Elizabeth Dickens WHO DIED SEPTEMBER 12TH 1863 AGED 73 YEARS". Charles Dickens used his mother as the source for the vain, ineffectual and verbally comic Mrs. Nickleby in his novel "Nicholas Nickleby" and for Mrs Micawber in "David Copperfield". Elizabeth Dickens Elizabeth Culliford Dickens (née Barrow; 21 December 1789 – 13 September 1863) was the wife of John Dickens and the mother of English novelist Charles Dickens. She was the source for Mrs. Nickleby in her son's novel "Nicholas Nickleby" and for Mrs Micawber in "David Copperfield". One of eight children of Mary Culliford (1771–1851) and Charles Barrow (1759–1826), Elizabeth Barrow was
Elizabeth Dickens 'Mrs Dickens's Establishment' in Gower Street in London; this despite the fact that she had no experience in teaching or administering a school. Unsurprisingly, no pupils materialised. As Charles Dickens later wrote, "Nobody ever came to the school, nor do I recollect that anybody ever proposed to come, or that the least preparation was made to receive anybody." To help support the family financially the 12-year-old Charles Dickens, to his great humiliation, was taken from school to work at Warren's Blacking Factory where his wages were 6s a week. On 20 February 1824 John Dickens was imprisoned in the Marshalsea