Dirty Dick Dirty Dick Nathaniel Bentley (–1809), commonly known as Dirty Dick, was an 18th-century merchant who owned a hardware shop and warehouse in London, and is one person who is considered as a possible inspiration for Miss Havisham in Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations" after he refused to wash following the death of his fiancée on their wedding day. He was a previous owner of a pub on Bishopsgate, in the City of London, which is named after him. Bentley had been quite a dandy in his youth, but following the death of his fiancée on their wedding day he refused to
Miss Havisham dressing, Miss Havisham received a letter from Compeyson and realised he had defrauded her and she had been left at the altar. Humiliated and heartbroken, Miss Havisham suffered a mental breakdown and remained alone in her decaying mansion Satis House – never removing her wedding dress, wearing only one shoe, leaving the wedding breakfast and cake uneaten on the table, and allowing only a few people to see her. She even had the clocks in her mansion stopped at twenty minutes to nine: the exact time when she had received Compeyson's letter. Time passed and Miss Havisham had her lawyer,