Dickens aged 37 in 1849
Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812 in Landport, Portsmouth. The family moved to London in 1815, and to Sheerness and then Chatham, both in Kent, in 1817. Chatham remained Dickens's home until a crucial move back to London in 1823. These changes were necessitated by his father's job as a clerk in the Navy Pay Office, a position which placed the family firmly in the reasonably well-to-do lower middle class. Dickens's immediate family background was an interesting one. His mother, Elizabeth, came from solidly comfortable origins. Her father was Charles Barrow, a music teacher who also secured a position in the Navy Pay Office and rose quite rapidly to a reasonably senior position. This enabled him to place one of his sons in the Office and it was through the
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Citation: Smith, Grahame. "Charles Dickens". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 January 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5085, accessed 18 July 2025.]
