W. C. Fields by Himself", it was shown that Fields was married (and subsequently estranged from his wife), and financially supported their son and loved his grandchildren. Fields was born William Claude Dukenfield in Darby, Pennsylvania, the oldest child of a working-class family. His father, James Lydon Dukenfield (1840–1913), was from an English family that emigrated from Sheffield, England in 1854. James Dukenfield served in Company M of the 72nd Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment in the American Civil War and was wounded in 1863. Fields' mother, Kate Spangler Felton (1854–1925), was a Protestant of British ancestry. The 1876 "Philadelphia City Directory "lists James Dukenfield
Christmas Day in the Workhouse Christmas Day in the Workhouse In the Workhouse : Christmas Day, better known as Christmas Day in the Workhouse, is a dramatic monologue written as a ballad by campaigning journalist George Robert Sims and first published in "The Referee" for the Christmas of 1877. It appeared in Sims' regular "Mustard and Cress" column under the pseudonym Dagonet and was collected in book form in 1881 as one of "The Dagonet Ballads", which sold over 100,000 copies within a year. It is a criticism of the harsh conditions in English and Welsh workhouses under the 1834 Poor Law. As a popular