Samuel A. Weller a series of talented designers and potters and profited from their work. Charles Babcock Upjohn worked for him from 1885–1904, with the first and second Dickens lines, as well as Eocean and Corleone lines. The Dickens lines were copied from a very successful line of figurines produced by Doulton of England, based on Charles Dickens characters. Weller was amused that Sam Weller was also the name of a servant in the "Pickwick Papers". He is reported to have declared, "If Dickens can create a character named Sam Weller, the least I can do is reciprocate and name a line for
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