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Case file s1454 · Fiction and film · 1860
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1860
HavishamFraser: Miss Havisham and Pip, in an illustration for the Household Edition of Dickens's Great Expectations.
HavishamFraser. F. A. Fraser. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.
Published
first published 1 December 1860 to August 1861 (fiction)
Place
Kent and London, England (setting)
Field
a convict's fortune; a jilted heiress's estate
Legal tradition
forfeiture of a convicted felon's property to the Crown, abolished by the Forfeiture Act 1870 · Royal and church law
Historical event
Transportation of convicts to New South Wales
Fiction and filmSecret children and false heirsBrothers and sisters in courtIndustry and empireEuropeUnited Kingdom

Fiction: a novel from 1860. The people and the estate in it are invented. It is here as an inheritance fight from popular culture.

In Great Expectations, Pip's secret fortune comes from a transported convict, and the Crown takes it when the convict is condemned

Great Expectations is a novel by Charles Dickens, serialised in All the Year Round from December 1860 to August 1861. Two inheritances drive it. Miss Havisham's father, a rich brewer, left her most of his fortune and her half-brother less. A suitor, working with the half-brother, took large sums from her and jilted her by letter at twenty minutes to nine on her wedding day; she stopped all the clocks at that hour. The orphan Pip receives a fortune from a secret benefactor. It is Magwitch, a convict Pip helped as a child, who was transported to New South Wales and made money there. Returning to England is a capital crime. When Magwitch is caught, Pip foresees that "being convicted, his possessions would be forfeited to the Crown." The lawyer Jaggers offers no way round it. Magwitch is sentenced to death and dies in prison. Pip is left in debt and is arrested over a jeweller's bill of about £123. Miss Havisham's will leaves most of her estate to Estella and £4,000 to Matthew Pocket, "Because of Pip's account of him." Parliament abolished forfeiture for felony in 1870.

What the law took from it

Money from a man who could be convicted could be taken by the state the day he was.

Sources
  1. legislation.gov.ukCourt record
  2. Project GutenbergScholarship
  3. Wikipedia (English)Encyclopedia

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “In Great Expectations, Pip's secret fortune comes from a transported convict, and the Crown takes it when the convict is condemned,” story s1454, https://www.celebrity.estate/great-expectations-1860, updated 30 October 2026.

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Where this case sits

Fiction and filmSecret children and false heirsBrothers and sisters in courtIndustry and empireEuropeRoyal and church lawUnited Kingdom