GREAT HARWOOD DISTRICT WOMEN’S INSTITUTE

AT this month’s WI, October 10, meeting, well known speaker, Pat Osborne gave a very enlightening talk on ‘Lewis Carroll and the real Alice’.

Lewis’ real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and as well as becoming a famous author worldwide for writing the Alice stories, he was a brilliant mathematician, was very creative and a leading photographer.

Born in 1832 his love of fantasy, nonsense and mathematics was inherited from his father, a country parson who was highly qualified.

There were eleven children in the family and Charles’ parents were attentive.

He went to boarding schools from the age of 12, excelling at maths and the classics but he was not happy with the institutionalised bullying and harassment at Rugby School.

Charles was a shy, awkward young man, embarrassed by his stammer, and suffered from Tod’s syndrome (linked to migraine).

This is known as Alice in Wonderland syndrome and causes things to appear larger or smaller than they are as happens in Alice.

He matriculated from Oxford University with first class honours degrees but was much affected when his 47 year old mother died suddenly and he stayed at Christchurch for the rest of his life.

A new Dean at Christchurch, Dean Liddell invited Charles to photograph his children, one of whom was Alice and a friendship developed with the family.

In 1862 he outlined the Alice in Wonderland story to the children and Alice begged him to write it down.

Many of the characters come from people he knew such as the Dodo based on he himself stammering his own name Do-Do-Dodgson and the White Rabbitalways in a hurry based on Alice’s father rushing to a meeting.

The close relationship suddenly ended in the Summer of 1863, the Liddells never revealed the cause of the break and pages are ripped out of Charles’ diaries.

One theory is that Charles had fallen in love with Alice and her parents were not happy.

In 1865 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was published under the pen name Lewis Carroll with illustrations by Sir John Tenniel.

Pat then continued her talk covering the publication of ‘Alice through the looking glass’ and ‘The hunting of the Snark’ and Charles’ fascinating later life with many other accomplishments until his death in 1898.

She also explained what happened to Alice and to the original copy of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ which was also very interesting.

The next WI meeting in November will be the AGM.