Although a poor boy, he was educated in the famous old Christ's Hospital School in London, but when he was ready for college he found himself barred by his stammering, stuttering tongue. Giving up his hope of further schooling, he was glad to take a small clerkship in a government office, where he remained for thirty-three years, a long period with little or no advancement.
It was in 1792, when Charles was about seventeen years of age, that he was given his clerkship, and for nearly four years he lived happily, supporting his parents and his sister in their humble home. Mary was eleven years older than Charles, a quiet gentle creature whom everybody loved, though in some respects she was peculiar. There were things, too, that troubled the family and made them reserved and inclined to be oversensitive. Not only were they very poor, but there had been insanity on the mother's side, and Charles, himself, had at one time been in brief confinement for irrational actions. Mary, too, had occasionally shown signs of madness, but no one anticipated the dreadful event which took place in 1796.

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