The who's who of Victorian England pasted on to a 7ft divider by Charles Dickens to educate an actor friend's children

The discovery of a room-dividing screen decorated by Charles Dickens with 800 images of the great and the good of the day has stunned historians.

It is believed to have been created in 1850 by Victorian novelist Dickens and his actor friend William Macready to educate the thespian's children and is a Who's Who of famous people from the 19th century.

It includes images of the Duke of Wellington, Napoleon, Isaac Newton, Admiral Nelson, William Blake, Mozart, George III, Byron, John Swift, Samuel Butler, William Hogarth and George Washington.

Scenes from Shakespeare plays like Henry VIII were also stuck onto the screen by the two friends who spent hours gluing etchings and prints to the 7ft tall divider at the actor's home

A burn hole caused by a candle shows how someone in the past had been closely looking at it during the night....