Gradgrind develop his sons into perfect utilitarians. His physical description personified this characterisation of the rigid and insistent pedagogue: In a famous passage, a visiting official asks Gradgrind's students "Suppose you were going to carpet a room. Would you use a carpet having a representation of flowers upon it?" The character Sissy Jupe replies, ingenuously, that she would because, "If you please, sir, I am very fond of flowers." Gradgrind is the most dynamic character in "Hard Times" since he comes to recognize that emotions are important when his daughter Louisa has an emotional breakdown. The text of the entry is
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