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
Charles Dickens to enlighten the general public and served as a vehicle for dissemination of Dickens's own views regarding, particularly, the heavy burden on the poor who were forced by circumstances to "go to law". In 1830, Dickens met his first love, Maria Beadnell, thought to have been the model for the character Dora in "David Copperfield". Maria's parents disapproved of the courtship and ended the relationship by sending her to school in Paris. In 1832, at age 20, Dickens was energetic and increasingly self-confident. He enjoyed mimicry and popular entertainment, lacked a clear, specific sense of what he wanted to become,