DIRECTIONS
Walk past Maclise’s grave and pick your way through the neglected and overgrown tombs, to turn left along the grass track. Go past the holly bush, and on arrival at the draped stone urn over the grave of Catherine Ann Smithson turn right. Make your way through the graves and keep going ahead over the asphalt roadway. Having crossed another grassy track you arrive at a holly bush that overhangs the white flat gravestone of:-
CHARLES SHIRLEY BROOKS (1816-74).
An English novelist, playwright and journalist, Brooks was born in April 1816. The son of a London architect, he was articled to a solicitor in 1832 and remained there for five years. In 1853 he became Parliamentary Reporter for the Morning Chronicle, and was sent by them as special commissioner to investigate the subject of labour and the poor in southern Russia, Egypt and Syria. These investigations were published first as letters to the editor, and then in 1856 as a separate volume entitled The Russians of the South.
Brooks was for many years on the staff of the Illustrated London News, to which publication he contributed weekly articles on the politics of the day, and the two series entitled Nothing in the Papers and By the Way.
He joined Punch magazine in 1851, and submitted weekly satirical summaries of the Parliamentary debates, entitled The Essence of Parliament to the magazine. Following the death of editor, Mark Lemon, in 1870, ‘dear old Shirley’ as his friends affectionately dubbed him, was appointed editor of Punch.
A prolific letter-writer, Brooks ws blesed with an astonishing memory. He was also brilliant as an epigrammatist, was a great reader and an amiable companion. He was in his element with a group of children, reading to them, sharing their fun and always remembering their birthdays. He died in London, on the 23rd of February 1874.
Brooks was a great admirer of Dickens, although he strongly disapproved of the way that Dickens treated his wife, Catherine up to and following their legal separation. At the time, Brooks wryly observed that Mrs Dickens had been ‘discharged with good character.’
