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david Jarman Dickens and <strong>Lewes</strong> If you google ‘Dickens and <strong>Lewes</strong>’, you will draw a <strong>co</strong>mplete blank. But although I am loath to undermine anyone’s touching faith in the omniscience of search engines, there are a <strong>co</strong>uple of <strong>co</strong>nnections, albeit fairly tenuous ones. Charles Dickens married Catherine Hogarth on 2nd April, 1836 at St L<strong>uk</strong>e’s in Chelsea. His initial choice of best man was John Macrone, the publisher of Sketches by Boz. But wiser <strong>co</strong>unsels prevailed and Dickens was obliged to write to Macrone,‘The unanimous voice of the ladies, <strong>co</strong>nfirms the authority of Mrs Macrone. They say, with her, that I must be attended to the place of execution, by a single man: I have therefore engaged a substitute.’ The ‘substitute’ was Thomas Beard. He and Macrone were the only wedding guests not related to the happy <strong>co</strong>uple in what, as Beard later recalled, was ‘altogether a very quiet piece of business’. Thomas Beard (1807-91) came of an old Sussex family, who for some generations had been brewers. His father, Nathaniel (1776-1855) was born at Rottingdean, where he inherited <strong>co</strong>nsiderable property. In 1806 he married Catherine Charlotte, daughter of Sir Thomas Carr, of Cobb Place, Beddingham, sometime High Sheriff of Sussex. When Nathaniel moved his family, circa 1832, to London, Thomas became a journalist on the Morning Herald. It was while he was there that he first met Dickens. They subsequently worked together on the Morning Chronicle. Beard became a lifelong friend. The letters of Dickens are full of dinner invitations to Beard and entreaties to join him on long walks in the Gadshill area. Always a wel<strong>co</strong>me house guest, Beard joined the Dickens family, in villeggiatura, in Broadstairs, Bonchurch, Boulogne and elsewhere. While not following his father into brewing, it would seem that Thomas was something of a bon vivant. Dickens often entices him to dinner with the prospect of a tasty haunch of venison or an assurance that the ‘best wine on the premises is to be <strong>www</strong>.viva<strong>Lewes</strong>.CoM CoLuMn broached on the occasion’. There’s a long-standing joke in the letters referring to Beard’s fondness for ‘curaçao and biscuits’. Only one of the four Beard brothers, William (1812- 1905), went into the family business at the Star Lane Brewery, later be<strong>co</strong>ming a partner in Windus, Beard and Co, wine and spirit merchants trading from Steward’s Inn Lane. I take him to be the W. Beard listed as resident of 16, High Street, Southover until the 1906 Kelly’s Directory. Another of the brothers, Francis Carr Beard (1814- 93), became a doctor. In a letter dated 14th February, 1859, Dickens writes to appoint him as his personal physician. Thereafter letters to Thomas are progressively outnumbered by those to Francis on medical matters. Alas, I can find no evidence that Dickens ever came to <strong>Lewes</strong> himself. The best I can offer is a letter from Dickens to Thomas Beard in July, 1843 that was forwarded to <strong>Lewes</strong> where Thomas was staying. And on 14th October, 1867 he writes to his doctor, ‘My dear Frank Beard, I have your letter from <strong>Lewes</strong>...’ None of this, I readily <strong>co</strong>ncede, warrants an immediate, revised edition of Colin Brent’s exemplary guidebook to <strong>Lewes</strong>. (to be <strong>co</strong>ntinued) 95
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