For millions around the world, the ultimate festive tale is A Christmas Carol.
Be it in written form from the pen of Charles Dickens himself or acted out by Jim Henson’s muppet friends, it has delighted, terrified and pulled the heartstrings of people since its initial release in 1843. It tells the tale of Ebenezer Scrooge who, on Christmas Eve, is visited by his dead business partner Jacob Marley who foretells the approach of the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come, changing his life forever as he leaves behind his miserly life and redeems himself in the eyes of the world. God bless us, everyone, as Tiny Tim would say.
But who was Scrooge? In the book he is a moneylender, described by Dickens as “"a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner” who underpays his staff, detests Christmas and says “Bah, humbug” a lot.
In reality, it is believed among many the old miser was based upon a real person. John Elwes was an MP for Berkshire between 1772 and 1784. He was renowned as a penny-pincher who immediately went to bed as soon as it got dark to save on candles and would eat meat way past its best to avoid buying new food. One guest who shared a meal with him described how he would buy a carcass and feast on it “to the last stage of putrefaction, meat that walked about on his plate.”
Far from the suits and outfits worn by today’s MPs, he wore ragged clothes which were so worn and dirty some believed he was a beggar and would drop pennies in his hands as he walked along as he refused to pay for any kind of transport. When he died in 1789 aged 75 he left a fortune of half a million pounds - in today’s money it would be worth a staggering £40 million.
Dickens is said to have been obsessed with the MP’s way of life - to have been so wealthy he could have had anything in life and yet chose to distance himself from any kind of pleasure. He even featured by name in another of the great author’s works, in 1865’s Our Mutual Friend.
Incredibly, his miserliness ran in the family. His mother and grandmother also shared his penny-pinching ways, as well as his uncle Sir Harvey Alwes.
However this is where the distinctiveness between himself and Ebenezer Scrooge comes to an end. John Elwes had no need to be scared witless by the visit of three spirits on Christmas Eve night. Hr was known as a loyal friend and a good man. English journalist and playwright Edward Topham said of him: “His public character lives after him pure and without stain. In his private life he was chiefly an enemy to himself. To others he lent much; to himself he denied everything.”