Matthew Lamert's Military Record: Clarifying the Lamert Family Origins

Abstract

Matthew Lamert's Military Record:Clarifying the Lamert Family Origins Helena Kelly (bio) Digitization is constantly increasing the amount of information available to researchers. Michael Allen suggested as long ago as 2012 that the Lamerts–Charles Dickens's step-cousins via his maternal aunt's marriage to Matthew Lamert–came from a German–Jewish background and were descended from Isaac Lamert, a purveyor of proprietary medicines based in Spitalfields ("Locating" 33). He also suggested that the "James Lamert" prominent in Forster's account of Dickens's childhood did not actually exist (32). His suggestions receive considerable support from Matthew Lamert's digitized military record, from apprenticeship records, and from newspaper advertisements found through the British Newspaper Archive. The Lamert family feature quite heavily in the first two chapters of John Forster's Life of Charles Dickens. Forster informs his readers that the young Charles's "chief ally and encourager" in his youthful theatrical games was one "James Lamert, stepson to his mother's sister, and therefore a sort of cousin" (1: 9). Charles's Aunt Mary, Forster continues, had come to live with her sister's family in Chatham after being widowed and there "took for her second husband Doctor Lamert, an army surgeon." We know from other sources that the couple moved almost immediately to Ireland and that their marriage was only a brief one, ending in September 1822 with Mary's death "in child bed, of twins."1 A close relationship seems to have continued, however. Forster states that James Lamert lodged with the Dickens family in London, after they moved back there, and that he even took the trouble to make Charles "a little [End Page 319] theatre" (1: 13). Darker days were ahead, however. It was, Forster states, this same James Lamert who suggested that Charles should be sent to work at Jonathan Warren's blacking factory by the Thames–a trauma from which, if Forster is to be believed, the author never really recovered: The person indirectly responsible for the scenes to be described was the young relative James Lamert, the cousin by his aunt's marriage of whom I have made frequent mention […]. The husband of a sister of his (of the same name as himself, being indeed his cousin, George Lamert), a man of some property, had recently embarked in an odd sort of commercial speculation; and had taken him into his office, and his house, to assist in it. (1: 20) There were, we know, members of the Lamert family connected with Jonathan Warren's blacking business; their names appear in some of the extensive litigation in which the business became embroiled.2 Forster's account contains a number of small errors, however–possibly his own or possibly the result of Dickens's imprecise recollections– and these have led to a certain amount of confusion among researchers over the years. Matthew Lamert's service record offers some more definitive details about the family and its antecedents. It gives Matthew's place and date of birth–Germany, in 1774–notes his enlistment, in 1795, as a "Hospital mate" and the rank he rose to, that of "Surgeon."3 It lists his three marriages: to Sarah Lamert in 1798; to Charles Dickens's aunt, Mary Allen, in 1822 (an error, this, it was 1821, though the date given is otherwise correct); and to Susan Travers in 1824.4 Also included, under the heading of "legitimate children," are Sophia (b. 1799), George (1802), John (1806), Joseph (1808), Hannah (1810), and Rebecca (1813). The "George" whom Forster identified as a "cousin and brother-in-law of James" turns out to be, instead, Matthew's eldest son–a step-cousin to Dickens. The confusion may well arise from the fact that Matthew's daughter Sophia Lamert was married to another partner in the blacking business, a William Woodd or Woody.5 There is no "James" listed among the Lamert [End Page 320] children, but, given that he is clearly not George, and that Forster claims that he "relinquished" a commission in the army "in favour of a younger brother" (1: 20), a plausible hypothesis is that he might be John Lamert. There is a Joseph Richard Lamert...