"Dickens's Famous Old Red Lion Inn is Going" — "New York Journal" 16 April 1899

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The Red Lion Inn

New York Journal, 16 April 1899

Composite woodblock engraving

14.3 cm (5¾ in.) high by 10.5 cm (4½ in.) wide, framed

Illustration for article, "Dickens's Famous Old Red Lion Inn is Going"

Picture caption: "'David Copperfield' Inn to Be Torn Down. The corner public house in Parliament street, London, made famous by Dickens in 'David Copperfield,' is being torn down. The Red Lion, from which it derived its mame, is gone, and soon the historic structure will be no more."

See below for transcription of accompanying article.

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Painted Forest King Disappears from the Structure in Parliament Street. NOVELIST DRANK THERE. As a Little Fellow He Called for the Best Ale and Was Kissed by the Landlord's Wife. (Special Correspondence New York Journal and Advertiser.)

London, April 4. — The rampant red lion in Parliament street, which marked the public house of that name, at the corner of Derby street, ramps there no longer. The lion is gone, and the famous house itself is going, and with them gone another of the visible links which connected the new London of to-day with the London of Charles Dickens. It was a memorable Dickens locality, that corner public house of Ye Old Red Lion, for it was there that Dickens himself, when a lad, called for a glass of "the very best ale, with a head to it." He transferred the experiences connected with that incident to David Copperfield, and to all lovers of Dickens that house, now being destroyed, had, therefore, a double interest.

It is told in Forster's Life of Dickens how all attempts to avoid going through bankruptcy court having failed, it became necessary for the elder Dickens to obtain the benefit of the Insolvent Debtors' Act. Little Charles — he was at that time a little lad — had his part to play in the ceremonies which had to be undertaken; he had to appear before the official appraiser so that his clothes might be seen, one condition of the statute being that the wearing apparel and personal matters retained by the debtor and his family were not to exceed $100 in value. "And so," said Charles Dickens himself later in life, speaking of the incident, "I had a half holiday to enable me to call upon him. I recollect his coming out to look at me, with his mouth full and a strong smell of beer upon him, and saying good naturedly first "That would do" and "It was all right." Certainly the hardest creditor would not have been disposed, even if he had been legally entitled, to avail himself of my poor white hat, little jacket or corduroy trousers.

All formalities being complete, the elder Dickens went into the Marshalsea — the debtors' prism, to which so much of the story of Little Dorrit is laid, and which still stands (the very rooms occupied by Mr. Dickens can still be identified) — and the little Charles led that strange, lonely life which rouses such intense pity as we read it in David Copperfield and in Forster's Life — for, as is well known, David Copperfield was in many respects an actual transcript of Dickens's own bitter youthful experiences. He had no companions of his own age. He strolled about, neglected and alone in the back streets of the Adelphi or explored its dark arches. It was at this time that the incident at the Red Lion occurred which he made use of in David Copperfield.

Dickens's own account of the incident, in his own words, is thus given in the second chapter of "Forster's Life": "I was such a litle fellow, with my poor white hat, little jacket, and corduroy trousers, that frequently when I went into the bar of a strange public house for a glass of ale or porter to wash down the saveloy and the loaf I had eaten in the street they didn't like to give it me. I remember one evening (I had been somewhere for my father and was going back to the borough over Westminster Bridge) that I went into a public house in Parliament street, which is still there though altered, at the corner of the short street [Derby Gate] leading into Cannon row, and asked the landlord behind the bar, 'What is your best — the very best — ale a glass?' For the occasion was a festive one for some reason — I forget why. It may have been my birthday or somebody else's. 'Twopence,' says he. 'Then,' says I, 'just draw me a glass of that, if you please, with a good head to it.'"

A Motherly Kiss.

"The landlord looked at me in return over the bar from head to foot with a strange smile on his face, and, instead of drawing the beer, looked round he screen and said something to his wife, who came out from behind it, with her work in her hand, and joined him in surveying me. Here we stand, all three, before me now, in my study in Devonshire Terrace. The landlord in his shirt sleeves against the bar window frame: his wife looking over the little half door, and I, in some confusion, looking up at them from outside the partition. They asked me a good many questions, as what my name was, how old I was, where I lived, how I was employed, etc., etc. To all of which, that I might commit nobody, I invented appropriate answers. They served me with the ale, though I suspect it was not the strongest on the premises, and the landlord's wife, opening the little half door, and bending gave me a kiss that was half admiring and half compassionate, but all womanly and good, I am sure."

Related Material

The Red Lion Pub today, after having been rebuilt (the Dickens connection has not been forgotten)

Bibliography

"Dickens's Famous Old Red Lion Inn is Going." The New York Journal and Advertiser. New York: 16 April 1899: 43.

(Source of second illustration) Dickens, Charles. David Copperfield. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz'). The Centenary Edition. London and New York: Chapman & Hall, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1911.

Created 20 October 2019