2012 marks 200 years since the birth of Charles Dickens.

• So much has been written about Dickens, that it seems amazing that there is anything left to be revealed but as family and social historians know only too well, there is always another connection to be made.

Michael Allen, author, lecturer and expert on Dickens made just such an intriguing connection as his 2010 TNA  podcast revealed

• He has turned his attention on Warren’s Blacking factory, where Charles Dickens went to work after his father was incarcerated in the Marshalsea Prison.
• It is said that this period of Dickens life had an immense impact on his later writing .
• Allen has found that, at the time that Dickens was employed, the employers of Warren’s blacking factory were fighting each other in the Chancery Court.

In looking at these records Allen has shed some interesting light on this period of Dickens life.
Listen to the podcast from The National Archive

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