LOOKING BACK
by Roger Guttridge
When Dickens came to Sherborne ‘Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.’ So began the greatest occasion in Sherborne’s literary history, and there is no doubt whatever about that either.
William Macready (left) was a well known English actor, but had retired when he moved to Sherborne and invited his friend Charles Dickens (right) to raise much-needed funds with a public reading of A Christmas Carol
The date was December 21, 1854, and the man reading the opening line of A Christmas Carol to an enraptured audience was none other than Charles Dickens himself. What’s more, this was only the second time that Dickens had read his famous Christmas ghost story in public, which makes the occasion even more historic. Dickens didn’t love Sherborne Whether the great man was entirely happy to be there is open to question. According to Vickie Macintosh, of Macintosh Antiques in Newland, where the reading took place, Dickens complained to William Macready, who organised the event: ‘Must I come? The place smells of cowshit.’ Macready, a Shakespearean actor and manager of London’s Covent 12
Garden Theatre, was a great friend of Dickens, who dedicated his third novel, Nicholas Nickelby, to him. So the cow-poo comment was probably made at least half in jest. But perhaps only half, for Dickens had visited Sherborne before and sampled its aromas with his own nostrils. ‘A public health report in 1852 tells us there was raw sewage running down the walls of Greenhill and that the stench in Half Moon Street was unbearable,’ Sherborne historian Katherine Barker tells me. ‘At the bottom of town, the boys used to block the sewers.’ Sherborne Literary and Scientific Institution Macready had become a major figure in Sherborne since retiring from the London stage
in 1851 and moving his family to Sherborne House in Newland, which he rented from Lord Digby. Within months of his arrival he agreed to become president of the Sherborne Literary and Scientific Institution. In June 1854 the Institution moved its headquarters from Cheap Street to the former stable block next to Sherborne House, where it hosted classes and lectures and maintained a fastgrowing library. Proceeds from Dickens’ reading would be used to add to the library but preparations for his visit did not go smoothly. The original plan was to hold the reading in the then Town Hall in Half Moon Street, which could accommodate a larger audience. But some townsfolk expressed their ‘dissatisfaction’ with the admission price of five shillings
get in touch with Roger: roger.guttridge@btinternet.com