Note 2 — Chapter II

Forster (I. 14) infers that the family removed to London in 1821, but Mr. Langton considers (Childhood and Youth of Charles Dickens, 1883, pp. 62-3), from the fact of the birth of Dickens's brother Alfred having been registered at Chatham on 3rd April, 1822, and from the further fact of there being no record of Mr. John Dickens's recall throughout this year to Somerset House, that the family did not remove to London until the winter of 1822-3, and I agree with Mr. Langton. Mr. Kitton in Charles Dickens by Pen and Pencil, 1890, also recognizes this period as the date of the removal of the Dickens family to London.