Martin A search on Google for "Charles Dickens Malton" brought up plenty of references. The following few paragraphs are taken from a longer article on the "This is York" website, and dated May 2002 - see http://www.thisisyork.co.uk/york/factfile/YORK_FACTFILE_HISTORYFEATURESOLD39 .html Keeping Dickens alive by Chris Titley CHARLES Dickens was in York on Friday. Cedric Charles Dickens that is, great grandson of the commanding Victorian writer. He was taking up a long-standing invitation by the Dickens Fellowship, York branch. ..... His visit, and the 100th anniversary this year of the founding of the first Dickens Fellowship, makes this a timely moment to recall the visits to North Yorkshire of the great novelist. Charles Dickens toured Britain to give readings from his books. But his connections with Yorkshire goes deeper than that. His brother, Alfred Lamert Dickens, was a railway engineer whose York employers had an office on Micklegate. He lived in Malton. So too did one of Charles Dickens' great friends, Charles Smithson. He was a lawyer whose Easthorpe Hall home lay outside the market town. While staying here, Dickens wrote several chapters of Martin Chuzzlewit. Perhaps his most famous Yorkshire connection lies in Nicholas Nickleby. Even as a young boy he had been fascinated by the tales of Yorkshire Schools - boarding institutions for unwanted boys. A court case in 1836 brought the matter to his attention again. It revealed the terrible conditions and brutal punishments suffered by the pupils. He decided to investigate. The following year he visited Bowes Academy at Greta Bridge, near Barnard Castle, run by William Shaw. What he saw inspired the infamous Dotheboys Hall in Nicholas Nickleby. Another site picked up by Google mentioned that Smithson ran the Malton Messenger (unfortunately it couldn't find the website, so I have no more info from that). It is not surprising that his brother should work in York as a railway engineer, as York was one of the major centres for railway development. (And railway engineer in this context will have the British meaning of someone who designs, builds or maintains the railways, not the driver of a train as in the USA !) Greta Bridge is on the northern border of Yorkshire and Barnard Castle is just the other side of the border, in County Durham. We exchanged e-mails recently about the SAWDON name, and the village of Brompton by Sawdon. You didn't mention the link to WINSPEAR - this is a name that occurs in Brompton by Northallerton, and I know 2 people with that name in their family tree. I'll send you their e--mail addresses off-list. Richard Thomson, in Leeds, West Yorkshire Researching STAINTHORP, TUTIN, TOES and other names in Brompton by Northallerton, North Riding, and surrounding area, BRAMHAM, COLLIER, LACY, STAINTHORP in York, and THOMSON in York and Liverpool. BASSELT/BASSETT in Sandwich,Kent to 1830 and Sunderland, Co Durham 1830-1880 SMITH (CRAMPTON SMITH) Sunderland, Co Durham 1830 - 1940 ROWELL Penshaw, Offerton, Sunderland, Co Durham 1800 - 1900 SWAN Sunderland & Gateshead, Co Durham 1800 to 1950 ROWAN, Belfast, 1850 - present