"Literary Links" - Dickens and Fagin

"Literary Links" is a series of posts celebrating Britain's wonderful links with great authors, dramatists and poets.

Charles Dickens

The current Southwark Bridge was opened in 1921 and replaced a Georgian bridge from 1819.  When Charles Dickens was still a boy he regularly crossed this first bridge on his way to visit his father in Marshalsea Prison – a debtor’s prison located half a mile south of this point.  Young Charles was put to work in a blacking factory near to where Charing Cross station is.  One day a work colleague started walking home with him.  Dickens recalled:

“I was too proud to let him know about the prison; and after making several efforts to get rid of him, to all of which Bob Fagin in his goodness was deaf, shook hands with him on the steps of a house near Southwark Bridge on the Surrey side, making believe that I lived there.  As a finishing piece of reality in case of his looking back, I knocked at the door, I recollect, and asked, when the woman opened it, if that was Mr Robert Fagin’s house.”

His colleague is forever immortalised as the lovable rogue of Fagin in Oliver Twist.

This is an excerpt from the tour London River Walks - South Bank which explores the southern bank of the River Thames.  The full tour is found on  www.obelisktours.co.uk

London Bridges

London, Southwark & Blackfriars Bridges
by W.H.Barlett & E.I.Roberts
From a steel engraving

This image is taken from a steel engraving of 1842.   London is shown in its Victorian glory where the only interruption to the skyline are churches and their steeples.  St. Paul's stands majestically above the whole city, and to the far right stands the monument to the Great Fire of London, both of which once offered visitors unbroken views across the city.  The nearest bridge is  London Bridge, followed by Southwark Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge in the distance.

All three of these bridges have now been replaced.

London Bridge is 'the' bridge of London.  There has been a crossing here since the Romans built a wooden structure to cross the river around AD 50.  The bridge depicted was opened in 1831, but due to subsidence had to be replaced in 1973.  The bridge illustrated in this engraving was purchased by Robert P. McCulloch who transported it to Arizona, USA for a new lease of life as the centre piece of a housing project and Tudor styled shopping mall.

The Southwark Bridge shown was built in 1819.  Its cast iron structure earned it the nickname of the 'Iron Bridge' and boasted the largest cast iron span in existense.   It was replaced by the current Southwark Bridge in 1913.

The nine arches of Blackfriars Bridge were built in 1769 out of Portland Stone.  It was originally named the William Pitt Bridge, but became commonly known after the Blackfriars area it connected to on the London side of the river.  A century later (1869) the current bridge replaced the one shown in this image.

The original image is labelled: "London, Southwark & Blackfriars Bridges From the Surrey Side of the River."
By W. H. Barlett & E.I.Roberts

These bridges and the southbank area are covered in greater detail in our tour of the Southbank on www.obelisktours.com  

Southbank Tour:  "This Thames Path River Walk follows the South Bank of the River from Westminster Bridge to London Bridge with great views of Parliament, the City, St Paul’s, and the Globe.  We explore some lesser known sites such as Jubilee Gardens, the Clink, and the blackness of ‘Ladies’ Bridge.    We look out to the River to learn how Londoners reacted to a frozen Thames, and learn of the Golden Hinde, Winchester Geese and Oxo. "