Jack Dawkins, nicknamed the Artful Dodger, was a British pickpocket and the leader of a gang of child criminals on the streets of Victorian London during the 1830s.
Biography[]
Dodger in 1837
Jack Dawkins was born to a working-class family in London, Middlesex, and he was taken under the wing of the master thief Bob Fagin as a young boy. Dawkins was nicknamed the "Artful Dodger" for his skill and cunning in the trade of pickpocketing, and Fagin trained him to lead his gang of child criminals based from Jacob's Island in Bermondsey. The Artful Dodger was famous for acting like an adult and wearing adult clothes that were much too large for him. In 1837, he took the runaway orphan Oliver Twist under his wing, befriending him and bringing him back to Jacob's Island to join Fagin's gang. However, he betrayed Twist by pickpocketing Joseph Brownlow and running off as Brownlow turned to Twist and accused him of being the culprit. Ultimately, Oliver was acquitted in court after Ephraim Bunitt testified to Oliver's innocence, and Brownlow decided to take in Oliver to make up for his earlier accusation. The Dodger was sent by Fagin to find out where Brownlow lived, enabling Bill Sikes and Nancy Wallis to kidnap Oliver and bring him back to the slum. A few days later, Sikes murdered Nancy after catching her attempting to return Oliver to Brownlow, and the Dodger, saddened by the death of his mother figure, was forced to flee along with the other pickpockets as an angry mob and police pursued Sikes back to Jacob's Island. The Dodger witnessed the police's shooting of Sikes and rescue of Oliver, and he took advantage of the crowd's focus on the incident to steal a wallet from a wealthy man. He then found Fagin leaving Jacob's Island, considering giving up his life of crime, but he persuaded him to continue after handing the wallet over to him. It was not long before the Dodger would be caught with a stolen silver snuff box and deported to Australia, while Fagin was hanged.
While in Australia, Dodger was seconded to the Royal Navy, becoming a navy surgeon to make use of his skilled fingers. He was decorated in the Crimean War for his medical work, and he became a physician at a hospital in Port Victory, Australia during the 1850s.