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
The Bench (Hogarth) painter, and was anxious both to distance himself once and for all from the caricaturists, and to prove both that he could capture the true nature of his subjects. Hogarth originally dedicated the print to the soldier and caricaturist George Townshend, but removed the dedication before the print was issued, fearing it would be misinterpreted; some variations on the first state of the print still show "Addressed to the Hon'ble Col. T—ns—d". Townshend was just the sort of talented amateur Hogarth despised: he used his talents as a caricaturist to attack his political opponents and gain an advantage for himself;