Timothy "Tiny Tim" Cratchit

Timothy "Tiny Tim" Cratchit is a character in the classic story A Christmas Carol by. He is the youngest son of Bob Cratchit, and he uses a crutch to get around. It is claimed that the character is based on the invalid son of a friend of Dickens who owned a cotton mill in Ardwick, Manchester.

When Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by The Ghost of Christmas Present, he is shown just how ill Tim really is, and that Tim will die unless he receives treatment. When Scrooge is visited by The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come and shown the future, all he sees of Tim is his crutch, as Tim has died. This, and several other visions, lead Scrooge to reform his ways. At the end of the story, Dickens makes it explicit that Tim did not die, and Scrooge became a "second father" to him. According to some other versions of the story, Tim Cratchit eventually gained health by Scrooge's money, and later became a successful businessman, and when Ebenezer Scrooge died, he became the only member of the Cratchit family to attend his funeral.

Dickens did not reveal in the book what Tiny Tim's illness was, but renal tubular acidosis (a type of kidney failure causing the blood to become acidic) has been proposed as one possibility, as has rickets (caused by a lack of Vitamin D).

Tiny Tim cries "God Bless Us, Every One!" at the end of the story.