Mary Hogarth Dickens' first child was named Mary in her memory. Hogarth was the daughter of George Hogarth (1783–1870), a music critic, cellist and composer, and Georgina Hogarth Thompson (1793–1863). She was born in Edinburgh, where her father was a legal advisor to Walter Scott, whom the young Charles Dickens greatly admired. She was the fourth of ten children, and the third daughter. Hogarth was named after her paternal grandmother. The name Mary Scott had previously been given to George and Georgina's third child, born 1817 or 1818, who was an infant when she died. Mary and her sister Catherine first met
David George Hogarth Jane Elizabeth (Uppleby) Hogarth. He had a sister three years younger, Janet E. Courtney, an author and feminist. In one of his autobiographical works, Hogarth claimed to be an antiquary who was made so, rather than born to it. He said, "nothing disposed me to my trade in early years." Those years included a secondary education, 1876–1880, at Winchester College, which claims to be, and was labelled by Hogarth as, "our oldest Public School." In October 1881, Hogarth matriculated into Magdalen College, Oxford to study "Literae Humaniores". He achieved first class honours in both Mods (1882) and Greats (1885). He