‘Charles Dickens was completely woke – trust me I’m his descendant’

Charles Dickens is often remembered as a Victorian literary giant whose novels belong to another age. But according to his great-great-great granddaughter, Lucinda Dickens Hawksley, the author was anything but outdated and would today be considered “completely woke”.

Lucinda recalls first mentioning her famous ancestor at school and being surprised by her teacher’s reaction.
She said: “I remember being really nervous when I said he’s my great-great-great-grandfather, thinking I was going to get laughed at. The teacher just said ‘oh’, and the look on her face and the shock made me think: other people know who he is.”

That early awareness of Dickens’ enduring reputation was matched by values Lucinda believes have been passed down through generations of her family. At Christmas, her mother would always invite anyone who was alone to celebrate at their home, a tradition Lucinda sees as a direct echo of Dickens’ own social conscience.

“People think of Dickens as writing dense, dusty Victorian novels,” she told My London. “But he was completely ahead of his time.”

Lucinda describes the author and journalist as a self-proclaimed radical who refused to align himself with any political party, despite being repeatedly asked to stand for Parliament. He paid fair wages to female employees, opposed corporal punishment at home and in schools, and was outspoken about inequality and social injustice.

She added: “Dickens was completely woke. He called himself a radical and refused to ever join a political party, even though he was asked to be an MP again and again.”

She also pointed out that Dickens coined the term “gammon”, which now often used as a political insult for the right-wing, in his 1838 novel Nicholas Nickleby, underlining how modern some of his language and ideas remain.

Christmas, of course, is inseparable from Dickens’ legacy. Each year, Lucinda’s family would watch the 1951 Alastair Sim adaptation of A Christmas Carol, widely regarded as one of the most influential screen versions of the story. As an adult, Dickens’ work continues to shape her festive traditions.

“My parents were great at Christmas, so I love it,” she said. “I’m fully decorated, though I can always add more. My partner says ‘less is more’, and I’m like ‘more lights, more lights’.”

Every year, she rereads A Christmas Carol, often reading it aloud. “I read it to my partner because he loves being read to. It’s such a great way of reading. I don’t know if I’ll subject my guests to it this year,” she added.

Lucinda believes the emotional power of A Christmas Carol stems directly from Dickens’ own childhood trauma. At the age of 12, he was forced to work 10-hour days sticking labels onto bottles at Warren’s Blacking Factory after his father was imprisoned in the Marshalsea debtors’ prison.

Dickens wrote the novella in just six weeks, driven by anger and heartbreak over child poverty. The story’s message, she believes, remains deeply relevant. The transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge continues to resonate in a world marked by war, terrorism and widespread poverty.