Harry Lloyd a great-great-great-grandson of Victorian writer Charles Dickens through his mother, who is the daughter of Captain Peter Dickens, RN. One of his maternal great-grandfathers was Rear-Admiral Henry Blagrove. He is a cousin of biographer and writer Lucinda Hawksley, and actor and performer Gerald Dickens. Lloyd was educated at Eton College and, while there, made his television debut at the age of 16 as James Steerforth in the BBC's 1999 adaptation of "David Copperfield" opposite Daniel Radcliffe. In 2002, he was cast as young Rivers in "Goodbye Mr Chips". He went on to study English at Christ Church, Oxford, where he
Elizabeth Dickens Prison for debt, with Elizabeth Dickens and their four youngest children joining her husband there in April 1824. John Dickens was released after three months, on 28 May 1824, on the death of his mother who had left him the sum of £450 in her will, allowing him to clear his debt. When John Dickens was released from prison Charles' mother did not immediately remove him from the boot-blacking factory which was owned by a relation of hers, James Lamert. However, a disagreement between John Dickens and Joseph Lamert, Charles' employer, resulted in his being removed from the blacking factory.