Boot polish factory where 12-year-old Dickens was sent to work, fixing labels to bottles of blacking, to help support his family. Dickens had dreams of becoming a gentleman and was humiliated working with the rough men and boys at the factory. ... Warren's Blacking Factory was located at 30 Hungerford Stairs, the Strand.

What does a blacking warehouse make?

At the age of 12, thanks to his father's bankruptcy, Dickens found himself working in a rat-infested warehouse that produced bottles of liquid shoe polish. The work itself probably lasted for no more than a year, but it left scars on his imagination that never properly healed.

What was boot blacking made of?

"Charles Dickens in 1826 worked in a factory that made a substance called 'boot blacking,' which was pig tallow and lamp black," says Jaecks.