Guardian News
Names cast light on mid Cheshire's Dickensian mystery
8:30am Friday 17th February 2012
DEBATE continues over a Dickensian character’s mid Cheshire origins.
Readers have been contemplating Charles Dickens’ links with the area, particularly the inspiration behind Great Expectations’ Miss Havisham, since Middlewich man Alan Langley wrote in with a tale of a jilted bride at Stanthorne Grange.
The woman, Miss Joule, was betrothed to a man from Stanthorne Hall but, the story goes, he eloped with another woman on the morning of the wedding.
The Joule family were so distraught they closed off the room that was set up ready for the wedding.
A number of readers remember the tale and had also heard that Dickens was inspired by it on a trip to the county, but historian Mark Bevan thought it more likely that the Joule story brought Miss Havisham to mind for locals.
Now Tony Bostock, chairman of Northwich and District Heritage Society, said there could be another Dickens link wiith the area.
“An interesting twist on this is that at Stanthorne Lodge lived Ellen Chatterton, a lady in her late 60s, and her single daughter Elizabeth, aged 38 in 1851.
“Between 1851 and her death in 1871 the younger Miss Chatterton lived in the house alone and unmarried.
“You will recall that Dickens' jilted bride in the story is a Miss Havisham.
“'Haver' was once used in northern England and Scotland to mean 'babble' or 'chatter'.
“Both '-ham' and '- ton' are the same word indicating a place of settlement.
“So 'Haversham' is another way of saying 'Chatterton'. Coincidence or what?
“It is my belief that Ellen Chatterton didn't marry or was deserted shortly after marriage as there seems to be no male resident at this address, in which case the Ellen Chatterton could be represented by Miss Havisham and the daughter Elizabeth Chatterton by Estelle Havisham.”