Cedric Charles Dickens the Dickens Fellowship, a worldwide association of people who share an interest in the life and works of Charles Dickens, first taking that position on the death of his father in 1968, and again on his retirement in 1976, when he also founded the Dickens Pickwick Club, a society with an international membership. This he kept true to the spirit of the original in "The Pickwick Papers" by only allowing men to join, which in 2000 led to an accusation of sexism. In demand internationally as a guest and speaker at meetings of Dickens Fellowships and other events connected with
Racism in the work of Charles Dickens of making him a voter glares out of every roll of his eye". Bernard Porter suggests that Dickens' race prejudice caused him to actually oppose imperialism rather than promote it citing the character of Mrs. Jellyby in "Bleak House" and the essay "The Noble Savage" as evidence. However, Dickens did not join other liberals in condemning Jamaica's Governor Eyre's declaration of martial law after an attack on the capital's courthouse. In speaking on the controversy, Dickens' attacked "that platform sympathy with the black- or the native or the Devil.." In an essay on George Eliot, K.M. Newton notes: One of