Bowes tombs, Nickleby

tomb stone of William Shaw, headmaster and his wife Bridget, in Bowes churchyard, Yorkshire moors (now in Co. Durham), by the A66. Here are buried the original of Smike, companion to Nicholas Nickleby in the novel by Charles Dickens, English author, one of 8 pupils from William Shaw's Academy, one of several schools in the area offering tuition 'without holidays' to unwanted children, often from London. Dickens made a special visit through thick snow in February 1838, and denounced the cruelty and appalling conditions in his novel, naming the headmaster 'Wackford Squeers'. Several children went blind through malnutrition. The tomb also records that Shaw's own son died, aged 24, four months before Dickens's arrival.