Built 1796 by property developer James Burton, who probably lived here while developing the surrounding area. The 1834 Davies & Bartlett map (bottom right corner) shows the house surrounded by the regular terraced housing that Burton put up in the streets around it. The house was enlarged in 1823 and then, not long after 1825 the house was converted into 3 separate houses. Charles Dickens and his family lived here, in the west-most house, 1851 - 1860. In 1858 the Dickens marriage failed and they separated. House demolished 1900.
The artist Frank Stone (1800 –59) met Dickens through the Shakespeare Society and they became close friends. Stone had taken the lease on the 18-room Tavistock House (the west-most of the 3 houses). With it divided into 3 apartments he thought he’d be able to afford living in one of them but he was struggling. Meanwhile, Dickens was experiencing extraordinary fame and success, and his tenancy of No. 1 Devonshire Terrace had expired so he was looking for a new home.
Stone showed him the house and it was agreed: all the existing occupants moved out, Stone himself to Russell House - the east-most of the 3 houses. Dickens purchased a 50-year lease, returned the house to single occupancy, had an indoor WC installed, and converted the former school room into what he described as “the smallest theatre in the world”, and advertised productions as being at the ‘Theatre Royal Tavistock House’. The stage was 30 foot long and the room could seat 90 people. Friends, colleagues, other families and his own children formed the theatrical company, presenting a number of plays, for example the Wilkie Collins’s 3 act ‘Frozen Deep’.
It was in this house that the Dickens' marriage failed, at least in part due to Dickens’ relationship with actress Ellen Ternan (1839-1914), and Charles had the dividing door between their two bedrooms blocked up. 1859 Mrs Dickens went to live at Regent’s Park with her eldest son. The other children stayed at the house with Charles for another 2 years until 1860 when he managed to sell the lease and they moved out, to Gads Hill. 1859 was also the year that Dickens' close friend, Frank Stone, still living 2 doors away, died so that would have been another reason for not staying.
1870 Georgina Weldon (1837–1914) and her husband William (1837-1919) known as Harry, moved in. Georgina was an amateur opera singer with a fascination for spiritualism. She could not have her own children but she opened an orphanage at Tavistock House and took in a number of children, also taking other pupils for singing lessons. She held concerts and had guests in to talk about spiritualism, vegetarianism, feminism, etc. Harry took a mistress with whom he had children and the Weldon marriage failed, with Harry accusing Georgina of insanity.
1871 Georgina met French composer Charles Gounod (1818–93) who had come to London with his family. They formed an intense friendship and when Charles's wife and the rest of the family returned to France without him Georgina invited Charles to live at Tavistock House, which only increased the activity at the house. Gounod stayed for 3 years, and was very productive while there. Georgina became closely involved in his business affairs but eventually they fell out.
1875, the year that Gounod left, Harry also left and within a few years was trying to have Georgina committed to an asylum. She fought back by publishing articles etc. about her case, e.g. “How I escaped the mad doctors”. After Gounod’s death Georgina claimed that he was in regular contact with her through a medium. She published another pamphlet “The Ghastly Consequences of Living in Charles Dickens’s House”.
Georgina could not afford to stay at Tavistock House and it was demolished in 1900. See British Medical Association for what then happened to the site.
An excellent source for information on this house is the 2022 Radio 3 Sunday Feature ‘What Walls Hold’ - much of our information comes from there.
There are a number of photos of the house available on-line. This one shows the gate piers for the carriage entrance with the 3 houses behind. On the map there is a line just to the left of the 'T' of 'Tavistock House' and we think that is where the gate piers were. The writing on the piers reads 'Private' and on the southern pier there are the names of 3 houses, reading top to bottom: Russell House, Bedford House, Tavistock House. In the photo you can see the 3 porched entrances to each of the houses. All this suggests that the footprint of the house shown on the map is inaccurate, on its northern elevation at least. Perhaps the map shows the house prior to its conversion into 3 houses.
Another great source is the splendid UCL Bloomsbury Project which explains that in 1825 the lease was acquired by Thomas Hill, who subsequently converted it into three houses: Russell House to the east, Bedford House in the middle, occupying what had been most of the original Tavistock House, and Tavistock House to the west.
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