Miss Margaret Catherine Dick, once of Madeira Hall, Bonchurch

Margaret Dick lived at Madeira Hall where she was attended upon, probably up to her death in March 1879, by Dr. James Mann Williamson who was a doctor who had come to the Royal National Hospital in 1868 and later set up practice in Ventnor in 1876. He prescribed various medication for her, whilst also remarking how she was nocturnal, going out on walks in Bonchurch and Madeira Vale in the early hours of the morning.

Margaret Dick has often been thought of as the real-life model for Miss Havisham in Charles Dickens’s novel, Great Expectations, serialised over 1860-61. However, it is likely that Miss Havisham represents a compound of people and situations with which Dicken’s became acquainted, or gained knowledge about, at different points in his life.

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