Museum appeal launched at former Dickens home

I really enjoyed doing all the research for The Lion with one of the many people I learnt much more about was Charles Dickens who stayed at the hotel on a number of occasions.

So I was interested to find out that a big appeal has been launched at the Charles Dickens Museum, which was one of his former homes at 48 Doughty Street, in Holborn, and has been open to the public for 86 years.

The Georgian terraced house (pictured below) was Dickens’ home from March 25, 1837, until December 1839 when Charles and his wife Catherine moved on to grander properties as the author’s wealth increased and his family grew to ten children.

Two of their daughters, Mary and Kate Macready, were born in the house, which is the only surviving one of the family's London homes.

While living there Dickens completed The Pickwick Papers (1836), wrote the whole of Oliver Twist (1838) and Nicholas Nickleby (1838–39) and worked on Barnaby Rudge (1840–41).

The building was threatened with demolition in 1923 but was saved by the Dickens Fellowship who bought the property and renovated it. The Dickens House Museum, later renamed the Charles Dickens Museum, was opened in 1925 and is run by an independent trust.

Since then more than two million people have visited the museum which is spread over four floors and houses the world’s most important collection of paintings, rare editions, manuscripts, original furniture and other items relating to the author’s life and work.

Now a new £3.1m project, entitled Great Expectations, has been launched to restore the rooms to their traditional Victorian era appearance and to improve the museum and to turn it into an education and information centre to coincide with the bicentenary of Dickens’s birth in 2012.

The project has already been recognized by the Heritage Lottery Fund and the museum is now raising £1.1m to match public funding of £1.7m.

Next time I am in London I shall definitely visit the museum, whose website is www.dickensmuseum.com

Incidentally, The Lion Hotel in Shrewsbury is hosting a weekend of Dickens celebrations on Saturday, February 5 and Sunday, February 6, 2012, when Gerald Dickens, the great, great grandson of Charles, will be reading some of  the author's works.

For more details ring 01743 353107 or go to www.thelionhotelshrewsbury.com/