Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/169

 12 8. IV. JUNE, 1918.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

163

town or village not given), and named from the unnamed village where he was left as an infant.

Notwithstanding this confusion and the absence of authority, the late Mr. F. G. Kitton, who was a prolific writer on Charles Dickens, adopted P.'s story in the article quoted by W. B. H. (ante, p. 51), and reproduced it practically verbatim in Temple Bar thirteen months later, confusion in- cluded, without saying that his authority was merely the ipse dixit of an anonymous correspondent of ' N. & Q.'

Neither P. nor Mr. Kitton appears to have made any inquiries about the Pickwick family of Bath or about the Corsham workhouse. I have ascertained from the Vicar that there is no workhouse there.

Following a certain case tried March 2, 1388 (see 7 S. v. 285), in which Mr. Henry F. Dickens for the defendant had to call as a witness a Mr. John Pickwick, " a Birming- ham correspondent in the newspapers " was quoted (7 S. v. 455) as alleging that Pickwick, the Bath coach proprietor of Dickens's day,

" was picked up by a lady, as a child abandoned by its mother, in a suburb of Bath Bathwick, then commonly called ' Wick.' Hence the lady, who adopted the child and gave him a good education, called him Moses Pickwick. He made good use of his education in after life, and became a most successful man, for some time supplying all the horses for the coaches between Bath and London."

This time the workhouse vanishes, and Bathwick or Wick accounts for Pickwick.

The REV. W. R. HOPPEB, the writer of the reply, adds :

" The Bath newspapers, however, alleged that the particulars of this story were not altogether correct ; tnat it was the father of Mr. Dickens's Pickwick who was picked up in his infancy as a deserted baby, but that the circumstance occurred in a village of the name of Pickwick, near Corsham, in Somersetshire. Hence he received the name of Moses Pickwick, which he transmitted to his son, the successful coach proprietor of Dickens's day."

The late Mr. J. F. Meehan in his ' A Few of the Famous Inns of Bath and District,' 1913, gives a revised version of the legend <P- 31):-

" At that time [i.e., Mr. Pickwick's visit to Bath] a Mr. Moses Pickwick was an occupant of the White Hart at Bath. His grandfather, Eleazar Pickwick, was a foundling. Towards the latter end of the eighteenth century a lady (so runs the legend) was driving through Wick, near Bath, and saw a bundle under the hedge, and looking closer into it she discovered an infant. She was so kind-hearted as to take the child home, and in due time she had him christened ' Pick-

wick,' as being picked up at Wick. He was well educated by her, and, having a taste for coaching, was taken into the service of the coaching hotel, the White Hart, devoted himself to the horse and coaching business, and at the time of ' Boz's ' or ' Mr. Pickwick's ' visit his grandson, Moses, was the actual proprietor of the coaches on the road."

Why the lady had the foundling "christened" " Pickwick," not Eleazar or Moses, is not explained.

Mr. C. G. Harper in his ' Bath Road ' (quoted ante, p. 52) takes the foundling another generation back, i.e., to the great- grandfather of Moses.

The editor of The Dickensian, vol. xii. p. 171 (July, 1916), gives " the foundling " as an ancestor of Moses.

Unless some version of the foundling legend of earlier date is forthcoming, one may suspect that it was started on its erratic career by P., contributor to ' N. & Q.' in April, 1887.

Why should it be necessary to have any legend at all about the name of Pickwick in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries ?

There was a William de Pikewike, co. Wilts, in 1273 ; see ' A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames,' by the late Charles Wareing Bardsley, 1901.

There was a Charles Pikwik who was married to Maria Potter in 1647 ; see ibid. and ' N. & Q.,' 7 S. iii. 112. Also, according to a note at 10 S. iii. 447, there was a William Pykewyke in a list of jurors of Haytor in 1281-2.

Pickwick (Wilts) is not a creation of the eighteenth or nineteenth century ; e.g., it appears " with the seat of one gentleman " in J. Adams's ' Index Villaris,' 1680.

The Pickwick family or families were probably established in Bath at least as early as the first half of the eighteenth century. One Ann Pickwick was married to Richard Fisher in 1766, and a Moses Pickwick was a witness of the marriage of Eleazar Pickwick and Susanna Combs in 1775 ; see the Register of St. Michael's, Bath, and ' N. & Q.,' 10 S. xi. 7.

If Ann Pickwick was about 20 years old when she was married, she was born about 1746. If Eleazar and Moses were about 20-25 years old when the former was married, they were born about 1750-55. Very possi- bly they were brothers, and possibly Ann was their sister. This leads to the supposi- tion that there was a Pickwick (probably born in Bath) about 1720, father of Ann, and perhaps of Eleazar and Moses.

The above-named Eleazar may be the Eleazar who is mentioned in the following