The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick" Part 11

The last tavern mentioned in The Pickwick Papers is the "excellent public-house near Shooter's Hill, "to which Mr. Weller, senior, retired. Unfortunately it was never named, nor has it been identified. Continuing to drive a coach for twelve months after the Pickwick Club had ceased to exist, he became afflicted with gout and was compelled to give up his lifelong calling. The contents of his pocket-book had been so well invested by Mr.

Pickwick, we are told, that he had a handsome independence for the purpose of his last days. At Shooter's Hill he was quite reverenced as an oracle, boasting very much of his intimacy with Mr. Pickwick, and retaining a most unconquerable aversion to widows.

CHAPTER XVIII

PICKWICK AND THE "GEORGE" INN

Certain traditional legends naturally grow round our old London landmarks and, when once started, no matter how conjectural, they are hard to overtake or suppress.

The George Inn, Southwark, is an instance of this, and the legend that is p.r.o.ne to cling to it is that it was the original of the White Hart Inn of Pickwick fame; the contention being that d.i.c.kens, when writing so faithfully of the "White Hart" in Chapter X of The Pickwick Papers, where Sam Weller was first discovered, described the "George" and called it after its near neighbour, the "White Hart." This contention, we submit, has no justification whatever.

The only reason, therefore, for referring to it here, is with a view to dispelling the illusion.

It is surprising that so good a d.i.c.kensian as the late J. Ashby Sterry should have been one of those who favoured the idea. Whether he was the first to do so we are not aware. But in his very interesting and informative article ent.i.tled "d.i.c.kens in Southwark,"

in The English Ill.u.s.trated Magazine for November, 1888, he states it as his opinion that the "George" was the original of the "White Hart," and reverted to the same idea in The Bystander (1901). The following extract from the former article contains the argument he used to substantiate his claim:

"Moreover it (the 'George') is especially notable as being the spot where Mr. Pickwick first encountered the immortal Sam Weller. The 'White Hart' is the name, I am aware, given in the book, but it is said that d.i.c.kens changed the sign in order that the place should not be too closely identified. This was by no means an unusual custom with the novelist. I think he did the same thing in Edwin Drood, where the 'Bull' at Rochester is described under the sign of the 'Blue Boar.' A similar change was made in Great Expectations, where the same inn is disguised in like fas.h.i.+on, in the account of the dinner given after Pip was bound apprentice to Joe Gargery.

The 'White Hart' is close by, on the same side of the way, a little nearer London Bridge, but little, if anything, is remaining of the old inn, and the whole of the place and its surroundings have been modernised.

[ill.u.s.tration: The George Inn, Southwark, in 1858. From an engraving by Fairholt]

"I, however, had the opportunity of comparing both inns some years ago, and have no hesitation in saying that the 'George' is the inn where the irrepressible Alfred Jingle and the elderly Miss Rachel were discovered by the warm-hearted, hot-tempered Wardle. If you like to go upstairs you can see the very room where Mr. Jingle consented to forfeit all claims to the lady's hand for the consideration of a hundred and twenty pounds. Cannot you fancy, too, the landlord shouting instructions from those picturesque flower-decked galleries to Sam in the yard below?"

These deductions and views are not in any way convincing to us; indeed, we find ourselves in complete disagreement with them, and few d.i.c.kensians, we feel sure, will endorse them.

Mr. Ashby Sterry's argument regarding the "Bull" and the "Blue Boar"

at Rochester proves nothing. d.i.c.kens described the "Bull" there in The Pickwick Papers and called it the "Bull" at Rochester, as he did the "Leather Bottle" at Cobham, the "Angel" at Bury St. Edmunds, the "Great White Horse" at Ipswich--to name a few parallel cases. When he described the "Bull" and called it the "Blue Boar," it was in another book, Great Expectations, not in Edwin Drood, as stated by Mr. Ashby Sterry, and its location was a fict.i.tious city, i.e. The Market Town.

The only case in which d.i.c.kens deliberately used the name of one inn for another was that of the "Maypole" and "King's Head" at Chigwell in Barnaby Rudge. But in this instance he admitted that he had done so, although it was scarcely necessary, for the inns were very dissimilar and the novelist's description of the latter could not be taken for the former.

The case of the "George" and the "White Hart" is different. They both stood quite near to each other at the time d.i.c.kens was writing The Pickwick Papers, and were both so named and both famous. There could be no reason, therefore, for him to describe one and call it by the other's name.

Although they may not have been identical in all particulars as to structure, the "George" and the "White Hart" were sufficiently alike to make it possible for a person of imagination to go over the "George" and be satisfied that such and such a room might do for the one in which "Mr. Jingle forfeited all claims to the lady's hand," and imagine, too, that the galleries could be accepted easily as those over which "the landlord shouted instructions to Sam in the Yard." But these flights of fancy could be indulged in even n the New Inn, Gloucester, or any similar old coaching inn, if one so desired.

Mr. Percy FitzGerald, the greatest authority on The Pickwick Papers, is of the same opinion as ourselves on the point, and asks: "Why should notoriety be attached to the 'White Hart,' from which the 'George' was to be s.h.i.+elded?"

No, the "George" is a wonderfully alluring old inn, and for this reason d.i.c.kensians have a warm place in their hearts for it. But we have no hesitation in saying that it is not the original of the "White Hart" of Pickwick and Sam Weller fame.

Another distinguished writer, the American novelist and artist, F. Hopkinson Smith, in his book, d.i.c.kens's London, fell into a similar blunder. Indeed, his book contains some glaring mistakes, owing, no doubt, to the fact, which he admits, that he gathered his information from any Tom, d.i.c.k or Harry he came in contact with during his wanderings. In describing his visit to the "George," he found incidents from Pickwick to fit every nook and cranny in the building and quoted them with much conviction. But he quoted no facts, nor did he give any data to substantiate his statements.

Someone told him it was the original of the "White Hart," as they told him that the house named d.i.c.kens House in Lant Street was where d.i.c.kens once lived, irrespective of the fact that the actual house was demolished years before. Yet that satisfied him, he took no trouble to make further enquiries and then imagined the rest. In regard to the "George" he let his imagination run riot, dilated on this being Miss Wardle's room, this being the room where the couple were discovered, and further states that d.i.c.kens made the inn a favourite one of his when a boy in Lant Street, and speaks of the seat he used to sit in. All of which is sheer nonsense.

d.i.c.kens may have known the George Inn in those early days, but being only a mere boy is not likely to have frequented it. Although in later years--those of Little Dorrit and the Uncommercial Traveller--it is quite likely he may have visited it. Indeed, Miss Murray, the present hostess, tells us he did. Her authority was Abraham Dawson, a well-known carman and carrier in days gone by, who was a nephew of W. S. Scholefield who owned the inn at the time. Dawson a.s.sured her that he frequently chatted with d.i.c.kens in the coffee-room.

Yet the only occasion, so far as we are aware, that the novelist actually mentions the inn is in Little Dorrit, Book I, Chapter XXII, where Maggy, speaking of Tip, says: "If he goes into the 'George'

and writes a letter. . . ."

No, the George Inn is just a fine survival of old days--the old days of which d.i.c.kens wrote--and is similar, in many respects, to what the 'White Hart' used to be. As such d.i.c.kensians have a great affection for it, and there is no need to invent stories about it to justify their reverence.

Mr. A. St. John Adc.o.c.k is another writer who steers clear of the confusion. In The Booklover's London, after referring to the "White Hart," he goes on to say: "If you step aside up George Yard, which is next to the 'White Hart' yard, you may see the old George Inn which, with its low ceilings, ancient rafters and old wooden galleries outside, closely resembles what the 'White Hart' used to be, and gives us an idea of the inn yards in which the strolling players of Shakespeare's time used to set up their stages."

Let us leave it at that and retain our regard for the old inn for what it is, rather than for what it is not.