John Keats
1795-1821

Childhood

Born the son of a stables manager from the East End of London Keats had lost both parents by the age of 14, his mother to tuberculosis. He left school shortly after her death and trained as an apothecary. He later embarked on the study of surgery but in 1816, in spite of precarious finances, he gave up medicine for poetry.

 

Enfield School