Charles Dickens the house. The success of "Sketches by Boz" led to a proposal from publishers Chapman and Hall for Dickens to supply text to match Robert Seymour's engraved illustrations in a monthly letterpress. Seymour committed suicide after the second instalment, and Dickens, who wanted to write a connected series of sketches, hired "Phiz" to provide the engravings (which were reduced from four to two per instalment) for the story. The resulting story became "The Pickwick Papers", and though the first few episodes were not successful, the introduction of the Cockney character Sam Weller in the fourth episode (the first to be
Sam Weller Widdowson Sam Weller Widdowson Sam Weller Widdowson (born Hucknall Torkard, 16 April 1851, died Beeston, 9 May 1927) was an English sportsman of the Victorian era. He played cricket for Nottinghamshire and association football for Nottingham Forest and also played once for the England national football team, against Scotland in 1880. Widdowson is also credited with inventing football shin pads in 1874 when he cut down a pair of cricket pads and strapped them outside his stockings. Initially, the concept was ridiculed but it soon caught on with other players, and shin pads are now required by the Laws of the