"Mrs. Gamp, on the Art of Nursing" — extra illustration by Fred Barnard for Dickens's "Martin Chuzzlewit" (1879)

One of sixteen lithographs in Character Sketches from Dickens by Frederick Barnard, No. 4: "Leave the bottle on the chimley-piece, and let me put my lips to it when I am so dispoged." — Martin Chuzzlewit, Chapter XXVI, "An Unexpected Meeting and a Promising Project." Lithograph: 6 inches high by 5 inches wide (16.8 cm by 12.6 cm), vignetted; lithographic print: 22.8 cm (9 inches) high by 17.5 cm (7 inches) wide, framed. The Illustrated Sterling Edition. Boston: Dana Estes (1908?). See also Mrs. Gamp, on the Art of Nursing. Scenes and Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens. (London: Chapman and Hall, 1879, rpt. 1908). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Original Passage from Chapter XIX in which Mrs. Gamp Enters the Narrative

She was a fat old woman, this Mrs. Gamp, with a husky voice and a moist eye, which she had a remarkable power of turning up, and only showing the white of it. Having very little neck, it cost her some trouble to look over herself, if one may say so, at those to whom she talked. She wore a very rusty black gown, rather the worse for snuff, and a shawl and bonnet to correspond. In these dilapidated articles of dress she had, on principle, arrayed herself, time out of mind, on such occasions as the present; for this at once expressed a decent amount of veneration for the deceased, and invited the next of kin to present her with a fresher suit of weeds; an appeal so frequently successful, that the very fetch and ghost of Mrs. Gamp, bonnet and all, might be seen hanging up, any hour in the day, in at least a dozen of the second-hand clothes shops about Holborn. The face of Mrs Gamp — the nose in particular — was somewhat red and swollen, and it was difficult to enjoy her society without becoming conscious of a smell of spirits.

Commentary

Although Charles Dickens introduces us to one of his greatest comic creations, Mrs. Sarah ["Sairey"] Gamp, in the eighth instalment of the novel (August 1843), Fred Barnard in his 1879 character sketch, completed seven years after his initial illustrations for the novel in the Household Edition, seems to be thinking of the divine Sairey as she appears in Chapter 25 because his caption, "Mrs. Gamp on the Art of Nursing," is thematically connected with that chapter's title: "Is in part professional; and furnishes the reader with some valuable hints in relation to the management of a sick chamber." So effective was Barnard's character study that Dana Estes, Boston, used it as the frontispiece for its fin-de-siecle edition of the novel: "Etched by S. A. Schoff — From a Drawing by Frederick Barnard" (12 cm high by 10 cm wide).

Since Fred Barnard had read the whole of Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-44) in his formative years, when he created an extensive narrative-pictorial sequence for the novel in the new Chapman and Hall Household Edition beginning in 1872, he knew far more about the boozey medical attendant than Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne) had when he illustrated the eighth instalment. Barnard's study post-dates both the composition of the story by some four decades and the professionalization of nursing by Florence Nightingale by a quarter of a century, so that he must have approached his subject in a manner very different from Phiz's when he did his first series of Character Sketches from Dickens. To Dickens Mrs. Gamp had been a distinctive voice; Phiz, basing his image on Honoré Daumier's Sick-room Nurse ("La Garde-Malade") in the magazine Le Charivari, 22 May 1842, made her an overnight Victorian icon. Fred Barnard, working with both Dickens's text and Phiz's highly popular visualisation, had to synthesize everything he knew about Mrs. Gamp, including her appearances later in the novel and some four decades of her popular reception. The actual illustration in the Dana Estes Sterling Edition is 14.7 cm (5 ¾ inches) high by 10.5 cm (4 ⅛ inches) wide, vignetted.

Although originally intended to be just a bit part, like a ham actor, a mere butt of Dickens's satire of drunken, disreputable nurses, Sairey consistently upstages the story's principals whenever she appears. She does not exactly "develop" as a character, but she certainly blossoms. In this celebrated "extra" illustration, Barnard, according to his caption, has apparently seated her in Mr. Mould's parlour; in fact, Barnard has placed her in her own very comfortable "chimley" corner. The illustrator crams into his study of her almost every visual detail associated with Dickens's bleary-eyed, husky-voiced, androgynous figure of capacious dimensions: the short, thick neck; the round face; the swollen nose (so forcibly anticipating that of comedian W. C. Fields as the quintessence of the inveterate tippler); rusty black gown stained by snuff; the oversized bonnet; the bottle stationed on the mantelpiece; and, of course, her conspicuous umbrella or "gamp." Instead of showing her turning her eyes upward, as is her wont, Barnard has her thoughtfully gazing at the viewer, as if that viewer and consumer of Barnard's art is about to become her next client. Thus, we see what Old Chuffey sees. Since Barnard has caught her in the moment when, her tea and pickled salmon finished, she wipes her mouth with a napkin of vaudeville dimensions, and we can be reasonably confident that the artist has realized the text just after this:

A tray was brought with everything upon it, even to the cucumber; and Mrs. Gamp accordingly sat down to eat and drink in high good humour. — Ch. XXV, "Is in Part Professional; And Furnishes the Reader with Some Valuable Hints in Relation to the Management of a Sick Chamber," page 211 in the 1872 edition; originally in Serial Part X.

So significant a comic creation in the Dickens canon rates no less than half-a-page (more than a single column) in The Dickens Index. "CD developed the character of Mrs. Gamp from the eccentricities of a nurse hired by his friend Miss Burdett-Coutts to attend her companion, Mrs. Brown . . . . . Later, Mrs. Gamp became the subject of one of CD's most popular Readings" (Bentley et al., 100).

Other Illustrators' Re-interpretations of Phiz's Divine Sairey (1863-1924)

Left: Harold Copping's 1924 colour lithograph of Betsey and Sairey sharing a convivial glass, in Sairey Gamp and Betsey Prig(Chapter 39). Centre: Harry Furniss's realisation of the immortal Dame Part, Mrs. Gamp (1910). Right: Clayton J. Clarke's characterisation of Sairey as endearing rather than professionally irresponsible and thoroughly addicted to gin, Sairey Gamp (1910). [Click on images to enlarge them.]

Left: Kyd's Tuck card colour lithograph of Sairey Gamp with an oversized "gamp" (umbrella): Sairey Gamp in The Characters of Charles Dickens pourtrayed in a series of original watercolours by "Kyd" (Clayton J. Clarke, 1911). Centre: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s Diamond Edition dual character study, Sairey Gamp and Betsey Prigg (1867). Right: Felix Octavius Carr Darley's 1863 frontispiece "The creeter's head's so hot, said Mrs. Gamp (American Household Edition, vol. 4). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Related Material

Scanned images and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use the images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned them and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Bibliography

Barnard, Fred. Scenes and Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens. London: Chapman and Hall, 1879, rpt. 1908.

Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis (eds.). "Gamp, Mrs. Sarah ('Sairey')." The Dickens Index. Oxford and New York: Oxford U. P., 1990, pp. 99-100.

Clarke, Clayton J. The Characters of Charles Dickens pourtrayed in a series of original watercolours by “Kyd.” London, Paris, and New York: Raphael Tuck & Sons, n. d.

Dickens, Charles. The Dickens Souvenir Book. Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1880.

_____. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne. London: Chapman and Hall, 1844.

_____. Martin Chuzzlewit. Works of Charles Dickens. Household Edition. 55 vols. Illustrated by F. O. C. Darley and John Gilbert. New York: Sheldon and Co., 1863. Vol. 2 of 4.

_____. Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1872. Vol. 2.

_____. Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated Sterling Edition. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne and Frederick Barnard. Boston: Dana Estes, n. d. [1889?]

"The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit: Fifty-nine Illustrations by Fred Barnard." Scenes and Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens, Being Eight Hundred and Sixty-Six Drawings by Fred Barnard, Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz), J. Mahoney, Charles Green, A. B. Frost, Gordon Thomson, J. McL. Ralston, H. French, E. G. Dalziel, F. A. Fraser, and Sir Luke Fildes. Printed from the Original Woodblocks Engraved for "The Household Edition." London: Chapman and Hall, 1908. Pp. 185-216.

A Series of Character Sketches from Dickens, from the Original Drawings by Frederick Barnard, Being Facsimiles of Original Drawings by Fred. Barnard. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1884.

Steig, Michael. "From Caricature to Progress: Master Humphrey's Clock and Martin Chuzzlewit." Ch. 3, Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U.P., 1978. Pp. 51-85. [See e-text in Victorian Web.]

Steig, Michael. "Martin Chuzzlewit's Progress by Dickens and Phiz." Dickens Studies Annual 2 (1972): 119-149.

Created 6 July 2016

Last updated 18 September 2026