Friends of the Dickens Forum, The thread begun by Michael Allen (see below) has mutated somewhat so that the bicycling aspect has been changed and the notion of a Pickwick Club introduced. Robert Davis <[log in to unmask]> makes his claim for the Dorchester Pickwick Club, founded in 1855: (pjm) > > Dear Patrick: > > I take note of Bob Tracy's fascinating note on the Pickwick Cycling Club, > but would like to add a correction to the claim that it was the first > organization to celebrate our great author, having been founded in 1870. I > have in my possession a small archive of the Dorchester (Massachusetts) > Pickwick Club from the late 19th Century. Dorchester was the earliest, > largest and most successful Pilgrim settlement in America, dating to 1630, > one month before the founding of Boston. It was an independent town until > 1870, when it was annexed by Boston. There was an argument over who annexed > whom. It was also on Dorchester Heights on Boston Harbor, that George > Washington, on March 17, 1776, watched the British Army and Navy leave the > Boston area (celebrated as Evacuation Day). It was also, incidentally, my > home from age 3 till age 16, when I went off to college, the beneficiary of > the Stoughton Scholarship of 1720 for residents of Dorchester, a very > different place in 1929-43 than in 1720. My ties are thus close to the > lower middle class town in which I grew up. > > I hasten to point out proudly that the Dorchester Pickwick club was founded > before the American Civil war, on December 6, 1855, by a group of literary > men, mostly men of business fond of literature and debate, and limited to > 50 members. Of those 50, 22 served in the Civil War and many were killed > (see Wil > liam Dana Orcutt, "Glorious Dorchester, A Narrative History", University > Press, Cambridge, 1893, pp. 422–426; also, The New England Historical and > Genealogical Register, Vol. 22). Moreover, after the Civil War, the members > of the Dorchester Pickwick Club raised the funds to erect the Dorchester > Soldiers' Monument, completed and dedicated in 1867 on Old Meeting-House > Hill., a monument dedicated to the soldiers who had fallen, to patriotism > and to defense of religious liberty. This noble literary society, inspired > by Dickens and Samuel Pickwick lasted into the early twentieth century. > > A further aside is the "The All Around Dickens Club" was founded in Boston > in 1895 by a group of literary women, with many prominent British > Dickensians as Honorary Members. Both organizations may have, in part, > inspired the formation of the Dickens Fellowship. The Dorchester Pickwick > Club, however, long preceded the Pickwick Cycling Club. > > Bob Davis > > On Mon, Oct 19, 2015 at 2:19 PM, Patrick McCarthy <[log in to unmask] >> wrote: >> Friends of the Dickens Forum, >> >> Robert Tracy <[log in to unmask]> <[log in to unmask]> has looked >> into the Pickwick Bicycling Club >> for us: >> (pjm) >> >> >> >> Dear Friends: >> >> See Wikipedia for the Pickwick Bicycling Club, founded in >> Hackney on 22 June 1870, 13 days after Dickens's death. It is indeed the >> oldest cycling club in the world, and also the oldest organization to be >> named after Dickens.There is a photo of the six founders with their >> "Penny-farthings." Like the Pickwickians, members had and still have a club >> uniform which has changed over the years: currently they wear straw >> boaters, black and yellow striped blazers, and a black and yellow striped >> tie. Each member chooses a name from among the characters in PP, and the >> president is alway called Samuel Pickwick. The badge shows a large P, with >> a smaller B and C on either side. >> Robert Tracy >> >> >> >> Friends of the Dickens Forum, >> >> The book Michael Allen refers to was first published in 1891 and is >> described as "Personal Reminisces of >> the'Inimitable Boz' with More than a Hundred Illustrations by F.G. Kitton >> and Other Artists." It is one of those books >> we came across early in our lives, glanced at, and dismissed as trivia. >> Leave it to Michael Allen to look at it carefully >> and find an interesting and fresh detail:<[log in to unmask]> <[log in to unmask]> <[log in to unmask]> <[log in to unmask]> >> (pjm) >> >> >> Dear Patrick, >> >> >> >> I was recently looking through a rather obscure item, a newspaper report >> from the Birmingham Daily Mail in 1887, reporting on the collection of the >> Dickens enthusiast William R. Hughes, who wrote the book "A week's tramp in >> Dickens-land". Hughes collected all manner of material but the following >> reference particularly caught my eye: >> >> >> >> "Does a new work on cycling appear, it passes at once into Mr Hughes' >> possession, because of a two line reference to the person who taught Dickens >> to use a bicycle, and a mention of the fact that the first bicycling >> organisation formed was called the Pickwick Club". >> >> >> >> I can't recollect seeing any other reference to Dickens riding a bicycle. >> Indeed, I find it difficult to envisage Dickens on a bike. Can the vast >> experience of Dickens-Listers add anything more to this brief encounter? >> >> >> >> Best wishes, Michael Allen. >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >