Our commemorative edition
SPECIAL The News of February 7, 2012
The announcement was made 200 years ago of the birth in Portsmouth of Charles Dickens.
As reproduced on our front page today, it appeared in the first available edition of the Hampshire Telegraph - the forerunner of The News - after 22-year-old Elizabeth Dickens and husband John had produced the boy who would become probably Britain’s finest novelist.
The baby is not mentioned by name and, in the style of the day, neither is his mother.
The announcement was published on February 10, 1812, three days after Charles was born at the family home at what was then 1 Mile End Terrace, now 393 Old Commercial Road.
The Hampshire Telegraph, a weekly newspaper, first appeared in 1799 and continued to be printed by the publishers of The News until its eventual closure in the 1970s.
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Friday 25 May 2012
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