Brief description: Letter, from Charles Dickens to Thomas Beard, 31 March 1851
Label: Dickens wrote this letter to Thomas Beard, one of his oldest and closest friends, on the day Dickens's father John died. John had had issued with his bladder throughout his life - it was the medical excuse for his early retirement as a clerk in the Navy when Dickens was younger - and Dickens says John had been secretive about his illness until it was too late. Dickens mentions his wife Catherine ('Kate') was at a health spa in Great Malvern for a "nervous illness". She had given birth to their daughter Dora a few months earlier and the baby would die a few weeks after this letter was written. It is theorised Catherine was suffering from post-partum depression.
Collection: Archives & Manuscripts
Object number: A99
Object type: letter
Production person: Dickens, Charles
Production date: 31/03/1851
Inscription content: Thomas Beard Esquire | "Morning Herald" Office | Shoe Lane | Fleet Street.
Devonshire Terrace | Monday Thirty First March 1851.
You will be sorry, in the remembrance of a good many years my Dear old fellow, to learn that my poor father died this morning at five and twenty minutes before six. I had taken Kate to Malvern for her health (she has a nervous illness about her) and came to town last night, almost by chance. He didn't know me, or any one, and quietly declined until he died.
I had left him, last Wednesday Evening, composed and pretty cheerful--but I had very very little hope of his recovery. He had kept his real malady so profoundly secret, that when he did disclose it his state was most alarmingly advanced towards this sad end. He suddenly drooped about noon yesterday, and never rallied afterwards.
Ever affectionately
CHARLES DICKENS
Thomas Beard Esquire

Letter, from Charles Dickens to Thomas Beard, 31 March 1851