room and bar
F - Wash House
G - Admiralty Prison used by the navy to house sailors convicted of crimes at sea. When empty it was used as overflow for debtors.
H - Chapel
I - Cistern
J - Pump
K - Remaining wall of the Marshalsea.
L - A photo taken from this vantage point is shown in the inset. The photo was taken in 1897 after the prison had closed and the former prisoner barracks on the left were used to house poor families. The wall on the right, having been shortened after this photo was taken, can still be seen today.

Circumlocution Office

Charles Dickens' satiric representation of the Civil Service, where the Barnacle family demonstrates how to go around in circles, spewing red tape, and accomplishing nothing, draws on recent government bumbling during the Crimean War (Little Dorrit, p. xvii)...and perhaps just a hint of leftover cynicism from Dickens' days as a young parliamentary reporter.

Back to Top

---