- Brief description
- Letter from Georgina Hogarth to Mr Armatage, 1870
- Label
- Isaac Armatage was one of Dickens's servants at his home in Kent, Gad's Hill Place. He joined the staff of Dickens's home around 1866 and remained with the family after Dickens's death in 1870. Georgina Hogarth was Dickens's sister-in-law, housekeeper, and one of the executors of his will after his death. In this letter she writes to Isaac's father discussing a mistake she made in giving Isaac money left by Dickens. In his will Dickens had left 'nineteen guineas (£19) to each and every domestic servant', worth just under £2,000 in 2024.
- Collection
- Archives & Manuscripts
- Object number
- B81
- Object type
- letter
- Production person
- Hogarth, Georgina
- Production date
- 1870
- Production place
- Gad's Hill Place
- Inscription content
- Gad's Hill
Friday evening
Dear Mr Armatage
I am sorry I was not able to see you this evening, as we came home rather late, and I had some business to do. As you have not changed the cheque, nor taken any steps about it, the best plan will be for you to send the cheque back to me. I will change it, and deposit the money at once at the Post Office in the Savings Bank, in my own name, as one of Mr Dickens's Executors, for the benefit of Isaac. This is what I ought to have done at first, and it was certainly by my mistake that the cheque was given to Isaac as it was to the other servants. Mr Ouvry told me, by [illegible] when I sent him Isaac's receipt - that I had made a mistake. I said that I thought you had probably already put the money in a Savings Bank, in which case Mr Ouvry said the standard process will be to add my name to yours as 'the depositor' and that it ought, properly, to have been deposited in my name alone - as you still have the cheque unchanged, if such that can be done, and I will do it immediately, if you will send me the cheque. I have in the same way deposited £19..19 for Mrs Cornelius' daughters in my name at a Post Office Savings Bank in London today.
Yours truly
Georgina Hogarth
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