CHAPTER VII
THE "TOWN ARMS," EATANSWILL, AND THE INN OF "THE BAGMAN'S STORY"
Following the Pickwickians in the sequence of their peregrinations, we become confronted with the problem, "which was the prototype of Eatanswill?" Having weighed the evidence of each of the other claimants for the honour, we favour that of Sudbury in Suffolk, for which so good a case has been presented. That being so, the "Rose and Crown" undoubtedly would be the original of the "Town Arms," the headquarters of the Blues and the inn at which Mr. Pickwick and his friends alighted on their arrival in the town.
First let us briefly state the case for Sudbury.
In the opening paragraph of Chapter XIII of the book, Dickens writes:
"We will frankly acknowledge, that up to the period of our being first immersed in the voluminous papers of the Pickwick Club, we had never heard of Eatanswill; we will with equal candour admit, that we have in vain searched for proof of the actual existence of such a place at the present day. . . . We are therefore led to believe, that Mr. Pickwick, with that anxious desire to abstain from giving offence to any, and with those delicate feelings for which all who knew him well know he was so eminently remarkable, purposely substituted a fictitious designation, for the real name of the place in which his observations were made. We are confirmed in this belief by a little circumstance, apparently slight and trivial in itself, but when considered from this point of view, not undeserving of notice. In Mr. Pickwick's notebook, we can just trace an entry of the fact, that the places of himself and followers were booked by the Norwich coach; but this entry was afterwards lined through, as if for the purpose of concealing even the direction in which the borough is situated."
That description fits Sudbury admirably and faithfully, but does not by any means fit either Ipswich or Norwich, the two other claimants, and the evidence of Mr. C. Finden Waters, a one-time proprietor of the "Rose and Crown" at Sudbury, makes it almost certain that Sudbury was the place Dickens had in mind.
Mr. Waters, in 1906, devoted much time and research in order to establish his claim, and in March, 1907, read a paper, setting forth in detail the various points which led him to that conclusion, to the members of a then newly formed coterie who called themselves "The Eatanswill Club." It appears that this evidence established the fact that Dickens visited Sudbury in 1834. On the 25th and 26th July in the same year, a Parliamentary by-election took place there, the incidents of which, as reported by the Essex Standard of that period, coincided remarkably with those recorded in connexion with the "Eatanswill" election in The Pickwick Papers. In 1835, Dickens visited Ipswich for The Morning Chronicle, and reported the election at that place. It is now tolerably certain that he went on to Sudbury for a similar purpose.
A further point is, Mr. Pickwick left by the Norwich coach. "Eatanswill," as we have seen, being a small borough near Bury St. Edmunds, and on the Norwich coach route, as was Sudbury, the latter's claim gains strength indeed, if it does not actually settle the question. At any rate, no other small borough could be named with any assurance that Dickens had it in his mind. Indeed, in the year 1834, there were only four Parliamentary boroughs in Suffolk, viz. Sudbury, Ipswich, Bury St. Edmunds and Eye. Ipswich, Mr. Pickwick visited AFTER the "Eatanswill" election, and does not hesitate to describe it under its right name. Moreover, the claims of Ipswich have been relinquished by even local literary men, who in 1905 actually proved that town to be topographically impossible and named Sudbury as the original. Bury St. Edmunds is the place to which Mr. Pickwick travelled AFTER leaving "Eatanswill," and as that borough figures prominently in the book undisguised, it cannot be that. Eye is off the Norwich coach road, and no one has ever suggested that it has any claim to the honour. Sudbury alone, therefore, remains as presenting all the main features required for the original.
[illustration: The "Rose and Crown," Sudbury. From a photograph]