Gradgrind Gradgrind Mr Thomas Gradgrind is the notorious school board Superintendent in Dickens's novel "Hard Times" who is dedicated to the pursuit of profitable enterprise. His name is now used generically to refer to someone who is hard and only concerned with cold facts and numbers. In the story, the man himself he was the father of five children, naming them after prominent utilitarians such as Robert Malthus. He also ran a model school where young pupils were treated as machines pitchers which were to be filled to the brim with facts. This satirised Scottish philosopher James Mill who attempted to
Peter Gerald Charles Dickens the Dickens Fellowship, a worldwide association of people who share an interest in the life and works of Charles Dickens, and was President of the Coastal Forces Association. With his wife, Mary Alice Blagrove (the daughter of Rear-Admiral Henry Blagrove), he is the grandfather of the actor Harry Lloyd and uncle to the actor/performer Gerald Charles Dickens. Dickens died in 1987 at Tunbridge Wells in Kent. Peter Gerald Charles Dickens Captain Peter Gerald Charles Dickens DSO, MBE, DSC, RN (6 April 1917 – 25 May 1987) was a Royal Navy officer during World War II and a great-grandson of novelist