Mary Hogarth

Mary Hogarth
Portrait of Hogarth aged 16
Born	Mary Scott Thompson Hogarth 1819/20 Edinburgh, Scotland
Died	7 May 1837(1837-05-07) (aged 17) London, England
Known for	Sister-in-law of Charles Dickens
Relatives	Catherine Dickens (sister) Georgina Hogarth (sister) George Hogarth (father)

Mary Scott Thompson Hogarth (1819/20 – 7 May 1837) was the sister-in-law of Charles Dickens and the sister of Catherine Dickens (née Hogarth). Hogarth lived with the Dickens family for one of the 17 years of her life, and was the inspiration for a number of characters in Dickens novels.

Hogarth was the daughter of George Hogarth (1783–1870) and Georgina Hogarth née Thompson (1793–1863). She was born in Edinburgh, where her father was a legal advisor to Walter Scott, whom the young Dickens greatly admired. She was one of ten children, and was the third child, and second daughter. Hogarth was named after her grandmother. Her father George was also a music critic, cellist and composer, who worked for the Edinburgh Courant magazine. In 1830, he founded the Halifax Guardian, in 1834 he became a music critic for The Morning Chronicle newspaper in London, and in 1835 he became editor-in-chief of The Evening Chronicle, a post he held for twenty years. Mary first met Charles Dickens with her sister Catherine when she was aged 14. After Charles and Catherine Dickens married in 1836, Hogarth lived with them for a month at the Furnival's Inn in Holborn, and from March 1837, Hogarth lived with them at 48 Doughty Street.

Hogarth died suddenly at the Dickens family home aged 17 on 7 May 1837. The cause of death is believed to have been either heart failure or a stroke. She was buried on 13 May at the Kensal Green Cemetery, London. Dickens wrote the epitaph on her tombstone, which says "Young, beautiful, and good, God numbered her among his angels at the early age of seventeen". The tombstone now includes epitaphs to her brother George, and their parents Georgina, who died in 1863, and George, who died in 1870. The bedroom where Hogarth died is now part of the Charles Dickens Museum. As a result of Hogarth's death, Charles Dickens missed the publication dates for The Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist. It was the only time in his life that Dickens missed publication dates. As a reason for missing the publication dates, he wrote that "he had lost a very dear young relative to whom he was most affectionately attached, and whose society has been, for a long time, the chief solace of his labours". He wore Hogarth's ring for the rest of his life.