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
Charles Dickens to rumours they had been lovers. That the two had a son who died in infancy was alleged by Dickens's daughter, Kate Perugini, whom Gladys Storey had interviewed before her death in 1929. Storey published her account in "Dickens and Daughter", but no contemporary evidence exists. On his death, Dickens settled an annuity on Ternan which made her a financially independent woman. Claire Tomalin's book, "The Invisible Woman", argues that Ternan lived with Dickens secretly for the last 13 years of his life. The book was subsequently turned into a play, "Little Nell", by Simon Gray, and a 2013 film.