A Grant has allowed museum to acquire Charles Dickens' desk

The Charles Dickens Museum in London has been given a grant to buy the desk and chair where the author wrote Great Expectations, which has always been privately owned.

The desk and chair is finally on public display thanks to a £780,000 grant. They had been passed down through the Dickens family after his death in 1870, but were auctioned for the Great Ormond Street Charitable Trust in 2004.

Dickens used the desk in his final home in Gad's Hill Place in Kent. 

The furniture would have been sold at public auction if it was not for the grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF).

Made famous in two paintings begun the year he died, the Empty Chair by Luke Fildes and Dickens' Dream by RW Buss, the desk and chair are already on display at the Charles Dickens Museum at the author's former home.