George Keats of Kentucky: A Life

Chronology: Events in the Life of George Keats

253 chronoLoGy Events in the Life of George Keats 1730–1816 13 October 1730 John Jennings is baptized at St. Stephen’s Church, Coleman Street, London. 1 November 1736 Alice Whalley (Jennings) is born in Doughty Pasture, Colne, Lancashire. About 1773 Thomas Keats is born (according to daughter Fanny) in Land’s End, Cornwall—a claim never verified. 4 February 1774 John Jennings leases the Swan and Hoop livery stables. 25 February 1774 John Jennings and Alice Whalley are married in St. Stephen’s. 29 June 1775 Frances Jennings is baptized at St. Stephen’s. 1784 Jennings renews the lease on the Swan and Hoop for twenty-one years. 9 October 1794 Thomas Keats and Frances Jennings are married in St. George’s Church, Hanover Square; neither family attends, and there are no witnesses. The couple moves to the Swan and Hoop Inn and Stables at 24 Pavement Row, Moorfields, on London Wall, sometime after the wedding. 31 October 1795 John Keats (JK) is born at an unconfirmed site in London. 18 December 1795 JK is baptized at St. Botolph-without-Bishopsgate. 28 February 1797 George Keats (GK) is born, perhaps above the Swan and Hoop, opposite Moorgate, where Finsbury Circus replaced Moorfields after the demolition of St. Bethlem Hospital. 254 Chronology About 1797–1799 The family moves to Craven Street, north of City Road (presently Cranwood Street in the Borough of Hackney), about a mile north of the Swan and Hoop. 1798 Georgiana Augusta Wylie (Keats) is born; the date is uncertain, but likely sometime before 26 May. 18 November 1799 Tom Keats is born. 28 April 1801 Edward Keats is born. 24 September 1801 GK is baptized at St. Leonard’s, Shoreditch, along with Tom and Edward. 1802 Jennings retires from the Swan and Hoop and moves to Ponders End, Edmonton. Thomas Keats takes over the hostelry. The infant Edward Keats dies and is buried in Bunhill Fields, City Road. 3 June 1803 Frances Mary (Fanny) Keats is born. August 1803 GK and JK enroll in Clarke’s School, Enfield. 16 April 1804 Thomas Keats dies in a riding accident and is buried at St. Stephen’s. The children stay with grandmother Alice Jennings in Ponders End during school breaks. 27 June 1804 Frances Keats marries William Rawlings at St. George’s Church. 8 March 1805 John Jennings dies at age seventy-five in Ponders End. 25 March 1805 The Swan and Hoop lease expires. 1805 Alice Jennings moves to Church Street, Edmonton, with her grandchildren. Summer 1805 Frances and Rawlings sue her brother, her mother, and the second executor of her father’s will. May 1806 Chancery verdict gives Frances Keats Rawlings a £50 annuity. By this time, she has left Rawlings, who disappears, and is living with Mr. J. Abraham in Enfield. 1808 Midgley Jennings settles John Jennings’s estate and pays Frances Keats Rawlings the annuity arrears due to her. January 1809 Midgley Jennings dies. 255 Chronology Winter 1809 Frances, who is ill with consumption and rheumatism, reconciles with her mother and returns to Alice’s home. JK nurses her while on school breaks. Midgley’s widow, Margaret Jennings, petitions the Chancery Court to receive all her husband’s capital for her children. 13 February 1810 The Chancery Court dismisses Margaret Jennings’s suit, awarding her half of Midgley’s capital. The other half eventually goes to the surviving Keats siblings (after JK’s death). Separately, £1,666 is set aside to guarantee Frances’s £50 annuity at 3 percent. 20 March 1810 Frances Keats Rawlings is buried at St. Stephen’s, having died at age thirty-five in Edmonton during the second week of March. July 1810 Alice Jennings relinquishes custody of the Keats children to guardians Richard Abbey and John Sandell. 1811 George III is declared insane; the Regency commences. September 1811 Abbey withdraws GK and JK from Clarke’s School after midsummer term. GK, age fourteen, is apprenticed to Abbey and lives in a dormitory above his tea brokerage at 4 Pancras Lane in the Poultry. JK is apprenticed to surgeon Thomas Hammond in Enfield. 1812 The War of 1812 completes America’s separation from England. 1813 Schoolmate Charles Cowden Clarke lends JK Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, kindling the eighteen-year-old Keats’s interest in poetry. 1814 JK writes his first poem. Tom leaves Clarke’s School to join George. 19 December 1814 Alice Jennings is buried at...