Episode 144: Who Was Ebeneezer Scrooge?

Host: Hazel Baker

Hazel is an active Londoner, a keen theatre-goer and qualified  CIGA London tour guide.

She has won awards for tour guiding and is proud to be involved with some great organisations. She is a freeman of the Worshipful Company of Marketors and am an honorary member of The Leaders Council.

Channel 5’s Walking Wartime Britain(Episode 3) and Yesterday Channel’s The Architecture the Railways Built (Series 3, Episode 7). Het Rampjaar 1672, Afl. 2: Vijand Engeland and Arte.fr Invitation au Voyage, À Chelsea, une femme qui trompe énormément.

Related Podcast Episodes:

Other Christmassy podcast episodes you may enjoy include: 

Episode 34: London’s Old Shops – Food and Drink

Episode 35: A Tudor Christmas

Episode 74: Christmas in Post War London

Episode 75: The Christmas Cracker – A Victorian Invention

Episode 98. Christmas Puddings Through History

Episode 99. Royal Christmas Speech – a modern tradition

Episode 100. Christmas Words

Transcript:

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 shorthand for a cold heart and a closed purse.

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 A Christmas Carol walking tour in London, which runs throughout December for both public groups and private bookings – yes, including one on Christmas Eve.

But before we even begin examining his character, there’s something absolutely brilliant about 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.

The Weight of His Name: “Ebenezer” and “Scrooge”

Let’s start with “Ebenezer.” This is a Hebrew name—*Eben ha-Ezer*—which literally means “stone of help.” The word comes from two Hebrew roots: *eben*, meaning “stone,” and *ezer*, 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’ wordplay becomes even more clever. “Scrooge” is derived from the eighteenth-century English colloquialism *scrouge*, 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 seventeenth-century landlord terminology, “to screw” meant to extort rent from tenants—to squeeze them for every penny.

This is explicit in Dickens’ genius: a man whose surname literally means “to squeeze” and “to screw” is a miser who squeezes every 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 was so effective that within less than a year of the novella’s 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 it.

So here we have Ebenezer Scrooge: a man named for “help” who squeezes and screws those who need help. His very name is a contradiction—and that contradiction is everything.

The Physical Manifestation of Spiritual Cold: “Hard and Sharp as Flint”

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 had 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 Dickens 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, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime 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 one degree at Christmas.”

Picture this man: his face frozen by an internal coldness so profound that even external warmth cannot reach it. His nose is pointed—sharp, like an instrument. His cheeks are shrivelled, as if the life has been sucked from them. His lips are blue—the colour of frostbite, of 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 scrapes like stone on stone.

What Dickens is doing here is extraordinary: he’s externalising Scrooge’s internal state. The 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 summer) is both pathetic and powerful. Whilst everyone else is suffering from heat, Scrooge keeps his office frigid. It’s as if he can only be comfortable when others are uncomfortable, when the world is forced to match his internal temperature. 

Even the “frosty rime” on his head and eyebrows suggests 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 has allowed the warmth of life itself to drain away.

 The Man We Meet: “Solitary as an Oyster”

When we first encounter Scrooge in Stave One, Dickens doesn’t hold back. He describes him as “a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!” The repetition of all those harsh verbs—squeezing, wrenching, grasping—creates 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 something soft inside. It’s isolated, closed off from the world. And here’s the irony—oysters actually grow in clusters, not alone. So even in Dickens’ 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 to the weather, but to human warmth and connection. The pathetic fallacy here is brilliant: Scrooge has become like winter itself, cold and harsh and unyielding. He’s a walking embodiment of emotional death.

 Scrooge the Businessman: “Mankind Was My Business”

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 assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner.”

That word “sole” is repeated seven 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 affection or genuine friendship—it was purely transactional, purely about business.

When Marley’s ghost appears 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 himself by saying, “But you were 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 but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

This is Dickens’ 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 chains yet. He’s still blind to the consequences of his choices.

The Wounded Child: Understanding Scrooge’s Past

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 had sent him away, perhaps rejected him. This is childhood trauma, pure and simple. Scrooge experienced abandonment and rejection at a formative age.

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 have the merriest time in all the World.” When the older Scrooge sees this memory, he’s deeply moved. The ghost tells him that Fan “had a large heart,” and Scrooge weeps.

Tragically, Fan died young—she’s Fred’s mother, Scrooge’s nephew. 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.

Scrooge and Fezziwig: The Employer He Could Have Been

One of the most touching scenes in Stave Two is when Scrooge revisits his time as a young apprentice working for Mr. Fezziwig. Fezziwig is everything Scrooge later becomes incapable of being: generous, jolly, kind to his employees. On Christmas Eve, Fezziwig shouts, “No more work to-night. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer!” and throws a magnificent party for all his workers and their families.

The Ghost of Christmas Past asks Scrooge why everyone is so grateful when Fezziwig “has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money: three or four 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 this 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 one coal.” The contrast is stark and deliberate. Fezziwig represents what Scrooge could have been—a 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. Yet 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.

The Loss of Love: Belle’s Heartbreaking Goodbye

Perhaps the most devastating relationship in Scrooge’s life is his broken engagement to Belle. 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.

Belle tells him: “Another idol has displaced me… a golden one.” She explains that when they first fell in love, “we were both poor and content to be so,” but that Scrooge has changed. His “nobler aspirations” have fallen away “one by one, until the master passion, Gain, engrosses you.” That capitalisation of “Gain” is significant—it’s as if greed has become a rival lover.

Scrooge protests: “What then? Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then? I am not changed towards you.” But Belle knows better. She says sadly, “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 mentions Scrooge: “Quite alone in the world, I do believe.” This 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!”

Belle represents the road not taken, the life Scrooge might have had. She wasn’t a woman who required wealth—she asked for nothing but his love and his presence. In choosing money over love, Scrooge made a choice that would haunt him for decades.

Scrooge and His Nephew Fred: The Family Connection He Rejects

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 “Bah! Humbug!”

When Fred asks why Scrooge is so opposed to Christmas, Scrooge launches into a tirade: “What’s 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 ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.” It’s violent imagery, turning symbols of celebration into weapons of contempt.

But Fred doesn’t give up. He explains his philosophy: “I have always thought of Christmas time… as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time… when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if 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 just 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, whose death still pains him. Rather than embrace the last connection to the person he loved most, Scrooge pushes Fred away—another act of self-protection, another wall built to keep the world at a distance. I think he has painted himself into a corner and doesn’t know how to get out.

 The Poor and the “Surplus Population”

Now let’s tackle one of Scrooge’s most notorious statements. When two charity collectors come to his office asking for donations to help the poor at Christmas, Scrooge asks coldly: “Are there no prisons? And the Union workhouses? Are they still in operation?”

When the gentlemen explain 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.”

This phrase “surplus population” comes from Thomas Malthus, an economist who argued that population growth would outstrip food supply, and that poverty and death were natural checks on 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 genuinely horrific places. In 1861, 35,000 children under twelve lived and worked in workhouses in Britain 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 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 own words back at him: “If he be like to die, he had 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.

 

Bob Cratchit: The Employee Scrooge Mistreats

Bob Cratchit works in Scrooge’s office in what’s described as “a dismal little cell.” The metaphor of a “cell” suggests imprisonment—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 to-morrow, I suppose? 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 twenty-fifth of December.” The calculation is cruel: he’s suggesting that giving Bob Christmas Day off is somehow a theft from him, a deprivation of his earnings.

Scrooge keeps Bob’s fire so small that “it looked like one coal,” and when Bob tries to add more coal, Scrooge threatens him with dismissal. Bob earns “fifteen 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.

Yet 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 Feast!” His wife objects—”The Founder of the Feast indeed! I wish I had him here. I’d 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 Cratchit 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. Tim says hopefully, “God bless us, every one!”—a phrase that becomes the moral heart of the entire story, suggesting that even in the face of poverty and suffering, there is grace and blessing to be found.

 Scrooge’s Transformation: “I Am Not the Man I Was”

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 as light as a feather, 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 just feel different—he acts different. He immediately buys the biggest turkey he can find and sends it anonymously to the Cratchits. 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, “A merry Christmas, Bob! A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you for many a year! I’ll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist 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 are Tiny Tim’s blessing: “God bless Us, Every One!”—a message of universal love and inclusion that represents everything Scrooge has learned.

The Deeper Truth: Scrooge Isn’t Simply Evil

So here’s the thing: when we look at Scrooge’s full character arc, he’s not simply a villain. He’s a traumatised child who grew into a wounded adult. He 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 hurt him again.

His very name—Ebenezer “Stone of Help” Scrooge “to squeeze”—captures this paradox. He should be a helper, a stone upon which others might lean, but instead he squeezes and screws everyone around him. His harsh, frozen features, his pointed nose, his shrivelled cheeks, his blue lips, his wiry chin—all of these are physical manifestations of a soul that has frozen itself against feeling.

Belle understood this. She didn’t say Scrooge was evil—she said he had “changed,” that he “feared the world too much.” That fear drove him to seek security in gold rather than in 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 the miser was a man capable of love.

Jacob Marley’s ghost tells Scrooge he still has a chance—unlike Marley, who only realised his mistakes after death. The three spirits don’t punish Scrooge; they educate him. They show him the truth about his 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 genuinely overcome with “penitence and grief.” He wants to be better.

The transformation is complete and sincere. Scrooge doesn’t just go through the motions—he genuinely 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 shell” finally cracks open, revealing the pearl inside—the good person Scrooge could have been all along.

**

Why This Story Still Matters

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 imprisoned the poor, and when inequality was vast. Dickens wrote this story as social commentary—a critique of a system that saw human beings as “surplus population” rather than as “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.

In the end, who was Ebenezer Scrooge? He was a man who had been hurt, who built walls to protect himself, who forgot how to connect with others. He was a man whose name means “stone of help” but who became a tool for extraction and pain. His physical appearance—frozen, sharp, pointed—was the outward expression of an inward spiritual death. But he was also a man capable of profound change. He’s proof that our past doesn’t have to define our future, that we can always choose differently. And his frozen heart—his “hard and sharp as flint” soul—could thaw again and learn to feel warmth, generosity, and love.

As Jacob Marley’s ghost says, “Mankind was my business.” 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 heart in all of London—could learn that lesson, could transform from a man whose name means “stone of help” into someone who actually *becomes* a help to others, then perhaps there’s hope for all of us.

Exploring Scrooge’s London: A Guided Walk Through the City

Now, if this episode has sparked your curiosity about Dickens’ London, buy yourself a ticket to join one of my public walks of “A Christmas Carol” or 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 locations; they provide insight into the social and political landscape of Dickens’s time. The alleyways you walk through are the same ones where Victorian Londoners “wheezing their way through” beat their hands upon their breasts and stamped their feet upon the pavement stones to warm themselves in the winter cold, just as Dickens describes at the opening of the novella.

Thank you for joining me today on the London History Podcast. I hope this look into Ebenezer Scrooge has given you a new appreciation for one 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 are a fan of A Christmas Carol then you may enjoy episode 127: Archie’s Journey Through Dickens’ London – a short story about a little orphan named Archie, set against the backdrop of the City of London during Christmas season 1843. And perhaps, Scrooge himself makes an appearance.

Episode 127: Archie’s Journey Through Dickens’ London

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with fellow history and literature lovers. And if you’re in London during the Christmas season, consider joining me for one of our guided walks through the City where Scrooge’s story unfolds.

Until next time, I’m Hazel Baker, and as Tiny Tim would say: God bless us, everyone.