The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To GEORGIANA MORSON,1 27 DECEMBER 1849

MS Michigan State University Libraries.

Devonshire Terrace | Twenty Seventh December 1849.

Dear Mrs. Morson.

Unfortunately this is the receiving day at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.2 I fear you may be too late, but directly you receive this, please to take Maria Cridge3 there, in a fly: first signing the enclosed form of petition yourself, and taking it with you. The hospital is in Smithfield. Will you call here on your way back, and leave word (in case Mrs. Dickens should not be at home, write a line in my room) stating whether you have got her in, or whether she will have to wait another week.4

Faithfully Yours

 CHARLES DICKENS

Mrs Morson.

• 1. Georgiana Morson (1817-80), matron of Urania Cottage (the home for homeless women established by CD), 1849-54: see Pilgrim Letters 5, p. 509n, and Jenny Hartley, Charles Dickens and the House of Fallen Women, 2009.
• 2. Founded at Smithfield, 1123; still on that site. Until the 1860s admissions were limited to one day a week (here a Tuesday), when a physician was on duty in the Great Hall for this purpose.
• 3. An inmate of the House: see To Miss Burdett Coutts, 27 Dec (Pilgrim Letters 5, p. 681), and To Mrs Morson, 27 Dec (Pilgrim Letters 12, p. 619).
• 4. Maria Cridge was admitted, 27 Dec, and discharged, 20 Mar 50 (St Bartholomew’s Hospital Admission Register, MR 1/9, p. 105), despite CD’s hope that she would be out in Jan 50 (Pilgrim Letters 6, p. 5).