Part II
DICKENS AND THE GEORGE INN
"There are in London several old inns, once the headquarters of celebrated coaches in the days when coaches performed their journeys in a graver and more solemn manner than they do to-day; but which have degenerated into little more than the abiding and booking places of country wagons. In the Borough especially there still remain some half-dozen old inns which have preserved their external features unchanged. Great rambling queer old places they are, with galleries and passages and staircases, wide enough and antiquated enough to furnish materials for a hundred ghost stories."—Charles Dickens in The Pickwick Papers.
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, is no exception in this respect, and the legend that is prone to cling to it is that it was the original of the "White Hart" inn of Pickwick fame; the contention being that Dickens, 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.
It is surprising that so good a Dickensian 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 entitled "Dickens in Southwark," in The English Illustrated Magazine from which we have quoted in our previous chapter, 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 Dickens 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 fashion, 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.
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 Dickensians, we feel sure, will endorse them.
Mr. Ashby Sterry's argument regarding the "Bull" and the "Blue Boar" at Rochester proves nothing. Dickens 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
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The only case in which Dickens 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 Dickens 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 in 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 shielded?"
No, the "George" is a wonderfully alluring old inn, and for this reason Dickensians 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, from whose book, Dickens's London We have also previously quoted, 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, Dick 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 Dickens House in Lant Street was where Dickens 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 Dickens 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.
Dickens 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 assured her that he frequently chatted with Dickens 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., Chap. XXII, where Maggy, speaking of Tip, says: " If he goes into the " George " and writes a letter …"
As The Dickensian for February, 1915, in reviewing Mr. Hopkinson Smith's book stated: "The 'George' Inn is just a fine survival of old days—the old days of which Dickens wrote—and is similar, in many respects, to what the 'White Hart' used to be. As such Dickensians have a great affection for it; there is no need to invent stories about it to justify their reverence."
Mr. A. St. John Adcock 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.