144: Who was Ebenezer Scrooge?

Ebenezer Scrooge is more than just a character in a book. He is the reason many of us call a stingy person a real Scrooge without even thinking about it. His story has shaped how we talk about greed, generosity and the true spirit of Christmas for over 180 years. Welcome to the London History Podcast, where London's past comes alive in all its fog,

firelight and festivity. Today we are stepping into the counting house shadows of the city to meet one of the most unforgettable figures in Victorian fiction, Ebenezer Scrooge, the man whose very name has become a shorthand for a cold heart and a closed purse. Hi, I am Hazel Baker, host of the London History Podcast and CEO and founder of London

guidedwalks.co.uk. Scrooge may be fictional, but the world he stalks is absolutely real, rooted in the very streets, alleyways and offices of the Square Mile. Those are the same streets explored on my Christmas Carol walking tour, and that runs throughout December for both public groups and private bookings.

And yes, there's even a walk on Christmas Eve. But before we begin examining the character of Ebenezer Scrooge, there's something absolutely brilliant about Charles Dickens choice of name that deserves our attention. You see, Dickens was a master of symbolism, and he didn't choose the name Ebenezer Scrooge by accident. Every syllable carries meaning. Let's start with Ebenezer. This is a Hebrew name, Eben ha Isa, which literally means stone

of help. The word comes from 2 Hebrew roots, eben meaning stone and ASA meaning to help. In the Bible, Ebenezer refers to a memorial stone that the prophet Samuel set up after the Israelites defeated the Philistines. Samuel named it Ebenezer to commemorate God's help and deliverance, saying thus far the Lord has helped us. It's a name laden with spiritual significance, a stone of remembrance, a marker of divine aid, a symbol of salvation. And what is Dickens giving us?

A man named for help, who refuses to help anyone. A man named for a memorial to God's mercy who shows no mercy whatsoever. It's a profoundly ironic choice. Dickens is suggesting that Scrooge has forgotten what his own name means. He has turned away from everything it represents. Now Scrooge. This is where Dickens's word play becomes even more clever. Scrooge is derived from the 18th century English colloquialism, Scrooge, which means to squeeze, to press, to screw, or to crowd.

The word carries connotations of applying pressure, of extracting something from someone against their will. In fact, in 17th century landlord terminology, to screw meant to exhort rent from tenants to squeeze them for every penny. I wonder if we use that word today. Oh, this is explicit in Dickens's genius. A man whose surname literally means to squeeze into screw is a miser who squeezes every single penny and screws money from those beneath him.

When Dickens chose the name Scrooge, he was making a direct play on the existing slang for a miser. In fact, the name so effective that within less than a year of the novellas publication, Scrooge became a generic term for any stingy person. It's a word that had been waiting in the English language for the perfect character to embody. And here we have Ebenezer Scrooge, a man named for help, who squeezes and screws those

who need the help. His very name is a contradiction, and that contradiction is everything.

Now let's talk about what Scrooge actually looks like, because Dickens physical description of his character is masterful. When we first meet Scrooge, Dickens doesn't just tell us he's miserly, he shows us through his appearance. Dickens describes him as a tight fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old Sinner, hard and sharp as Flint from which no steel has ever struck out.

Generous fire, secret and self-contained and solitary as an oyster. That phrase, hard and sharp as Flint, is crucial. Flint is one of the hardest substances, impossible to shape or break. Flint is also the stone from which fire is struck. Yet Diggins tells us that no steel has ever struck generous fire from Scrooge. He's describing not just a man, but a soul from which warmth and generosity cannot be extracted. But the most vivid physical description comes in this

passage. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait, made his eyes red and his thin lips blue, and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rhyme was on his head and on his eyebrows and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him.

He iced his office in the dog days and didn't thaw it once at Christmas. Picture this man, his face frozen by an internal coldness so profound that even external warmth cannot reach him. His nose is pointed, sharp like an instrument. His cheeks are shrivelled, as if the life has been sucked from them. His thin lips are blue, the colour of frostbite or one dying from cold. His gait is stiffened, suggesting rigidity and an inability to bend OR adapt.

Even his chin is described as wiry, thin and hard as wire. And his voice is grating. It doesn't flow. It's grapes like stone on stone. What Dickens is doing here is extraordinary. He's externalizing Scrooge's internal state. That physical cold is not merely decoration, it's a manifestation of spiritual coldness. Scrooge doesn't just act coldly, He is cold from the inside out.

Dickens tells us explicitly that no warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him, no wind that blew was bitterer than he. No falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Scrooge has become indistinguishable from winter itself. He is ice embodied. The image of him icing his office in the dog days, the hottest part of the year, is both pathetic and powerful. Whilst everyone else is suffering from heat, Scrooge keeps his office frigid.

It's if he can only be comfortable when others are uncomfortable, when the world is forced to match his internal temperature. Even the frosty rhyme in his head and eyebrows suggest that Scrooge is covered in frost, that death itself clings to him. He's not just cold, he's already partially frozen, already partially dead. This is a man who is allowed the warmth of life itself to drain away. When we first encounter Scrooge in Stave 1, Dickens doesn't hold back.

He describes him as a tight fisted hand to the grindstone. The repetition are all those harsh verbs, squeezing, wrenching, grasping, screeching, clutching covenants. They create this relentless image of a man who takes and takes and never gives. But perhaps the most telling description is this. Scrooge is secret and self-contained and solitary as an oyster.

Now, that oyster metaphor is fascinating when you think about it. An oyster has a hard shell protecting them, something soft inside. It's isolated, closed off from the world. And here's the irony. Oysters actually growing clusters not alone. Even in Dickens's description of Scrooge's isolation, there's a hint that this isn't natural, that it's not how things should be. Dickens tells us that external heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry

weather chill him. It's as if Scrooge has made himself immune to feeling not just the weather, but to human warmth and connection. The pathetic fallacy here is brilliant. Scrooge has become like winter. It's stealth, cold, harsh and unyielding. He's a walking embodiment of emotional death.

Now let's talk about Scrooge's relationship with his deceased business partner, Jacob Marley. The novella opens with the famous line Marley was dead to begin with. Scrooge and Marley were partners for I don't know how many years, and when Marley died, Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole aside, his sole residency legacy, his sole friend and sole mourner. That word soul is repeated 7 times, emphasising just how isolated both men were.

And here's the kicker. Dickens tells us that Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event. Even at his partner's funeral, Scrooge solemnised it with an undoubted bargain. Their relationship wasn't built on infection or genuine friendship. It was purely transactional, purely about business.

When Marley's ghost appears up to Scrooge on Christmas Eve, wrapped in chains made of cash boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds and heavy purses wrought in steel, Scrooge tries to comfort him by saying, You're always a good man of business, Jacob. And this is where we get one of the most powerful exchanges in the entire novella. Marley's ghost cries out. Business. Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my

business. Charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were put a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business. And Mrs. Dickens's central moral argument that we have a responsibility to humanity, not just to profit. Marley warns Scrooge that he too wears chains, even heavier chains that have grown in the seven years since Marley's death. But here's what's important. Scrooge can't see his own change yet he's still blind to the

consequences of his choice. To understand who Scrooge

became, we need to look at where he came from. And this is where the character becomes truly sympathetic. When the Ghost of Christmas Past takes Scrooge back to his childhood, we see him as a solitary child neglected by his friends. The boy Scrooge spent Christmas alone at boarding school whilst all the other children went

home. Dickens shows us young Scrooge sitting alone reading books to escape his loneliness, and we learn from his sister Fan that their father is much kinder than he used to be, implying that Scrooge's father has sent him away, perhaps rejected him, and this is a childhood trauma, pure and simple. Scrooge experienced abandonment and rejection at a formative age, and the only person who showed Scrooge consistent love was his sister Fan.

She came to the boarding school to bring him home, saying joyfully, we're to be together all the Christmas long and cut merriest time in all over the world. When the older Scrooge sees this memory, he's, he's deeply moved. The ghost tells him that Fan had a large heart, and Scrooge weeps tragically. Fan died young and he's Fred's mother, Scrooge's nephew, and this is another loss, another wound. Is it any wonder that Scrooge closed himself off? He lost the one person who truly

loved him. You could argue that Scrooge's miserliness isn't about greed. It's a defence mechanism, a way to protect himself from ever being hurt again.

One of the most touching scenes in Stave 2 is when Scrooge revisits his time, has a young apprentice working for Mr. Fesiwig. Fesiwig is everything Scrooge later becomes incapable of being generous, jolly, kind to his employees. On Christmas Eve, Fezziwig shouts No war work tonight, Christmas Eve Dick, Christmas Eve Ebenezer, and throws A magnificent party for all his workers and their families. And I think we'd like to be

there too. The Ghost of Christmas Past asks Scrooge why everyone is so grateful when Fizzywig has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money. 3 or 4, perhaps. And this is where we see a crack in Scrooge's armour. He responds passionately. It isn't that spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy, to make our service light or burdensome, a pleasure or a toil. The happiness he gives is quite as great as if it cost a

fortune. In that moment, Scrooge remembers what it felt like to work for someone who valued his humanity. He begins to think about his own clerk, Bob Cratchit, shivering in a dismal little cell with a fire so small it looked like 1 coal. The contrast is stark and deliberate. Beziwig represents what Scrooge could have been, businessman who understood that true wealth lies in human connection, not gold. This is a crucial moment in understanding Scrooge's tragedy.

He once knew what kindness felt like, what generosity looked like. Yep, somewhere along the way he chose a different path. The memory of Fezziwig's generosity then becomes almost unbearable for Scrooge to witness because it reminds him of the man he abandoned. Perhaps the most devastating relationship in Scrooge's life is his broken engagement to bow. When we meet her in Scrooge's memories, she's ending their engagement and her words cut to the heart of who Scrooge has become.

Bell tells him Another idol has displaced me, a golden one. She explains that when they were first in love, we were both poor and content to be so, but that Scrooge has changed. His nobler aspirations have fallen away 1 by 1 until the master passion gain engrosses you and Dickens has capitalised the word gain, and that's significant. It's as if greed has become a rival God. Scrooge protests. What then? Even if I had grown so much wiser, what then?

I'm not changed towards you. But Belle knows better. She says suddenly. You are changed. Our contract is an old one. I release you with a full heart for the love of him you once were.

This is heartbreaking because Belle isn't leaving out of anger, she's leaving out of love, out of grief for the man Scrooge used to be. The ghost then shows Scrooge a later scene where Belle is happily married with children and her husband mentioned Scrooge quite alone in the world I do believe, and that is what Scrooge sacrificed for wealth, a family love connection, and he knows it. Watching this scene, Scrooge cries out, Remove me, I cannot bear it. And Belle represents that road

not taken. The life Scrooge might have led. She wasn't a woman who required wealth. She asked for nothing but his love and his presence. And in choosing money over love, Scrooge made a choice that would haunt him for decades. Fred, Scrooge's nephew, is Fan's

son and therefore Scrooge's only living relative. Every Christmas, Fred comes to invite Scrooge to dinner, and every year Scrooge refuses. At the beginning of the story, when Fred wishes him a Merry Christmas, Uncle God save you, Scrooge responds with his famous bar humbug. When Fred asks why Scrooge is so opposed to Christmas, Scrooge launches into a tirade. Christmas time to you, but a time for paying bills without money, A time for finding yourself a year older but not an hour richer.

He even says that every idiot who goes about with many Christmas on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, buried with a stake of holic through his heart. It's violent irritory, turning symbols of celebration into weapons of content. But Fred doesn't give up.

He explains his philosophy. I've always thought of Christmas time as a a good time, a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time when men and women seem to be well content to open their shutter parts freely and to think of people below them as they really were. Fellow passengers to the grave. That phrase fellow passengers to the grave is beautiful. It suggests that we're all in this together, all heading to

the same destination. It's a profoundly democratic sentiment in an era of rigid class hierarchy. Fred even asks Scrooge, I want nothing from you, I ask nothing of you, why cannot we be friends? But Scrooge keeps saying good afternoon until Fred leaves, his warmth and generosity rejected by his uncle's coldness. Why does Scrooge reject Fred so completely? Some scholars suggest that Fred reminds Scrooge of his beloved sister Fan, who's death still pains him.

Rather than embrace the last connection to the person he loved most, Scrooge pushes Fred away. And another act of self protection, another wall built to keep the world at a distance. And that might be true in the beginning, in the first years of the invites, but I think by now he has painted himself into a corner and he just doesn't know how to get out. Now let's tackle 1 of Scrooge's

most notorious statements. When 2 charity collectors come to his office asking for donations to help the poor at Christmas, Scrooge asks coldly. Are there new prisons and the union workhouses? Are they still in operation? When the gentleman explained that many can't go there and many would rather die, Scrooge delivers this chilling response. If they would rather die, they had better do it and decrease

the surplus population. The phrase surplus population comes from Thomas Maltus, an economist who argued that population growth would outstrip food supply and that poverty and death were natural checks in overpopulation. Dickens despised this philosophy. By putting these words in Scrooge's mouth, he's critiquing the heartless economic theories of his time.

What's crucial to understand is that in Victorian England, workhouses were generally horrific places, and I do cover this more in my previous episode 143 of the Twists London in 1861. Bearing in mind A Christmas Carol is written in 1843. But this gives you an idea. In 186135 thousand children under 12 lived and worked in workhouses in Britain, and these are under brutal conditions, poor food, harsh discipline, hard labour.

When Scrooge suggests that the poor should go to prisons or workhouses, he's essentially saying that they should be punished for their poverty. It's a grotesque moral inversion. The poor are not the problem, the system is. But here's what's important. Dickens isn't letting us simply hate Scrooge for this. Later, when the ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge the dying Tiny Tim, the ghost throws Scrooge's words back at

him. If he'd be like to die, he'd better do it and decrease the surplus population. And Scrooge is overcome with penitence and grief. He finally understands that the surplus population he spoke of so dismissively represents real people. People like Tiny Tim, innocent children who deserve compassion, not contempt. And that leads us to Bob

Cratchit, who works in Scrooge's office in what's described as a dismal little cell, the metaphor of a cell suggesting imprisonment. And Bob is trapped in this job because he needs it to survive, even though Scrooge treats him terribly on Christmas Eve. When Bob asks for the day off, Scrooge grudgingly agrees, but says you'll want all day tomorrow. I suppose if if quite convenient, Sir. It's not convenient and it's not

fair. He calls it a poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every 25th of December. The calculation is cruel. He's suggesting that giving Bob Christmas Day off is somehow A to him, a deprivation of his earnings. Scrooge keeps Bob's far so small that it looked like one call, and when Bob tries to add more coal, Scrooge threatens him with dismissal. Bob earns 15 shillings a week and has a wife and family barely

enough to survive. He's trapped in an economic system where his employer holds all the power, and he has no choice but to endure Scrooge's abuse. Yep. Despite this treatment, Bob remains loyal and humble. On Christmas Day, when his family is enjoying their meagre feast, Bob proposes a toast. I'll give you Mr. Scrooge, the founder of the Beast. His wife objects under the feast. Indeed, I wish I had him here. I'll give him a piece of my mind

to feast upon. But Bob insists on being generous, even to the man who exploits him, showing his gentle, forgiving nature. When Scrooge visits the Crutchet's home with the Ghost of Christmas Present, he sees what his miserliness has cost. Tiny Tim, Bob's disabled son, is dying because the family can't afford proper medical care. Bob carries Tiny Tim on his shoulder. The boy is too weak to walk. After the three spirits show

Scrooge his past, present, and future, he undergoes a complete transformation. When he wakes on Christmas morning, he's literally a different person. He cries out. I am light as a further I am as happy as an Angel. I am as merry as a schoolboy. The repetition of similes emphasises his joy. He feels reborn, as if the weight of decades has been lifted from his shoulders. And crucially, Scrooge doesn't feel different. He acts different.

He immediately buys the biggest Turkey he can find and sends it anonymously to the Cratchit. He gives a generous donation to the charity collectors he'd spurned the day before. He goes to Fred's Christmas dinner, where he's welcomed warmly despite his previous rejection. For the first time in years, Scrooge belongs somewhere, is

part of a family. The next day, when Bob arrives late to work, terrified of losing his job, Scrooge pretends to be angry, then breaks into laughter and says, Oh Merry Christmas Bob, a merry a Christmas. Bob, my good fellow that I'd given you for many a year, I'll raise your summary and endeavour to insist your struggling family. He becomes like a second father to Tiny Tim, ensuring the boy receives the medical care he

needs. Dickens ends by telling us that Scrooge was better than his word, meaning he exceeded even his own promises of generosity. And the final words of the novella? A Tiny Tim's blessing. God bless us everyone. A message of universal love and inclusion that represents everything Scrooge has learnt. Now here's the thing. When when we look at Scrooge's full character arc, he's simply not a villain. He is a traumatised child who grew up into a wounded adult.

He's experienced abandonment, loss, rejection and grief. His obsession with money wasn't about greed. It was about control, about building walls so thick that no one could ever hurt him again. His very name, Ebenezer, Heart of help Scrooge to squeeze, captures the paradox. He could be a helper, a stone upon which others might lean, but instead he chooses to squeeze and screw everyone around him. Belle understood this.

She didn't say Scrooge was evil. She said that he had changed, that he feared the world too much. That fear drove him to seek security in gold rather than human connection. When she released him, she did so with a full heart. For the love of him, you once were acknowledging that somewhere inside there was a man capable of love. Jacob Marley's ghost tells Scrooge that he still has a chance.

And like Marley, who only realised his mistakes after death, the three spirits don't punish Scrooge. They educate him. They show him the truth of this life, where he came from, what he's become and where he's heading. And here's what makes the story so powerful. Scrooge changes not because he's forced to, but because he chooses to.

When he sees that his choices have real consequences, that Tiny Tim will die, that he himself will be forgotten and unmourned, he's generally overcome with penitence and grief. He wants to be better. The transformation is complete and sincere. Scrooge doesn't just through the motions, he's generally opens his heart. He reconnects with his family, shows compassion to his employee, helps the poor, and becomes a beloved figure in his community.

The oyster shelf finally cracks open, revealing the Pearl inside the good person Scrooge could have been all along.

Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol in 1843, at the height of England's Industrial Revolution. It was a time when economic theories valued profit over people, when workhouses imprison the poor and when inequality was vast. Dickens wrote this story as a social commentary, a critique of a system that saw human beings as surplus population rather than fellow passengers to the grave. But the story endures because

it's ultimately about hope. It tells us that no one is beyond redemption, that it's never too late to change. Scrooge isn't damned for his past. He's given a chance to rewrite his future. This is a radical message, especially for a society that believed in strict moral hierarchies and permanent class divisions. The character of Scrooge reminds us that cruelty and coldness often come from pain. That doesn't excuse his behaviour.

Dickens is clear that Scrooge's treatment of others is wrong, but it helps us understand it. And understanding creates compassion, which is precisely what Scrooge learns to feel. Who was Ebenezer Scrooge? He's a man that had been hurt, who built walls to protect himself, who forgot how to connect with others. He was a man whose name meant stone of help, but became a tool for extraction and pain. His physical appearance was the outward expression of inward

spiritual death. But he was also a man of profound change. He's proof that our past doesn't have to define our futures, and we can always choose differently. And his frozen heart, his hard, sharpest front soul, could thaw again and learn to feel with warmth, generosity and love. As Jacob Marley's ghost says, mankind was my business. And that's the lesson at the heart of A Christmas Carol. We are all responsible for one another. We are all, as Fred says, fellow

passengers to the grave. And if Ebenezer Scrooge, the hardest, coldest man in all of London, can learn that lesson, then perhaps there's hope for us all.

Now, if this episode has sparked your curiosity about Dickens's London, then buy yourself a ticket to join me on one of my public walks of A Christmas Carol. Or why not treat the family to a private tour? These walks are designed to bring the novella to life by exploring the actual streets and alleyways where Dickens set this haunting tale. These walks offer more than just literary connections, they provide insight into social and political landscape of Dickens's time.

That alloys you walk through are the same ones where Victorian Londoners wheezing their way through, beating their hands upon their chests and stamped their feet upon the pavement stones to warm themselves in the winter cold, just as Dickens described in the opening of the novella. Thank you for joining me today on the London History Podcast. I hope this luck into Ebenezer Scrooge has given you a new appreciation of 1 of literature's most complex

characters. A man defined by the meanings hidden in his name, written across his frozen face, yet ultimately redeemed by the choice to change. If you're a fan of A Christmas Carol, then you may enjoy episode 127, Archie's journey through Dickens's London. That's a short story about a little orphan named Archie set against the backdrop of the City of London during Christmas of 1843, and perhaps Scrooge himself may make an appearance.

Other Christmas Eve podcast episodes you may enjoy include Episode 34, London's Old Shops, Food and Drink edition that includes Fortnum and Mason, Episode 35 A Tudor Christmas. Episode 74 Christmas in Post War London looking at the start of the iconic Christmas lights in the West End. Episode 75 The Christmas cracker, a Victorian invention, Episode 98 Christmas puddings through history, Episode 99 Royal Christmas speech, a modern tradition and episode 100

Christmas words. Find out where they came from. If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe, leave a review and share it with fellow history and literature lovers. If you're in London during the Christmas season, consider joining me for one of our guided walks. We have A Christmas Carol, a Victorian Christmas and of course our ever popular Christmas lights in Mayfair and St. James's. Until next time, I'm Hazel Baker, and as Tiny Tim would say, God bless us everyone.