Arthur Havisham

Arthur Havisham is the dying brother of Miss Havisham and a former associate of Compeyson. He appears only in Abel Magwitch’s recollection, but his brief, troubled story connects Compeyson’s criminal schemes to the history behind Miss Havisham’s betrayal and helps explain how Magwitch became bound to a more calculating partner.

Identity and Background

Magwitch identifies Arthur as a man known by that surname rather than by his Christian name. Arthur had been involved with Compeyson in a profitable fraud against a wealthy woman years earlier. By the time Magwitch encountered him, he was gravely ill, impoverished, and suffering from intense fears as his condition worsened.

Herbert Pocket later identifies the woman as Miss Havisham and confirms that the young Havisham’s name was Arthur. He also identifies Compeyson as the man who had professed to be Miss Havisham’s lover. These details establish Arthur as the family connection between Miss Havisham’s past and the criminal partnership that later draws Magwitch into Compeyson’s orbit.

Connection to Compeyson and Magwitch

Compeyson kept Arthur in a room at the top of his house near Brentford. Even while Arthur was too ill to work, Compeyson carefully recorded charges for his board and lodging, treating the arrangement as a debt that Arthur might have to repay if he recovered. Magwitch presents this accounting as part of Compeyson’s cold and exploitative character.

Magwitch says he might have taken warning from Arthur’s fate, but instead entered into partnership with Compeyson. Compeyson swore Magwitch on Magwitch’s own black Testament, the same book on which he had earlier sworn another associate. Magwitch describes the partnership as a trap: Compeyson’s greater education and craft kept Magwitch in debt, under his control, and repeatedly exposed to danger. Arthur’s story therefore serves as a warning about the unequal dealings through which Compeyson maintained power over others.

Death and Narrative Significance

In Magwitch’s account, Arthur once came downstairs in distress, saying that a woman dressed in white appeared to be in the room with him and would place a shroud over him at five in the morning. Compeyson’s wife tried to calm him and assured him that the woman had been confined elsewhere. Arthur later cried out that the figure had returned; shortly before five, he died. Magwitch relates the episode as part of Arthur’s decline and death, not as an independently verified supernatural event.

Arthur’s brief appearance carries information beyond his own fate. His connection to Miss Havisham reveals the identity of the relative who had been involved with Compeyson, while his dependence on Compeyson foreshadows the exploitation Magwitch describes in his own partnership. Through Magwitch’s retrospective testimony and Herbert’s written identification, Arthur joins two strands of the story: Miss Havisham’s broken past and the criminal history that shaped Pip’s expectations.