Nicholas Nickleby character

the tomb under snow of John Cuthbert Dobson, aged 9, in the furthest corner of the graveyard in Bowes, on the Yorkshire Moors (now in Co. Durham), by the A66. He lies next George Ashton Taylor, the original of Smike, companion to Nicholas Nickleby in the novel by Charles Dickens, English author. William Shaw, headmaster, is buried along with 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, carefully naming the headmaster 'Wackford Squeers'. Several children went blind through malnutrition. Dobson's pitifully correct letters to his parents survive.