The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To SIR ALEXANDER DUFF GORDON,1 20 JULY 1860

Text from facsimile on eBay, April 2022.

GAD’S HILL PLACE.
HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT.
Friday Twentieth July, 1860.

My Dear Gordon.

    When you dined at Tavistock House,2 you mentioned a school at Brighton of which you held a high opinion. I am looking about for a school for my two youngest boys,3 and should be much indebted to you if you would tell me what manner of school this is that you so commended — as for example, for boys of what ages it4 is designed, and what the charges are. Very possibly it may be too young a school for my purpose, as I would rather place the boys where they could remain. But I am unwilling to throw a chance away.
    Do not mind how briefly you answer.5

        Ever Faithfully
        CHARLES DICKENS

Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

• 1. Sir Alexander Cornewall Duff-Gordon (1811-72), 3rd Baronet; civil servant. Educated at Eton; Clerk in the Treasury; Senior Clerk 1854; Commissioner of Inland Revenue 1856; an Assistant Gentleman Usher of the Privy Chamber. Translated some works from German. He and his wife Lucy were at the centre of a progressive literary and social circle, which included CD, William Makepeace Thackeray, Alfred Tennyson, Alexander Kinglake, Caroline Norton, and distinguished visiting foreigners.
• 2. CD’s family occupied Tavistock House from 1851 to 1860.
• 3. Henry Fielding Dickens (“Harry”; 1849-1933) and Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens (“Plorn”; 1852-1902).
• 4. “it” written above the caret.
• 5. Gordon had replied by 22 July, when CD wrote to him to say, “The school is too preparatory, I find, for my purpose — in as much as one of the boys I want to find a suitable Dominie for, is well used to a large school and large boys” (Pilgrim Letters 9, p. 274).