The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To WILLIAM HEPWORTH DIXON,1 7 SEPTEMBER 1859

MS Huntington Library.

GAD’S HILL PLACE.

HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT.

Wednesday Night, Seventh September 1859

My Dear Dixon

I received your note and these enclosures now returned, at the seaside. The same post brought me the enclosed from Mr. Ouvry;2 you will see from it what we the Trustees3 are obliged to require (in consequence of that unlucky deed) before we can make any payment to Miss Jerrold from the fund.4

Hepworth Dixon Esquire

Always Faithfully Yours

 CHARLES DICKENS

• 1. William Hepworth Dixon (1821-79; Dictionary of National Biography), journalist and writer, particularly on the penal system and prisons: see Pilgrim Letters 5, p. 686 & nn.
• 2. Frederic Ouvry (1814-81), CD’s solicitor from 1856: see Pilgrim Letters 7, p. 273n.
• 3. The Trustees, CD, Forster and Arthur Smith, of the Douglas Jerrold Memorial Fund. Jerrold died 8 June 57. Dixon, one of the pall-bearers at the funeral (Pilgrim Letters 8, p. 352n), was added to the Committee for the Programme in Remembrance (Pilgrim Letters 8, p. 355) and praised W. Blanchard Jerrold’s life of his father (Pilgrim Letters 9, p. 9n). The Fund was expended in the purchase, through the Trustees, of an annuity for Mrs Jerrold and Mary Anne, her unmarried daughter, with the remainder to the survivor. However, rather than accepting the annuities, Mrs Jerrold and all her children had executed a Deed of Arrangement in July 1857, assigning the Fund to the Trustees. Under the Trust, Mary Anne received the income for life (Pilgrim Letters 9, p. 85 & nn). Mrs Jerrold had died 6 May 59 and her two sons were apparently attempting to annul the Deed and claim a share of the capital: the Trustees could pay nothing to Mary Anne until this dispute was settled. Dixon was concerned on Mary Anne’s behalf.
• 4. The Deed clearly was to stand, since CD made payments of the half-yearly interest, through Dixon, to Mary Anne (Pilgrim Letters 9, pp. 370, 410).