Daughter of Charles Dickens, named after his friend Charles MacReady.
As a child she was called "Lucifer Box" because of her temper.
When Dickens divorced his wife she sided with her mother and
she married the painter Charles Collins to be able to leave
home. Dickens was aware of this and blamed himself for her marriage.
Opinions differ on how much she may have loved Charles and it
is possible that the marriage was never consummated. Charles
health detoriated further and it was only in a late stage that
he was diagnosed with the stomach cancer that had caused him
pain for several years. Kate nursed him until he died in 1873.
She
probably conducted an affair with the painter Val Prinsep during
her marriage, but the year after Collins' death she married
the painter Carlo Perugini. She secretly married him on 11 Sep
1873 but they didn't live together until they married officially
on 4 Jun 1874. Perhaps she may have thought that she was pregnant
in 1873. Kate and Carlo had only one child, Leonard, who died
in infancy in 1876.
From 1877 onwards she exhibited
at the Royal Academy. She was best known for painting children
buy the whereabouts of most of her paintings are unknown. Kate
was the model for Millais' painting "The Black Brunswicker"
and Millais painted her portrait in 1880. She was also the person
who revealed Dickens' secret relationship with the actress Ellen
Ternan in "Dickens and Daughter", a book by Gladys Storey.
Family
• Father: Dickens, Charles
• Mother: Hogarth, Catherine
• Husband: Collins, Charles Allston (1860-1873, Gad's Hill Place, Kent)
• Husband: Perugini, Charles Edward (1874-1918, London: St. Paul's Church, Wilton Place, Knightsbridge)
• Brother: Dickens, Charles Culliford Boz
• Sister: Dickens, Mary
• Brother: Dickens, Alfred Tennyson
• Brother: Dickens, Henry Fielding
Related persons
• worked as a model for Millais, John
• was painted by Millais, John
• was painted by Perugini, Charles Edward
• had a love affair with Prinsep, Valentine
• was a friend of Thackeray Ritchie, Anne
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