Keats Place

Keats Place runs off Tiverton Crescent in Whalers Gate and was formed by Beazley Homes Limited in the late 1970s. Kipling Drive and Byron Place were created at the same time, both streets named after famous British writers.

The English Romantic poet John Keats, whose surname derives from the Ole English word “cyta” meaning kite (bird of prey), was born in London in 1795. His parents were both dead by the time he was 14 and Keats was apprenticed to a surgeon, but he gave up his medical studies in 1816 to pursue literary ambitions, publishing his first volume of poetry the next year. His 54 poems and three novels were not particularly well received during his lifetime but his fame blossomed after his tragic death from tuberculosis at the age of just 25 and by the end of the century he was regarded as one of the greatest lyric poets in English.

There is a crater on Mercury named after Keats as well as at least eight other streets around New Zealand, although the poet never visited this country. His connection to New Plymouth was stronger than most places, however, as his close friend Charles Armitage Brown (1787-1842) immigrated to Taranaki on the ship Oriental in 1841. A shareholder in the Plymouth Company, Brown had shared a house with Keats when the two were young men and even collaborated with him on a play. As Keats lay dying, Brown paid his bills and handled all his correspondence. Brown himself died less than a year after arriving in New Plymouth, and his descendants inherited all sorts of Keats memorabilia. Much has been donated to the Keats House museum (located appropriately enough on Keats Grove in London) but Puke Ariki still holds a book of Italian poetry that belonged to Keats which Brown brought with him when he emigrated.

To mark the centenary of the poet’s death in 1921, Brown’s grave, on the slope of Pūkākā/Marsland Hill, was given a new headstone inscribed “friend of Keats."

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.