Bumple against Sludberry; or, Dickens Has an Early Encounter with Reform Politics

Abstract

Bumple against Sludberry; or, Dickens Has an Early Encounter with Reform Politics William F. Long (bio) and Paul Schlicke (bio) In a Sketch of 1836, Boz, strolling through Doctors’ Commons, looks into its courtroom and finds a case in the Arches Court about to begin. Involving, as it does, an accusation of “brawling” or ”smiting” within a vestry-room adjoining a church, it carries with it a potential penalty of excommunication. It emerges that on a certain night, at a certain vestry-meeting, in a certain parish […] Thomas Sludberry, [the accused] had made use of, and applied to Michael Bumple, the promoter, the words “You be blowed;” and [on being remonstrated with, had] repeated the aforesaid expression […] and furthermore desired and requested to know, whether the said Michael Bumple “wanted anything for himself;” adding, “that if the said Michael Bumple did want anything for himself, he, the said Thomas Sludberry, was the man to give it him;” at the same time making use of other heinous and sinful expressions, all of which, Bumple submitted, came within the intent and meaning of the Act […] As Boz continues to watch, the court, after much deliberation, sentences Sludberry to excommunication for a fortnight and payment of costs. Upon this, Sludberry, who was a little, red-faced, sly-looking, ginger-beer seller, addressed the Court, and said, if they’d be good enough to take off the costs, and excommunicate him for the term of his natural life instead, it would be much more convenient to him, for he never went to church at all. And Boz, having observed that the court indignantly ignored this request, continues on his stroll (Sketches 88–9).1 [End Page 181] Thirteen years later, David Copperfield, thinking back to the time when he was articled to a Doctors’ Commons proctor, recalls two rather similar experiences. We had an adjourned cause in the Consistory that day – about excommunicating a baker who had been objecting in a vestry to a paving-rate – and as the evidence was just twice the length of Robinson Crusoe, according to a calculation I made, it was rather late in the day before we finished. However, we got him excommunicated for six weeks, and sentenced in no end of costs; and then the baker’s proctor, and the judge, and the advocates on both sides (who were all nearly related), went out of town together, and Mr. Spenlow and I drove away in the phaeton. […] we had another little excommunication case in court that morning, which was called The office of the Judge promoted by Tipkins against Bullock for his soul’s correction […] I passed an hour or two in attendance on it with Mr. Spenlow very agreeably. It arose out of a scuffle between two churchwardens, one of whom was alleged to have pushed the other against a pump; the handle of which pump projecting into a school-house, which school-house was under a gable of the church-roof, made the push an ecclesiastical offence. It was an amusing case (David Copperfield 331, 367; chs. 26, 29). In 1926, William Carlton pointed out the similarity between the fictional case of Bumple against Sludberry and two actual cases – Jarman against Bagster and Jarman against Wise – which had been heard in the Consistory Court of Doctors’ Commons in 1830. These cases involved an altercation which had taken place on 6 April of that year in the vestry-room of the City of London parish of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, West Smithfield.2 Sentences were delivered on 18 November, and Dickens, working at the time as a clerk in the Commons, recorded them in short-hand. The long-hand transcripts he made thereafter were originally kept in the archives of the parish and are now stored in the London Metropolitan Archives, together with a full transcript of the proceedings of the two trials in another hand (LMA). Carlton summarized the trials and their outcomes: One of the defendants, Samuel Bagster, is said to have seated himself upon the table in the vestry-room, abused the “promoter” Jarman, and “called out to him in a loud and angry tone of voice, ‘You are a liar!’” The other...