5/19/2023 0 Comments Nicholas nickleby bookHowever even after the investigation it was common for one pupil to die at Bowes Academy every year.ĭickens got the idea for Smike as he wandered through a churchyard near Bowes Academy. The situation improved somewhat after the investigation. In 1823 Shaw had been prosecuted for neglect after two pupils became blind because of beatings and poor nutrition. It was a very short visit, just two days, but it was enough to gather all the material they needed.ĭuring their visit they called on William Shaw, the headmaster of Bowes Academy. In early 1838 Dickens and Hablot Browne, the illustrator of Nicholas Nickleby, visited Yorkshire to get a firsthand look at the situation. Sadly schools like Dotheboys Hall really did exist. It is a school where there are no holidays, no trips home for the abused and neglected pupils of Mr. In the novel Nicholas is sent to teach at Dotheboys Hall. Traders in the avarice, indifference, or imbecility of parents, and the helplessness of children ignorant, sordid, brutal men, to whom few considerate persons would have entrusted the board and lodging of a horse or a dog they formed the worthy cornerstone of a structure, which, for absurdity and a magnificent high-minded laissez-aller neglect, has rarely been exceeded in the world. In the preface to the novel Dickens has this to say about Yorkshire schoolmasters: One of Dickens’s goals in writing Nicholas Nickleby was to expose the ugly truth about Yorkshire boarding schools.
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