Ask someone from Portsmouth to name any famous Victorians connected to the city and they’ll tell you Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Charles Dickens. Caveats there for the current state of education and the shocking lack of general knowledge so many people seem to take delight in, of course.
The Charles Dickens link, however, is very slight. Yes, he was born in the city in 1812, but three years later he and his family had moved away. I have no memory of my life at the age of three and I suspect Charles didn’t either and that the knowledge that he was a son of Pompey had no real influence on his life or writings.
So, if you should visit the Charles Dickens’ Birthplace Museum it’s worth remembering that this isn’t a place that he spent a lot of time in. That said, the work to turn this house into something very much of the style of the Regency period is worth a look, the room layouts will largely be accurate, and there are personal items associated with the Victorian author.
The museum isn’t large because the house isn’t large, broadly containing four rooms and a few items on displays on the staircase landings, but there’s a lovely sense of what it must have been like to live there especially with the general look and feel of the road outside and surrounding area.
One interesting aspect of the Charles Dickens’ Birthplace Museum in Portsmouth is that it also houses the couch on which he apparently died, a donation from his sister-in-law in 1909. The author’s life with the bookends of where he was born and where he died is rather poignant.
