Walking in the Dead of Night: Dickens' Nocturnal London 

Who this event is for

Everyone. The event is free but there are limited numbers.

Location

The Picture Gallery, Founders Building, Royal Holloway, University of London Egham Campus. 

The Picture gallery is a stunning venue as well as an irreplaceable object of study in its own right it houses a world-famous collection of Victorian art. On the day Queen Victoria came to open the College she wrote in her diary that ‘Royal Holloway had fine specimens of modern art’.  Of particular note to this talk is Applicants for Admission to a Casual Ward, by Luke Fildes.  This grim scene shows people queuing outside a police station on a cold London night for a ticket to admit them to the casual ward of the workhouse. The original engraving was seen by John Everett Millais who brought it to the attention of Charles Dickens. Dickens was so impressed he immediately commisioned Fildes to illustrate The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

Topic 

Walking in the Dead of Night: Dickens Nocturnal London

About the speaker

PROFESSOR MATTHEW BEAUMONT

Matthew Beaumont studied English at LMH, Oxford, before doing an MSt and DPhil at Linacre College, Oxford. He was a Research Fellow at Keble College, Oxford, and a Teaching Fellow at Pembroke College, Oxford, before becoming a lecturer at UCL in 2005, and a Senior Lecturer in 2008. He became a Co-Director of UCL's Urban Lab, where he is responsible for the Cities Imaginaries strand, in 2013.