Dickens' new chapter (From Gazette & Herald)

Dickens' new chapter

11:26am Thursday 7th June 2007

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WHAT the Dickens!

No, these aren't centuries-old pictures, they are scenes from 1980s, when Malton was buzzing with Christmas spirit as it pulled together to celebrate an annual Dickens Festival.

Charles Dickens was a great friend of Malton solicitor Charles Smithson, and is said to have modelled the office of Ebeneezer Scrooge in a Christmas Carol on Smithson's own offices in Chancery Lane.

For several Christmases, traders, volunteers and families in Victorian dress took part in activities and events to celebrate the town's literary links.

Now, the Gazette & Herald is asking why doesn't Malton make more of its Dickens connection?

Last month a £62 million theme park, Dickens World, was opened in Chatham in Kent, where Dickens spent much of his childhood, offering visitors the chance to step back into Dickensian England.

And while other towns cash in on their links to arts and heritage - like Thirsk with James Herriott and Haworth's Bronte-fest - Malton businesses are struggling to survive as they compete with out-of-town shopping centres like Monks Cross.

The Dickens Festival did much to boost trade and community spirit during the festive period, but in the 1990s lack of support meant it died a death.

A key organiser was Brian Mawtus, who was landlord of the Mount Hotel before it closed, and many other business people and local characters were on the organising team.

One of them, former chairman of the Malton and Norton Chamber of Trade Ian Beecham, said: "It ran for a number of years and then became a victim of its own success.

"It was so big no-one wanted to take it on. It was the same with other events. You run out of people to get stuck in and help because there weren't any new groups of people to get involved and make it happen."

Mayor of Norton, David LloydWilliams, another key organiser, said: "It was successful years ago and maybe the time has come for there to be a resurgence and a public meeting should be held to test the enthusiasm of the community. We have moved on from the 1980s to the next century, perhaps the festival would now include computer images and new technology."

This month, Chancery Lane, which has languished in disrepair and been a dumping ground for litter in recent years, is benefiting from improvements courtesy of Malcolm Chalk, owner of the World Wide Shopping Mall on Chancery Lane, Malton Town Council, English Heritage and North Yorkshire County Council.

Resurfacing was due to start yesterday and is expected to take four weeks to complete. So is now the time to ask - where the Dickens is Malton's pride in its literary link? Can the ghosts of Christmas past help Malton like they helped Scrooge to change the future?

Malcolm Chalk said: "During the redevelopment of the Chancery Lane area Malton has a real opportunity to reveal its little known history, which strongly connects it to Charles Dickens. It is a shame that local businesses and the town council are not doing more to capitalise on these links, which would be a real benefit to the area by helping to draw tourists into this lovely market town.

"With the paving of Chancery Lane in the Victorian style, it would be a tragedy for the model for Scrooge's counting house facing into the lane to remain boarded up, and we should embrace this chance to make public all of the Dickens properties in the neighbourhood.

Mr Chalk added that there would be a Celebrate Malton weekend on Friday, June 29 and Saturday, June 30, providing an opportunity for trades people and shops to demonstrate what they do.

As part of the event the Fitzwilliam Estate has agreed to let some property be used for the exhibition of objects and artefacts relating to Malton's recent social history.

A great tradition lost

CHRISTOPHER Dickens, great, greatgrandson of the author, was guest of honour at the first festival.

He arrived by steam train in Malton, and was met by a stagecoach and driven to the Market Place where the mayors of Malton and Norton and the chairman of Ryedale District Council were there, in full Victorian costume, to meet him, before a civic lunch.

That evening, there was an opening event at the Talbot Hotel where an actor gave a reading from A Christmas Carol and there was a desk which had belonged to Dickens on display, loaned especially for the occasion.

There was a Victorian music hall evening in the Milton Rooms that week, and then at the weekend there were children's games and activities, an equestrian parade and prizes for the bonniest baby and best outfits.

As part of the first festival, the then mayor David Lloyd-Williams and well-known personality, now deceased, Fred Bower, took a donation of traditional pork pies to the Salvation Army in London.

In later years, activities included an I-spy competition, with volunteers dressing up as Dickensian characters and walking around Malton. Competitors had to approach them and say who they were to get a token, and the one with the most tokens won.

The winner was presented with a cup sponsored by the Gazette & Herald.

One year, the BBC's Clothes Show, presented by North Yorkshire-born Selina Scott, filmed part of the programme in Malton during the festival.

On the trail of Charles Dickens

IT is the building behind Hardcastle, France & Co, chartered accountants office on Yorkersgate, which faces onto Chancery Lane, where Ebeneezer Scrooge is reputed to have kept his beady eye on Bob Cratchit, at least in the imaginations and writings of the great Victorian storyteller.

The town has changed little architecturally speaking since the 1800s, when Dickens was a regular visitor.

Several connections brought him to Malton. He was a close friend of Charles Smithson, the solicitor who practised at the Chancery Lane building.

Although the novel A Christmas Carol, published in 1843, was not written in Malton, the Smithson family was told by Dickens that the office in Chancery Lane was the model for Scrooge's office, and that the bells in the story were those of St Leonard's and St Mary's Church on Church Hill.

Charles Dickens' brother, Alfred Lament Dickens, was a civil engineer who worked on the construction of the York, Malton, Scarborough railway line and had an office in Market Place, Malton.

He lived for a time at Hillside Cottage, Greengate, Malton and later in Derwent Cottage, Scarborough Road, Norton.

Charles Smithson began training at his family's firm of solicitors at Chancery Lane and later moved to London to continue training with Smithson and Dunn.

It was then that he met and established what was to become a lifelong friendship with Charles Dickens.

Charles Smithson was forced to return to Malton and take over the firm following the death of his brother Henry in 1840. Charles lived at Easthorpe Hall near Malton, which no longer exists, and later moved to the Abbey House in Old Malton, behind St Mary's Priory.

Charles Dickens was a regular visitor, and based several characters on people he met in the area.

The character of Sairey Gamp in Martin Chuzzlewit is thought to be based on a housekeeper at Easthorpe Hall. A Mrs Jump who lived in a little white house on Middlecave Road was thought to be the inspiration for Mrs MacStringer in Dombey and Son.

Dickens apparently entertained an audience at the theatre (now demolished) on Saville Street.

The Yorkshire Gazette, this paper's predecessor, recorded on July 8 1843: "We understand that Charles Dickens Esq, the admired and talented author of 'Pickwick', etc is now on a visit with his lady at Easthorpe, the hospitable abode of Charles Smithson Esq Solicitor, Malton, and that he has visited Old Malton Abbey and other remarkable places in the vicinity." When Charles Smithson died in 1844 aged 39, Charles Dickens attended the funeral at Old Malton, leaving York by postchase at 7am on April 5 and arriving just in time for the funeral at 9.30am.

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