...it was on the couch that he died the following evening.
Although the Charles Dickens´ Birthplace Museum is about the house where Charles Dickens was born one of the objects on display is in fact the couch upon which he died. It was brought to museum much later. Charles Dickens died on 9th June 1870 at his home Gad’s Hill in Kent.
There are two versions of the events leading up to his death. The official version was that he was taken ill during dinner on 8th June, placed on the couch rather than risk carrying him upstairs to his bedroom and it was on the couch that he died the following evening.
However, it has been argued that he was taken ill whilst visiting his close friend, Ellen Ternan, at Peckham. This version proposes that she hired a carriage and took the unconscious Dickens to Gad’s Hill. He was carried in, placed on the couch and died the next day in the presence of members of his family.
Dickens was in the process of writing the novel ‘The Mystery of Edwin Drood’ when he died so the novel was never completed.
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