Dickensians! discussion

Here is the thread to discuss The Lamplighter by Charles Dickens. Reading and discussion will be between 1st and 14th August.

This read will be hosted by Sara.

Please allow Sara to comment first! Thank you.

Here is the schedule for the read. I have marked each day with the last sentence that will be the discussion stopping point. The first three days are background information and we will begin with the story itself on August 4th.

August 1 - About Lamplighters

August 2 - More background

August 3 - The Origins of the Story

August 4 - Story begins - hung himself on a lamp-iron in Saint Martin’s Lane, and there was an end of him.

August 5 - derived from this source that precisely as the clock struck five this afternoon a stranger would present himself–the destined husband of my young and lovely niece–in reality of illustrious and high descent, but whose birth would be enveloped in uncertainty and mystery.

August 6 - No posting.

August 7 - The old gentleman embraced him again, very tight; and without speaking another word, dragged him into the house in such an excited manner, that it was as much as Tom could do to take his link and ladder with him, and put them down in the passage.


August 8 - With these words, he kisses the young lady in a very affable way, turns to the old gentleman, slaps him on the back, and says, ‘When’s it to come off, my buck?’

August 9 - “Put the day and minute of your birth on this piece of paper, and leave the rest to me.”

August 10 - “The orb of day has set on Thomas Grig for ever!”

August 11 - “I’m not particular, I’ll take her, Sir. I’ll take her.”

August 12 - “Then take the consequences,” says the other.

August 13 - End of story

Before we get into the story itself, I thought it might be good to know exactly who the lamplighters were and what their position was in Victorian society.

The first street lamps were oil lamps, primarily using whale oil. Interiors were also lit with whale oil at this time, and the whale oil industry was a major occupation, and while the center of this industry was New England (whales, after being harpooned, were said to take boats on a Nantucket sleighride), the industry was also very significant in the United Kingdom. When the lamps were oil based, the lamplighters not only lit the lamps, but they replenished the whale oil and trimmed the wicks.

By the early 1800s most of the oil lamps had been replaced with gas lamps, and the lamplighters of our story would have been lighting gas lamps. Lamplighters had to be very careful handling the gas, as it could build up and, when set alight, explode and hopefully only blow the lighter off his ladder. So, like most jobs of this time, it was not a labor without a chance of peril.

For those who are familiar with London, Pall Mall was the first London street to be lit by gas-lit Victorian street lights. This added prestige to London, as it was more brilliantly lit than any other city in England, and perhaps the world.







Just before dusk, the lamplighters would set out carrying their ladders, and, making a circuit, light each lamp individually. They would have been well-recognized, as they dressed in a specific style of hat and coat and generally whistled or sang to alert people to their presence. Theirs would have been a welcomed presence, since the service they provided was of so much benefit to the community at large.

In addition to lighting the lamps, the lamplighters had to make the circuit a second time at dawn to extinguish them. Because their employment required them to be out all night, lamplighters also served as night watchmen. Primarily trustworthy and reliable men, they were held in high esteem by the community who depended on them to assure safety and security–a feeling reinforced, of course, by the presence of the lights themselves.

Lamplighters frequently had a tradition of passing the profession on to family members and marrying within other lamplighter families, so it was not unusual to have groups of lamplighters gathering and sharing experiences. This is an element we will see at the opening of our story.

In the modern day, we think of the lamplighter as a nostalgic, lonely fellow, haunting the night, but the image is wholly our own; he would have been a very respected, important member of his community, and probably not a lonely man at all.

If you are fortunate enough to live where you might still see some of the remaining streetlamps, you might observe that many still have a horizontal bar protruding from the top just below the actual lamp. This bar was for the lamplighter to rest his ladder against as he climbed up to light the gas lamp with his light.

The thread is now open for discussion of lamplighters and their jobs. Have you seen these lights? Have you thought about industries/jobs that are so important at one time and then disappear, and how that changes the times we live in? We take a lit world for granted, but imagine how it must have felt when the oil lamps were first installed and the pitch black of night was broken with light. Having just finished reading Oliver Twist with the group, I thought of how this both enabled and foiled the criminal class.

As our Jean would say, Over to you--

What a great introduction Sara! Thank you 😊

Judging by the muck and filth from horse dung, lighting would be badly needed. I read somewhere it could be ankle deep, and we can see the filth for ourselves from your photo of Pall Mall!

I was thinking of what working Londoners would have before lamplighters, and this is the answer for those lazing in bed after 4am ...



Victorian pea shooter alarm clocks! Again, this was a regular job for someone.

Lamplighters (and crossing sweepers too) have come into a couple of our group reads, but these posts by Petra are well worth reading to supplement Sara's, and do not contain spoilers for that group read. It describes the early days of street lighting.

Read posts 100 - 106 (about the lamplighter) LINK HERE.

The pea shooter makes me laugh. Strange alarm clock, but there was no being late for work back then--if you didn't show up on time you probably wouldn't have a job at all. Thanks for the pictures, Jean.

I had never heard of pea shooters! The woman in the left hand photo - she would scare anyone out of bed!!

I wonder if windows were occasionally broken by the pea shooters, or the people tapping on the windows with sticks! Great info and photos, Sara and Jean.

After I was here this morning, I got to wondering who paid these people. I imagine the government paid the lamplighters, of course, but would the government have paid the pea-shooters?

Sara wrote: "who paid these people?"

The customer, as in the contemporary rhyme:

"We had a knocker-up, and our knocker-up had a knocker-up
And our knocker-up’s knocker-up didn’t knock our knocker up, up
So our knocker-up didn’t knock us up ‘Cos he’s not up."

https://lancashireminingmuseum.org/20...

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles...

This is so fascinating to me, Jean. I'm sure it is an occupation that was never practiced in America. Although we had mill towns where people lived in very close quarters and all worked for the mill, I only ever heard that the shifts were called by the blasting of a horn as one shift got ready to leave and the next to come on. I don't think they minded if they woke the people who did not need to get up.

I love that this woman, Mary Smith, is so famous and so many pictures of her exist. And, the story from the man who discovered the body left by Jack the Ripper was almost chilling, but no doubt the policeman was right that he needed to do his knocking up first. We forget that forensic science was not practiced yet and so there was no need to secure the crime scene to protect evidence. Pretty grim for anyone else coming upon the scene though!

Yes!

What fascinating information, Sara and Jean. I am not a night owl so any job that requires me to be up all night or to have to get up at the wee hours to wake others up even for money! I don’t think this would be my calling! Ha!

The YouTube video of the man singing the Knocker Upper Man song was fun. He was performing it for an American audience and made a joke about not knowing why American audiences thought it a funny name! It has a completely different connotation here! One that would lead others to think he had quite a lot of children, perhaps! And the way Americans are, we would have named the job something different.

Oh my goodness I am being educated in the most surprising way today 😂

I have little to add on the subject, but want to thank, praise and encourage for work done and for what I expect will follow; So I'll just tell an anecdote instead.
I was a youngster when streetlights came to my country road years ago and I remember two distinct feelings upon walking that road at night afterwards. The first was how much more safe I felt in that light and would frequently run in short bursts from the halo of one light to the next and pause in the light catching breath before taking off for the next one. The second feeling was a bit more interesting. The sense of safety decreased and there was an increasing anxiety of vulnerability, an awareness that the things that go bump in the night could now see me too. As time passed, I no longer basked in the light but kept to the shadows.

Hopefully someone can connect that story into the origin of streetlighting.

The history of Knocker-Uppers is fascinating. I had never heard of them before!

What an interesting story, Sam. It is easy to picture you running from light to light, basking in the sensation of the new experience.

I had the same thought, that while the light would give a sense of security it would also make for more visibility for the criminal element. Nothing, I think, is more frightening, however, than being in the total dark and hearing the sound of something threatening that you cannot see. So, I suppose I would vote for the lights if given the choice.

Sara, Jean, thank you for all this information!

Sam, what an interesting experience :)

In 1885 Robert Louis Stevenson published his Child’s Garden of Verses. Among the poems included was this tribute to the lamplighter:

My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky;
It’s time to take the window to see Leerie going by;
For every night at teatime and before you take your seat,
With lantern and with ladder he comes posting up the street.


Now Tom would be a driver and Maria go to sea,
And my papa’s a banker and as rich as he can be;
But I, when I am stronger and can choose what I’m to do,
Oh Leerie, I’ll go round at night and light the lamps with you!


For we are very lucky, with a lamp before the door,
And Leerie stops to light it as he lights so many more;
And O! before you hurry by with ladder and with light,
O Leerie, see a little child and nod to him tonight!


I do not have a specific memory of this poem, but I do remember having a copy of the book in my home and reading from it as a child. I found these nostalgic poems lovely, and I can imagine most of the children of wealthier families had copies of the book and were reading it in the late 1800s.

H. V. Morton’s book, Ghosts of London tells us that the lamps were still being lit in 1939, which made me wonder if there are any still being lit today. So, I was off to find Victorian lamps in London. Seems there are approximately 1,500 gas lamps still being lit daily. The online pictures are proof that the lamps add a charm to the city and preserve a bit of the feeling Dickens would have had strolling these streets. One of my favorites was this one. The street lamp helps to preserve the overall feeling of another time.




I am going to close today with a musical tribute to the lamplighter. I wonder if any of you will remember it. In our home, we listened to and sang it when we were young. I give you The Browns’ The Old Lamplighter: https://youtu.be/8gW4TQ08YVU

How marvelous! For those wanting a British version, here is the The Original Houghton Weavers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2AEh...

Very neat, Sam. I was surprised the song was written in 1946 by an American. I would not have been surprised if it had been British in origin. I remember having my mother explain to me what it was about when I first heard it and did not know the history of lamplighting. It carries a lot of nostalgia for me.

I love those videos, Sam and Sara. The songs sound very familiar to me. I can't place a specific memory of them, but I think my grandmother would sing one of them occasionally (probably the version from America, since that's where I am).

I also love thinking about these forgotten occupations. Looking at the photos of Mary Smith puckering up with her pea shooter, makes me wonder if in another life she would have been a fabulous trumpet player because that's quite the embouchure she has.

All these discussions have also got me wondering how Victorians knew what time it was. How did the Lamplighters know when to start lighting and unlighting? Maybe they just went with the sun. That would make sense because it used to be that each city/village kept its own time, marked by it's church bells. At least until the train schedules motivated people to organize a standard time. I think that started happening around 1840s in England and the 1880s in America. But maybe I'm remembering that wrong.

I looked up when Greenwich Mean Time was established and near as I could figure out its around 1880.

I do think the sun would have been the determiner for the lamplighters, Bridget, but there would have been clocks in the towns by this period. Most larger towns would have had tower clocks and cuckoo clocks were also popular. We had a weighted clock that tolled the hour in our house, Daddy wound it regularly and it kept perfect time. It seems to me unlikely the lamplighters would have been in the right class to have owned a clock, however. I'm thinking that would have been limited to at least upper middle classes, if not just the wealthy.

Hard to imagine a time when time itself would not have been standard, but you are quite right. It wasn't really standardized to GMT until the trains began to run on schedules. Isn't history fascinating?

“The Knocker - upper Man” sung by Joe Stead has so much poetry and pathos! You could feel the nostalgia for times past. I’m sorry we Americans accidentally contrived a mix-up those words….language is a funny thing!

And sung with the British accent we love so much in America! (Think of how we worshipped the Beatles if you have any doubt of this)!

Also just hearing his folk song reminds me of the value of music in preserving in folk tunes heritage of the past!

The Origins of the Story:

The Lamplighter was a stage farce written by Charles Dickens in 1838. It was written specifically for his friend, the noted actor William Charles Macready, completed in November, and scheduled for a December performance. It was taken into rehearsals, but never publicly performed. Macready asked Dickens to withdraw it, and I was unable to find any information on why this happened. It was not a breach in the friendship, as Dickens and Macready remained close friends afterward.

In 1841, Dickens adapted the plot for his short piece, The Lamplighter’s Story, which he wrote for The Pic-Nic Papers, a three-volume fundraising publication produced to help the widow and children of his publisher John Macrone following his untimely death.


Charles Dickens and William Charles Macready.

In 1837, the actor William Charles Macready was introduced to Dickens by their mutual friend John Forster. They became close friends themselves and Dickens came to desire to support Macready’s work as a theater manager. He was encouraged to do so by Forster, and he soon conceived the idea of writing a comedy specifically for the Macready, who was then the manager of the Theatre Royal Covent Garden.


(Covent Garden Theatre in Regency London)


It took a year for Dickens to complete the project, which will not be surprising to those of us who have been following his career through either Jean’s informational posts or reading Forster himself. Dickens was nothing if not a busy man! In early December, 1838, the play was ready and was presented to Macready. For undisclosed reasons, the play Dickens wrote, The Lamplighter, was not well received by Macready, who requested Dickens to withdraw it from submission. (Dickens would later rewrite the work into The Lamplighter’s Story and include it in a charitable publication to benefit the widow of John Macrone).

Despite the rejection of his play, Charles Dickens continued to support Macready in his theater career including attending two speeches in honor of the actor in March and July 1839. He also wrote several good notices for Macready in the The Examiner, and as a journalist, he gave Macready (by then retired) two good mentions, in his Household Words, and in All the Year Round.

In October 1839, Dickens’ first one-volume publication of Nicholas Nickleby was prefaced with a dedication to Macready. Dickens was godfather for Macready’s son Henry, and in turn Macready was godfather to Dickens’s first daughter, Kate Macready Dickens, born on 29 October 1839. By the early 1840’s Macreday was no longer greatly involved in London theater production, but the two men remained close friends for life.

Charles Dickens and John Macrone.

John Macrone was Charles Dickens’ first publisher. He was well known and worked with many leading writers and illustrators of his day, but died at the age of just 28.

It was Macrone who suggested to Charles Dickens that he reprint his stories and sketches that had appeared in The Morning Chronicle and The Evening Chronicle in a volume form. Macrone offered Dickens £100 for the copyright of these stories, and his proposal was accepted. This provided a much needed extra income just before Dickens proposed marriage to Catherine Hogarth.

This publication was, of course, Sketches by Boz.


(First edition copy of Sketches by Boz)

The first edition of Sketches by Boz was published by John Macrone in two series. The first series was a two-volume set which was published in February 1836. This was just a month before the publication of the first parts of The Pickwick Papers (1836 – 37). The “Second Series” was published in August 1836.

In addition to the Sketches, Dickens had also drawn up an agreement with Macrone to write a three-volume novel, entitled Gabriel Vardon, the Locksmith of London. He was to have completed and delivered the manuscript by 30 November 1836 and to receive £200 for the copyright. However, Dickens was greatly over-extended and delivery became impossible.

Relations with Macrone were strained by this failure to deliver, and soured more when Dickens signed an agreement with a rival publisher, Richard Bentley, to write two novels for Bentley at a price of £500 for the copyright of each.

On 9th September 1837, at age of 28, John Macrone died unexpectedly of influenza. He left behind a wife and several children in comparatively destitute circumstances. Along with George Cruikshank, Hablot Knight Browne and Henry Colburn, Charles Dickens organized and published a charitable publication, titled The Pic-Nic Papers. The book, a three-volume anthology composed of miscellaneous pieces by various authors, helped raise £450 for Macrone’s widow and children.

For this publication, Dickens rewrote the play he had imagined for William Charles Macready, morphing it into a short story. This prose form was included as the lead story in the anthology, and was titled, The Lamplighter’s Story.

It is this story that we will read and discuss here. A rollicking comedy, it retains the flavor of its origins, having a very theatrical feel and pacing.

Thanks for these excellent posts Sara! They really enrich our read 😊

I've always been pleased that it is Nicholas Nickleby that was dedicated to William Charles Macready, as it's the most appropriate one, and contains an important section about a theatrical troupe. I'm glad Charles Dickens didn't wait until later to dedicate one to his friend!

I'm not sure either why William Charles Macready didn't like The Lamplighter: (although it may be in John Forster's bio.) Perhaps it will become clearer once we have read it.

Sam told us about a famous riot William Charles Macready was involved in in the USA in 1849 "The Astor Place Riot" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astor_P... mainly because of a dispute between William Charles Macready , who had the reputation as the greatest Shakespearean actor of his generation, and Edwin Forrest, the first real American theatrical star.

Sam and Jean, thanks so much for the "Astor Place Riot" information. It is hard to fathom anything more terrible, or any sillier, than this describes.

I do hope we come across an explanation for why this story was rejected, because it seemed to me so ideal for a stage production.

I also thought it showed what a genuinely good man Dickens was that he organized the efforts to raise money for Macrone's family, despite the fact that he had parted ways with him earlier under a cloud.

Thanks for all this wonderful background information, Sara. Its sad that Macrone died so young, but as you said, so kind of Dickens to help his family.

I appreciate the pictures you included too. Especially the one of the (I assume) first edition of "Sketches by Boz". How wonderful that images like that (and probably the edition itself) still exist.

I'm always in awe of how many projects Dickens juggled at once. When he was writing the Lamplighter Play in November 1938, wasn't he also frantically finishing Oliver Twist and fighting with the Bently Publishers? I get tired just thinking about how much work that is.

Can you imagine squeezing this story into that busy schedule, so that you could live up to a promise you had made to a friend, and then having it rejected at the last moment?

Thank you for mentioning that the caption is not under the picture. I will correct that. It is a first edition.

As to why the play was not staged...
My The Oxford Companion to Charles Dickens is sceptical about Dickens as playwright, saying that 'his plays are far inferior to his fiction and journalism'; it states that after the initial success of 'the Strange Gentleman' in 1836, Dickens's next play, 'The Village Coquettes', 'was poorly received, and the play closed after sixteen performances'. 'He wrote two more farces, 'Is She His Wife?', staged for a few nights at the St James's Theatre in January and February 1837, and 'The Lamplighter', which he hoped Macready would produce at Covent Garden. [...] These were to be his final solo attempts at playwriting.' This passage makes it look like Macready withdrew the play possibly because Dickens's other plays were not successful.
The author of this entry - Paul Schlicke, general editor of the book - concludes:

'None of these plays holds much intrinsic interest. It is a paradox that the most theatrical of novelists could not write a good play, but it seems apparent that he needed the greater canvas of the printed page and above all the controlling authority of a narrative voice, to breathe life into stock melodramatic plots and type figures.'

(I hope this contribution is not inappropriate; if it is, message me and I'll quickly delete it).

But what we're reading is the reworked short story, not the original play, - so all should be well on the printed page :)

Once again, Sara, Jean, thank you for the additional information. You're really educating us here :)

Plateresca wrote: "This passage makes it look like Macready withdrew the play possibly because Dickens's other plays were not successful. ..."

Wow - yes! It sounds as if it could have been that ... I'm off to find my book to read the entry. Thanks Plateresca.

As Sara said, imagine Charles Dickens forcing himself to write this even when overloaded with work, because he had promised for a friend. I admire his committment - and can imagine what he felt like when his friend rejected it 😥

Thank you so much, Plateresca. I think it marvelously appropriate. I gave up the search after a few hours of trying to find some hint of why it would have been rejected after it was in rehearsals, and finally gave up. I'm absolutely delighted that someone addressed it and the explanation feels exactly right to me.

I selfishly admit that I am happy Dickens was not a huge success in the theater. Think of all the novels we might not have if he had been working on plays!

This is a richly humorous story, full of Dickens’ sly wit and also an almost slapstick comedy element. I imagined it as it would have played out on stage, and thought that, even as a short-story, it has a very theatrical component.

Summary: We are invited into the presence of a group of lamplighters in mid-conversation. The first lamplighter, who is the “chief of the tribe”, introduces the subject of Tom Grig, a fellow lamplighter, in the context of having a great deal to do with the stars.

The lamplighters, themselves, are a close knit group, referred to as a strange and primitive people. According to our narrator, they follow tradition, intermarry, are trustworthy and loyal, and adhere to the laws of the land. They are if not as old as the hills, at least as old as the streets. And, he credits them with the beginning of “true civilization” and says theyhold that the history of Prometheus himself is but a pleasant fable, whereof the true hero is a lamplighter.

The “chairman” is asked to recount who Tom Grig was and this sparks him to tell Grig’s story. Grig was a lamplighter himself, and the chairman reveals that Grig did what few lamplighters do and had his astrological chart cast. Grig came from a family of lamplighters, and the tale digresses into an aside on the deprivation of women by not being allowed into this trade, but required to keep the homes, mind the children, and comfort the husbands. It’s a hard thing upon the women, gentlemen, that they are limited to such a sphere of action as this; very hard.

From here, the chairman slides into a side tale of Tom Grig’s uncle, another lamplight, of course. Gas, it seems, was “the death of him.” The uncle doubted the possibility of gas lights and scoffed at them, but when they “lighted up Pall Mall,” he went to see the event. He fell off his ladder fourteen times and was finally taken home in a wheelbarrow, lamenting the loss of the profession, as he foresaw no need for the skills of oil lamplighters as “any low fellow” could light a gas lamp.

He petitioned the government for compensation and was denied, then slowly lost his faculties over what he saw as a plot to destroy the country by losing the whaling and oil lamp industries. At last, he hung himself on a lamp-iron in Saint Martin’s Lane, and there was an end of him.

Patrick Murphy - Towards the close of 1837 Patrick Murphy announced that January 20th would be the coldest day of the coming year. The day duly arrived and bitter cold confirmed the prediction. Booksellers were besieged by hordes of people demanding copies of Murphy’s Weather Almanac, which contained predictions for the whole year based on planetary and lunar influences. Murphy made his name as a weather prophet and a small fortune too, but he didn’t escape criticism. In fact, he was widely caricatured and ridiculed. Below is a caricature by Tregear that became popular in 1839.




Francis Moore (29 January 1657 – 1715) was an English physician and astrologer who wrote and published what later became Old Moore's Almanack.

He was born into poverty in Bridgnorth, reputedly in one of the cave dwellings in the vicinity of St Mary's Steps. Moore was self-educated, learning to read by himself, and became a physician and astrologer. He served at the court of Charles II of England.
The almanac that bears his name was first published in 1697, originally giving weather and astrological predictions, and is still published annually. (Wikipedia)

Unlike Murphy, Moore was a renowned astrologer and taken very seriously by the entire populace.

The Hanged Uncle - Tom Grig’s uncle hangs himself in Saint Martin’s Lane.

St Martin's Lane is a street in the City of Westminster, which runs from the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, after which it is named, near Trafalgar Square northwards to Long Acre. At its northern end, it becomes Monmouth Street. St Martin's Lane and Monmouth Street together form the B404. (Wikipedia)

In looking at the map of this area, I discovered it is right in the middle of the theater district…in the same area in which Macready’s Theatre Royal Covent Garden would have been located.

Sara wrote: "I selfishly admit that I am happy Dickens was not a huge success in the theater. Think of all the novels we might not have if he had been working on plays!"
Or, even worse, if he aced that audition and became an actor, right? :)

'It’s a hard thing upon the women, gentlemen, that they are limited to such a sphere of action as this; very hard.'
I also noticed this quote. So recognisably Dickensian, so true!

We see now how pertinent your info was, Sara! And thank you for your new notes.

As often happens in Dickens, comedy is mixed with tragedy (or vice versa).

Thank you, Plateresca. Oh Lord yes, thank goodness some of his dreams were denied. I think God had a very specific purpose in mind for him, and we are the beneficiaries of it.

I am often struck how pertinent everything in Dickens is to society today. Circumstances change; often people do not.

Thanks Sara and all for the extra information. I really needed the info on Murphy & Moore. I would have had no clue about who and why they were referring to these people.

I also found the quote you highlighted about a woman's lot in life, so Dickens to care about women and their place in the world. Such a progressive thinker on so many of the social injustices of the times.

a turn of phrase that caught my eye, was when characterizing Tom or his uncle (boy I am so forgetful now) as an ornament to us What a lovely way to use that word about a person. I wonder if he just meant a "light", or a special person who stood out, like "sparkling"?

The comments attributed to Tom's uncle about the whales killing themselves because they were no longer hunted was a hoot!

BTW, in Jun I was in Vancouver, British Columbia for the first time and wandered through the "gaslight district". The lamps are still there but I was there in the day and have no idea if they are all electric or not, but they were quite lovely and Victorian looking in style.

I also hooted at the whale comment, Chris. Dickens had a very witty, sophisticated sense of humor. All his contemporaries would have gotten the joke on Murphy/Moore, but I also would have missed it entirely without the research.

I have been where the lights were preserved, but updated to electricity. I have never seen one lit with gas. I'm imagining the kind of light would be different, the way the light from my Grandma's kerosene lamp was soft and smokey. I'm happy they have been preserved for us to see!

I liked the entire paragraph about characteristics of lamplighters, as though they were a separate species of humanity, (like hobbits)! The statement that they "intermarry" was hilarious to me; and that such poverty-stricken individuals would "betroth their children in infancy" must have been a tongue-in-cheek reference to the fact that these were very impoverished people indeed! Only royalty would plan their infants' marriages, right?

Why mention "a lamplighter's funeral" at the beginning where the tone of the story is so cheery?

What about their "volatile and restless character"? Isn't this a description of a gas flame itself? So they are personifying the flames as the lamplighter himself?

Frankly, I don't understand the sudden switch from humor to talk of dying, of the end of their "profession"; of never being any use whatsoever to society, and destructive and ruinous discussion till someone explained Tom's uncle hung himself!

Nice catch, Lee, regarding the "royalty" of pledging your infant at birth. Thank you for the interesting observations. I think many people experience the loss of their job as the loss of their identity.

We pick up the story of Tom Grig following the unfortunate death of his uncle. Grig loved his uncle, but he performs the proper burial rites, gets drunk, makes a speech, gets a fine, and moves on. He finds himself on a “new beat”, lighting lamps in a “quiet part of town, where there were some queer old houses.”

Here is our first description of Tom, and Dickens paints an absolute visual picture: Wherever it was, he went upon it, with a bran-new ladder, a white hat, a brown holland jacket and trousers, a blue neck-kerchief, and a spring of full-blown double wall-flower in his button hole. Tom was always genteel in his appearance, and I have heard from the best judges, that if he had left his ladder at home that afternoon, you might have took him for a lord.

Lighting his first lamp, and singing as he goes, Tom is suddenly surprised by an old gentleman with a telescope, who throws open his window and stares. Tom thinks there is a possibility that the old man might offer him a drink, so he continues to carefully, and slowly, trim the wick of the lamp and give off an air of unconcern. The old man is untidy and disheveled and Tom instinctively knows that he is a man of science. He often told me that if he could have conceived the possibility of the whole Royal Society being boiled down into one man, he should have said the old gentleman’s body was that Body.

The old man looks around, sees no one but Tom, and proclaims that he has read in the stars what is going to happen. In fact, he has derived from this source that precisely as the clock struck five this afternoon a stranger would present himself–the destined husband of my young and lovely niece–in reality of illustrious and high descent, but whose birth would be enveloped in uncertainty and mystery.

For the old gentleman, Tom, of course, is that man.

The Royal Society

The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfills a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, recognizing excellence in science, supporting outstanding science, providing scientific advice for policy, education and public engagement and fostering international and global cooperation. Founded on 28 November 1660, it was granted a royal charter by King Charles II as The Royal Society and is the oldest continuously existing scientific academy in the world.

I read several articles that stated that Charles Dickens was “suspicious” or “leery” of science, and he does appear to be lampooning scientists in this piece, however, I believe he was respectful of real science and well-aware of charlatan science. I think this is why he includes both Murphy, who had no scientific credentials but was accepted as a man of science, and Moore, who was obviously a true scientist. This same juxtaposition exists between the old gentleman of the story and The Royal Society, to which he is facetiously compared.

I will not have access to a computer tomorrow, so we will continue on Monday. Have a nice weekend!

I see now why at the beginning of the story Dickens has the group discuss Murphy and Moore with the appearance of the old gentleman who studies the stars.

Lighting his first lamp, and singing as he goes, Tom is suddenly surprised by an old gentleman with a telescope, who throws open his window and stares.

When I read this sentence (well actually much of the section) My mind flew to the latest Mary Poppins movie and how Lin-Manual Miranda portrayed a lamplighter. His attention to his appearance, his singing while working and then his interaction with the Naval officer on the roof balcony who watches the time and heavens ( to decide when to fire his cannon, oh my!).

I am really enjoying this lovely story and all of the extra info, Sara. Weather almanacs have always been popular ways to predict coming patterns that will be beneficial for farmers such as the Farmers Almanac here in the US which started publication in 1818 and is still done today. It’s interesting to think how far back in history these predictors of weather patterns began. I think maybe Aristotle is credited with meteorology so it’s as old as time it seems! The Murphy sketch is too funny! Is he supposed to be a potato? It doesn’t seem as though he was taken seriously.

Dickens has truly given us a vibe of importance when it comes to lamplighters. His descriptions are reminiscent of a select chosen few (in the lamplighter’s eyes for sure) so the quip about inter marriage as Lee has already brought up, is great fun.
And I got a chuckle out of the phrase “wet your whistle”. You know they are in for a treat of a story when that phrase is used.

Chris wrote: "I see now why at the beginning of the story Dickens has the group discuss Murphy and Moore with the appearance of the old gentleman who studies the stars.

Lighting his first lamp, and singing as..."

I thought of the pick-up lines of the 1970's..."what sign are you?"...the Age of Aquarius.

I have not had a desire to see the Mary Poppins, but the lamplighter sounds interesting.

Lori wrote: "I am really enjoying this lovely story and all of the extra info, Sara. Weather almanacs have always been popular ways to predict coming patterns that will be beneficial for farmers such as the Far..."

My grandfather swore by the Farmer's Almanac. Murphy is, indeed, a potato.

I've been out of town and am just now catching up. I've only read for August 1, but I am enjoying it tremendously!

August 1 - 3:

Who would have thought there was so much to know about lamplighters?! Sara, thank you for all of the information you provided about the lost profession of lamplighting! That was so illuminating! LOL. Right off the bat, your post on lamplighting (message 3) caught my eye as you discussed the fact that the first oil used was whale oil. Having just finished Moby-Dick or, the Whale, I couldn’t help but wonder how many sperm whales and how many long voyages it took to illuminate a city like London. Thank goodness, oil lamps were quickly replaced with gas lamps.

Jean, what a fascinating side note on the profession of pea shooters! Oh my goodness, for every need, a new profession crops up. I loved reading Petra’s earlier post on Knocker Uppers! As another American, I was also amused at the term. As Lori and Lee pointed out, that has a totally different connotation here in the States. Apparently, Mary Smith made quite a living (and quite a figure) at pea shooting.

Something Bridget said (message 22), “All these discussions have also got me wondering how Victorians knew what time it was.” I can see how the lamplighters would have gone by the sun, but how did pea shooters like Mary know when 4:00 or 5:15 am was? This discussion leads me to believe that there were as yet no alarm clocks in England (?), so these pea shooters had watches but not alarm clocks? And I wondered why this profession would have still been needed into the 1970s.

Sara, I love Robert Louis Stevenson’s lamplighter poem you shared. It reminded me how much I love his poetry. And also, thank you for sharing The Old Lamplighter song by The Browns. The lead singer had such a smooth voice! Again, I wondered how did someone from America come to write this song, as I’m sure that profession wasn’t practiced here in the U.S.

August 4:

Once again, Sara, thank you for all the background information. I had just skipped over "Murphy" and "Francis Moore's" names, thinking they were two lamplighters that would be discussed later. I also missed the astrological references of "to do with stars" and Tom Grig's having "his nativity cast" as referencing having his astrological chart cast. These things went right over my head, so I really appreciate the explanations!

I also love Dickens once again recognizing the value of women in society - the man was way ahead of his time! I wonder how much of this was due to the many hours he spent walking the streets of London and seeing people where they lived. He definitely was a man of the people.

Chris, I also laughed at the whales committing suicide. And Lee, I loved every observation you made. You caught so many subtleties! One of my favorite quotes was when Tom's Uncle tried to claim government compensation when his job was being phased out, and the chairman described the compensation as "...that which they give to people when it's found out, at last, that they've never been of any use, and have been paid too much for doing nothing."

Shirley (stampartiste) wrote: "Again, I wondered how did someone from America come to write this song, as I’m sure that profession wasn’t practiced here in the U.S."

Oh, no, Shirley. The profession would definitely have been practiced in the cities in New England. New England was the real center of the whale oil trade and cities like Boston definitely had oil streetlamps. But, the number of lamps and cities would have been larger in Europe, and London and Paris particularly were well-lit.

I found this article particularly interesting, and I think you would as well, having just read Moby-Dick or, the Whale. Most of it was not pertinent to Dickens, so I did not cite it in my information:

https://issuu.com/nantuckethistorical...

Thank you so much for adding to the discussion!