Posted by In 1846 Charles Dickens publishes the famous novel a Christmas Carol, which describes the behaviour of a miserable old miser called Ebenezer Scrooge, who is hugely wealthy and very mean, and his eventual reform and redemption and his acceptance of the spirit of Christmas in his heart. It is a heartwarming story that still resonates today. England at the time of Dickens was good at producing eccentric characters and had its fair share of real-life- Scrooges, misers and misanthropes, and the general public was fascinated with them. In the character of Scrooge Dickens distilled some of the worst traits of the best-known English misers. In this series of videos, I am going to explore with you the stories of a number of the more well-known English misers to see how they influenced Dickens’ work. In this first video, I want to introduce you to Jemmy Wood, the miser of Gloucester, one of the wealthiest men in early 19th-century England but a man who like Scrooge was ‘squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!’ It’s a great story, but not very heartwarming!
In Search of the Real Ebenezer Scrooge – Part 1: Jemmy Wood, the Gloucester Miser – YouTube
