Charles Armitage Brown
Encyclopedia
Lambeth
Lambeth is a district of south London, England, and part of the London Borough of Lambeth. It is situated southeast of Charing Cross.-Toponymy:...
(London) on 14 April 1787.
He was a very close friend of the poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
John Keats
John Keats
John Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...
, as well as being a friend of artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
Joseph Severn
Joseph Severn
Joseph Severn was an English portrait and subject painter and a personal friend of the famous English poet John Keats...
, Leigh Hunt, Thomas Jefferson Hogg
Thomas Jefferson Hogg
Thomas Jefferson Hogg was a British barrister and writer best known for his friendship with the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Hogg was raised in County Durham, but spent most of his life in London. He and Shelley became friends while studying at University College, Oxford, and remained close...
, Walter Savage Landor
Walter Savage Landor
Walter Savage Landor was an English writer and poet. His best known works were the prose Imaginary Conversations, and the poem Rose Aylmer, but the critical acclaim he received from contemporary poets and reviewers was not matched by public popularity...
and Edward John Trelawny
Edward John Trelawny
Edward John Trelawny was a biographer, novelist and adventurer who is best known for his friendship with the Romantic poets Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron. Trelawny was born in England to a family of modest income but extensive ancestral history...
. He was the father of Charles (Carlino) Brown
Charles Brown (Taranaki)
Charles Brown was a New Zealand politician from the Taranaki area.-Personal life:Brown was born in London, England, the illegitimate son of Charles Armitage Brown and Abigail O'Donohue, an Irish house servant at Wentworth Place where Brown and Keats resided...
, a pioneer and politician of New Plymouth
New Plymouth
New Plymouth is the major city of the Taranaki Region on the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand. It is named after Plymouth, Devon, England, from where the first English settlers migrated....
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
.
Early life
Brown had very little formal education and to a large extent was self-taught. He began a career as a merchantMerchant
A merchant is a businessperson who trades in commodities that were produced by others, in order to earn a profit.Merchants can be one of two types:# A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant...
, starting as a clerk at the age of fourteen, earning £40 per year. At eighteen he joined his brother in St. Petersburg, Russia in a fur-trading business where they were to accumulate the sum of £20,000, only to lose most of it in an unwise speculation
Speculation
In finance, speculation is a financial action that does not promise safety of the initial investment along with the return on the principal sum...
in bristles. They returned to England almost penniless, though Brown capitalized on his Russian experience by writing a comic opera, Narensky, or, The Road to Yaroslaf, which was produced at Drury Lane in January 1814, earning him ₤300 and free admission for life to this theatre.
Friendship with John Keats
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
John Keats
John Keats
John Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...
. When Charles Brown first met Keats in the late summer of 1817, Keats was twenty-one, and Brown thirty.
Shortly after their meeting, Keats and Brown were planning to see Scotland together. Their famous tour was described in their letters and in “Walks in the North.” In 1818, after Keats's brother died of consumption
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
, Keats moved into Brown’s half of Wentworth Place, taking the front parlor, where he lived for the next seventeen months. During this time Brown collaborated with Keats on a play, Otho the Great, which was not staged until the 1950s.
Around 1890 Brown's son, Charles (Carlino) Brown
Charles Brown (Taranaki)
Charles Brown was a New Zealand politician from the Taranaki area.-Personal life:Brown was born in London, England, the illegitimate son of Charles Armitage Brown and Abigail O'Donohue, an Irish house servant at Wentworth Place where Brown and Keats resided...
claimed that Brown married Abigail O'Donohue in a Roman Catholic ceremony in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
in August 1819, after Brown had left Keats at Winchester
Winchester
Winchester is a historic cathedral city and former capital city of England. It is the county town of Hampshire, in South East England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government district, and is located at the western end of the South Downs, along the course of...
. However, most biographers do not appear to believe that the marriage took place and that Carlino's story was motivated by a desire to cover up his illegitimacy, due to the social stigma
Social stigma
Social stigma is the severe disapproval of or discontent with a person on the grounds of characteristics that distinguish them from other members of a society.Almost all stigma is based on a person differing from social or cultural norms...
it would cause Carlino as a leading citizen of New Plymouth
New Plymouth
New Plymouth is the major city of the Taranaki Region on the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand. It is named after Plymouth, Devon, England, from where the first English settlers migrated....
. Also there is evidence that Brown was in Chichester
Chichester
Chichester is a cathedral city in West Sussex, within the historic County of Sussex, South-East England. It has a long history as a settlement; its Roman past and its subsequent importance in Anglo-Saxon times are only its beginnings...
while Keats was in Winchester
Winchester
Winchester is a historic cathedral city and former capital city of England. It is the county town of Hampshire, in South East England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government district, and is located at the western end of the South Downs, along the course of...
.
After a severe haemorrhage in February 1820, Keats developed tuberculosis and Brown took care of him. This included handling all his affairs, paying his bills, writing his letters, even lending him money and standing as surety for a loan to him. Although Keats appeared to recover from the initial attack and the medical advice was that his lungs were sound, Keats's health fluctuated from that time on, gradually deteriorating.
On medical advice that he could not survive the cold of another English winter, Keats travelled to Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
on 17 September 1820. Although Keats had wanted Brown to accompany him, Brown had not returned from a holiday in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
by the date of Keats's departure and so, on just over three day's notice, the artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
Joseph Severn
Joseph Severn
Joseph Severn was an English portrait and subject painter and a personal friend of the famous English poet John Keats...
agreed to accompany Keats. Ironically (and unknown to them at the time), Brown's and Keats's ships were both moored at Gravesend
Gravesend, Kent
Gravesend is a town in northwest Kent, England, on the south bank of the Thames, opposite Tilbury in Essex. It is the administrative town of the Borough of Gravesham and, because of its geographical position, has always had an important role to play in the history and communications of this part of...
on the same night as Brown returned to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and Keats departed to Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, literally ships that passed in the night.
Brown remained at Wentworth Place in Hampstead
Hampstead
Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
during Keats's final illness, writing and receiving letters from both Keats and Severn. He shared some of the contents of those letters with Keats's fiancee Fanny Brawne
Fanny Brawne
Frances Brawne Lindon is most known for her betrothal to 19th-Century English Romantic poet John Keats, a fact largely unknown until 1878, when Keats' letters to her were published...
, but did not disclose any information that he thought might upset her too much. Severn nursed Keats through his final illness until the poet's death in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
on 23 February 1821.
Move to Italy
In July 1822, Charles Armitage Brown travelled to Italy with his illegitimate son Charles (Carlino) BrownCharles Brown (Taranaki)
Charles Brown was a New Zealand politician from the Taranaki area.-Personal life:Brown was born in London, England, the illegitimate son of Charles Armitage Brown and Abigail O'Donohue, an Irish house servant at Wentworth Place where Brown and Keats resided...
. It is not clear what became of Carlino's mother Abigail.
Brown lived in Pisa
Pisa
Pisa is a city in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the right bank of the mouth of the River Arno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa...
from 1822 to around 1824, after which he moved to Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
. He published many articles in English periodicals, the best-known being "Shakespeare's Fools" in 1823. For many years he worked on his own autobiographical novel, Walter Hazlebourn, which he never finished.
In Italy he moved in with Joseph Severn
Joseph Severn
Joseph Severn was an English portrait and subject painter and a personal friend of the famous English poet John Keats...
. His friend Leigh Hunt
Leigh Hunt
James Henry Leigh Hunt , best known as Leigh Hunt, was an English critic, essayist, poet and writer.-Early life:Leigh Hunt was born at Southgate, London, where his parents had settled after leaving the USA...
was there as well, and through him Brown was introduced to Lord Byron, John Taaffe, Jr. (friend of Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, FRS , commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was a British poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement...
and Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
), Seymour Kirkup, Thomas Jefferson Hogg
Thomas Jefferson Hogg
Thomas Jefferson Hogg was a British barrister and writer best known for his friendship with the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Hogg was raised in County Durham, but spent most of his life in London. He and Shelley became friends while studying at University College, Oxford, and remained close...
, Walter Savage Landor
Walter Savage Landor
Walter Savage Landor was an English writer and poet. His best known works were the prose Imaginary Conversations, and the poem Rose Aylmer, but the critical acclaim he received from contemporary poets and reviewers was not matched by public popularity...
, and many others.
In 1829 Edward John Trelawny
Edward John Trelawny
Edward John Trelawny was a biographer, novelist and adventurer who is best known for his friendship with the Romantic poets Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron. Trelawny was born in England to a family of modest income but extensive ancestral history...
, whom Brown had met in 1823 (just before Byron had sailed to Greece) came to live with him in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
. For half the profits from its publication, Brown rewrote Trelawny’s Adventures of a Younger Son. Brown provided Trelawny with passages from Keats’s unpublished poems to be used (with others from Shelley and Byron) as chapter headings. Unfortunately this resulted in Trelawny being linked to Keats when he had actually never met him in person.
On 6 June 1834 Brown suffered an apoplectic fit in Vieusseux’s Library, Palazzo Ferroni, Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
. Fortunately, a "surgeon with a lancet and bandage in his pocket" happened to be present and immediately administered a blood-letting (the normal treatment at that time) and he appeared to sustain no permanent damage from the incident. However it should be noted that he died 8 years later from an apoplectic stroke.
Return to England
On 30 March 1835 Brown left Italy to return to England in order to provide a better education for his son CarlinoCharles Brown (Taranaki)
Charles Brown was a New Zealand politician from the Taranaki area.-Personal life:Brown was born in London, England, the illegitimate son of Charles Armitage Brown and Abigail O'Donohue, an Irish house servant at Wentworth Place where Brown and Keats resided...
, who was talented in mathematics and wished to pursue a career in civil engineering
Civil engineering
Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works like roads, bridges, canals, dams, and buildings...
. He settled in Plymouth
Plymouth
Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
.
Emigration to New Zealand
In 1840, Brown became a shareholder in the newly formed Plymouth Company, which aimed to colonise New Plymouth, New Zealand. Shortly afterwards, his finances were ruined when he was forced to repay a friend's loan having agreed to be guarantor. With what little fortune remained to him, Brown decided that they should emigrate to New Plymouth as a pioneer community would provide the best opportunities for his son CharlesCharles Brown (Taranaki)
Charles Brown was a New Zealand politician from the Taranaki area.-Personal life:Brown was born in London, England, the illegitimate son of Charles Armitage Brown and Abigail O'Donohue, an Irish house servant at Wentworth Place where Brown and Keats resided...
as a civil engineer given his limited capital. His son Charles emigrated on the "Amelia Thompson", the first settler ship of the Plymouth Company arriving in 1841 aged 17 years old. Brown followed on a second ship "Oriental" arriving 3 weeks later.
Before leaving for New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, in 1841, he turned over copies of the unpublished poems of Keats to Richard Monckton Milnes
Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton
Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton FRS was an English poet, patron of literature and politician.-Background and education:...
.
When Brown arrived in New Plymouth
New Plymouth
New Plymouth is the major city of the Taranaki Region on the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand. It is named after Plymouth, Devon, England, from where the first English settlers migrated....
, his disappointment was profound. Unlike its namesake in England, this Plymouth was wilderness, with a treacherous coast instead of a harbour. He proposed an early return to England.
His last letters from New Plymouth
New Plymouth
New Plymouth is the major city of the Taranaki Region on the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand. It is named after Plymouth, Devon, England, from where the first English settlers migrated....
, New Zealand, dated 22 and 23 January, were addressed to Joseph Severn
Joseph Severn
Joseph Severn was an English portrait and subject painter and a personal friend of the famous English poet John Keats...
and Trelawny.
Death
Charles Armitage Brown died from an apoplectic stroke on 5 June 1842 aged fifty-five at New PlymouthNew Plymouth
New Plymouth is the major city of the Taranaki Region on the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand. It is named after Plymouth, Devon, England, from where the first English settlers migrated....
.
He was buried on the slope of Marsland Hill in New Plymouth above the original St Mary's Church; the grave was marked by a slab of stone taken from the beach. However, it was obscured when the top of the hill was flattened to allow for the construction of a barracks during the New Zealand Wars. The centenary of Keats's death aroused interest in finding Brown's grave and it was successfully relocated in March 1921 and marked by a stone inscribed, "Charles Armitage Brown. mentor of poet John Keats."
Although the emigration to New Plymouth
New Plymouth
New Plymouth is the major city of the Taranaki Region on the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand. It is named after Plymouth, Devon, England, from where the first English settlers migrated....
was not successful, Brown's wish that his son Carlino
Charles Brown (Taranaki)
Charles Brown was a New Zealand politician from the Taranaki area.-Personal life:Brown was born in London, England, the illegitimate son of Charles Armitage Brown and Abigail O'Donohue, an Irish house servant at Wentworth Place where Brown and Keats resided...
(known as Charles in New Zealand) would prosper there was fulfilled, as Charles went on to become a prominent businessman, military man and politician.
The descendants of Charles Brown in New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
inherited items of John Keats
John Keats
John Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...
memorabilia and many of these have been donated to the Keats House museum
Museum
A museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...
.
Popular culture
The 2009 film Bright StarBright Star (film)
Bright Star is a 2009 film based on the last three years of the life of poet John Keats and his romantic relationship with Fanny Brawne. It stars Ben Whishaw as Keats and Abbie Cornish as Fanny...
, written and directed by Jane Campion
Jane Campion
Jane Campion is a filmmaker and screenwriter. She is one of the most internationally successful New Zealand directors, although most of her work has been made in or financed by other countries, principally Australia – where she now lives – and the United States...
, focuses on Keats's relationship with Fanny Brawne. In it, according to critic Ty Burr (The Boston Globe), Brown (played by actor Paul Schneider
Paul Schneider (actor)
Paul Andrew Schneider is an American film actor.-Early life and career:Schneider was born and raised in Asheville, North Carolina. He graduated from the North Carolina School of Arts...
) is presented as "the closest the movie comes to a villain, a cynical boor who knocks up his housemaid (Antonia Campbell-Hughes
Antonia Campbell-Hughes
Antonia Campbell-Hughes is a Northern Irish actress of English and Irish descent, best known for appearing in Jack Dee's sitcom Lead Balloon....
) and banishes Fanny so the boys can work on their plays and poems." Burr does however go on to emphasize that this portrayal of Brown's "love for Keats humanizes him... even if he loves the art more at first." Abigail O'Donohue, Brown's housemaid in the film, falls pregnant and has his child. Yet many film critics and the filmmaker herself have felt that Brown was imbued with many qualities, including loyalty and wit, and in reality there was no villain just real life humans. A new online edition of Brown's letters to Joseph Severn reveals that he was a complex figure with a tremendous capacity for friendship and loyalty.
External links
- http://ketenewplymouth.peoplesnetworknz.info/plymouth_company_settlers/topics/show/344-brown-charles-armitage
- "The Life of John Keats", Charles Armitage Brown, about 1841
- http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/person.asp?LinkID=mp06734&role=art
- http://www.futuremuseum.co.uk/Default.aspx?Id=478
- http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=KeaBrow.xml&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=1&division=div1
- http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ourstuff/Oriental41.htm
- http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/brownsevern/index.html
- http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/1966/brown-charles/1 Biography of C.A. Brown's son from the Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, 1966.