John Keats Becomes an Apprentice

3 Apr

In the early 19th century many boys left school at 14 or earlier to start apprenticeships and Keats was no different. His family was middle class; his grandfather and father had run a coaching inn, the Swan and Hoop at Moorgate. Although he had a small inheritance, there wasn’t the money for him to continue boarding at the progressive Clarke’s school in Enfield studying the Latin, literature, geography, history and astronomy he loved, or attend university. He was an orphan and needed to be able to support himself and help his younger brothers George and Tom and sister Fanny.

Picture of charity school for girls opposite Thomas Hammond’s house

His father had died after a fall from his horse when Keats was 8 years old. His mother Frances had remarried but then disappeared and the Keats children were looked after by Alice Jennings, their maternal grandmother, who lived at 3 Church Street, Edmonton. In 1809, when Keats was 13, his mother returned but she was ill. The local apothecary-surgeon, Thomas Hammond, who lived two doors down, attended her. In his school holidays John nursed her, cooked for her, read her novels and administered Mr Hammond’s medicines. Frances Keats’s health deteriorated and she died in March 1810 of a decline, probably tuberculosis, which later killed Tom, then John and even George years later. When he was told of her death John hid in a hollow under his teacher’s desk. (Picture of All Saint’s Church, Edmonton)

By August of that year, age 14, John was apprenticed to Thomas Hammond to learn to be an apothecary. No one knows who suggested this, but it might have been Mr Abbey, who his grandmother had appointed as the children’s guardian, or perhaps it was even Thomas Hammond. It’s unclear whether Keats wanted to pursue this career. He might have felt forced into it or he might have been determined to study medicine and care for patients like his mother. He would be near his grandmother and sister and on his afternoon off be able to walk several miles back to Clarke’s school to see his brothers and his friend the teacher Charles Cowden Clarke and discuss literature.

Abbey paid 200 guineas from Keats’s inheritance to Hammond. Keats would have promised not to marry, gamble or visit inns or playhouses. In return Hammond was to provide instruction, food and lodging, and medicine in case of illness. Keats’s 5 year apprenticeship to be an apothecary had begun.