Charles Dickens and William Marleys Beliefs in the...

William Marley grew up in London. The celebrated writer Charles Dickens often visited Williams father, a renowned and wealthy doctor with a shared interest in child welfare. Dickens loved unusual names. He decorated his writings with them. At a party at the Marley home in 1843 he promised to make his hosts then uncommon surname a household word. In A Christmas Carol, published that December, he named the main protagonist in the story for his friend. By New Years Eve, the book had sold fifteen thousand copies, and Dickens had honoured his promise. Throughout the United Kingdom, people spoke the names Scrooge, Cratchit, Fezziwig... and Marley. Dickens believed that if all children, whatever their circumstance, could attend school, society would benefit. The social message of A Christmas Carol inspired widespread enthusiasm for universal education; enthusiasm which gained momentum throughout the Victorian era, even in far distant corners of the Her Majestys Realm. William Marley followed his father into medicine, but never achieved the same success. By 1884 he toiled far from the culture and learning of London in a remote corner of the Empire. He had little time to ponder social welfare or literary interests. At fifty years of age, guilt and worry clouded his days. In Stanthorpe, where he first lived in Queensland, and then here in Port Douglas, he and his wife had led active social lives. That lifestyle cost money. Now ill, and convinced he would