"Particulars as to the Proposed Interment of Charles Dickens at Rochester"

Abstract

Abstract:Dickens left an injunction in his will that he be buried "in an inexpensive, unostentatious and strictly private manner." This article, by analysis of previously unremarked contemporary newspaper reports and related documents, records the attempts of his grieving family and friends to address this requirement by considering burial sites in or near Rochester, and their ultimate decision to satisfy a perceived need for public commemoration. Events are traced from Dickens's death at Gad's Hill by Rochester on the evening of Thursday 9 June 1870 to his burial in the early morning of Tuesday 14 June at Westminster Abbey.