This is the only occasion the hotel has mention in the works of Dickens, and although Mr. Pickwick and his friends had no reason for being pleased with their visit to Birmingham’s old inn, the reverse can be said of Dickens himself, for on more than one occasion he had pleasant associations of his stay there.  The hotel has been rebuilt, but the picture shows it as it was in Mr. Pickwick’s day.

Dickens visited Birmingham some dozen times from 1840 to 1870, and on most of the early occasions it is believed he stayed at the Old Royal Hotel.  On January 6, 1853, Dickens was presented with a silver “Iliad” salver and a diamond ring by the people of Birmingham in grateful acknowledgment of his “varied and well-applied talents.”  After the presentation the company adjourned to the Old Royal Hotel (then Dee’s Hotel), where a banquet took place with the Mayor, Henry Hawkes, in the chair, and Peter Hollins, the sculptor, in the vice-chair.

The company numbered 218, and the event is notable as the occasion on which Dickens made a promise to give, in aid of the Birmingham and Midland Institute, his first public reading from his books.

“It would take about two hours,” he said, “with a pause of ten minutes about half-way through.  There would be some novelty in the thing, as I have never done it in public, though I have in private, and (if I may say so) with great effect on the hearers.”

That was a notable event in Dickens’s life, for it is well known what followed from that initial public recital; and the place where the step was taken naturally becomes a landmark in his life; and so the Old Royal Hotel, Birmingham, if for no other reason, claims to be remembered as a notable and important one in Dickens annals.

CHAPTER XVI

Coventry, DUNCHUBCH, and Daventry inns,
and the “Saracen’s head,” Towcester

Continuing their journey, the Pickwickians duly reached Coventry.  The inn, however, where the post-chaise stopped to change horses is not mentioned by name, but may have been the Castle Hotel there; at any rate, the “Castle” has a Dickensian interest, for it was here that a public dinner was given to Dickens in December, 1858, when he was presented with a gold repeater watch of special construction as a mark of gratitude for his reading of the Christmas Carol, given a year previously in aid of the funds of the Coventry Institute.  The hotel was, at the time the Pickwickians arrived there, a posting inn of repute.  From Coventry Sam Weller beguiled the time with anecdotes until they reached Dunchurch, “where a dry postboy and fresh horses were procured”; the next stage was Daventry, and in neither case is the name of an inn mentioned or hinted at.

At the end of each stage it rained harder than ever, with the result that when they pulled up at the “Saracen’s Head,” Towcester, they were in a disconsolate state.  Bob Sawyer’s apparel, we are told, “shone so with the wet that it might have been mistaken for a full suit of prepared oilskin.”  In these circumstances, and on the recommendation of the wise Sam, the party decided to stop the night.