Place    From 1559 

Poets' Corner

Categories: Literature

The popular name for the south transept of Westminster Abbey. Geoffrey Chaucer was the first person to be interred here, although it was for his position as Clerk of Works to the Palace of Westminster, rather than for literary merit. It wasn't until the burial of Edmund Spenser that the tradition began. The name was supposed to have been coined by Oliver Goldsmith. Nowadays occupants are commemorated with a wall or floor tablet rather than actual interment.

Credit for this entry to: Alan Patient of www.plaquesoflondon.co.uk

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This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Poets' Corner

Commemorated ati

Robert Browning - W8

Robert Browning lived in this house 1887 - 1889, from here his body was taken...

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Other Subjects

Ford Madox Ford

Ford Madox Ford

Born Surrey as Ford Hermann Hueffer, of an English mother and German father, Francis Heuffer. Grew up in Pre-Raphaelite circles. On the death of their father in 1889 Ford and his brother went to li...

Person, Literature, France, Germany, USA

1 memorial
Sir Leslie Stephen

Sir Leslie Stephen

Scholar, writer and mountaineer. Born in Kensington Gore, (now 42 Hyde Park Gate). Father of Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf. He became an Anglican clergyman but later renounced his religious belie...

Person, Literature, Sport / Games, Switzerland

1 memorial
Samuel Augustine Courtauld

Samuel Augustine Courtauld

Philanthropist and editor. Associated with Halstead, Braintree.  Almost certainly related to Samuel Courtauld of Institute fame but we cannot discover how.

Person, Literature, Philanthropy

1 memorial
Flower Fairy Books

Flower Fairy Books

A series of books created by the illusrator Cicely Mary Barker. The first one was published in 1923

Fiction, Art, Literature

1 memorial
D. H. Lawrence

D. H. Lawrence

Novelist and poet (also painter). Born Eastwood, Nottinghamshire. Died Vence, France. Novels include: Lady Chatterley's Lover, Sons and Lovers, Women in Love.

Person, Literature, Seriously Famous, France

2 memorials

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Henry Bursill

Henry Bursill

Bursill also sculpted the allegorical statues on Holborn bridge and seems to be the same man who produced a book on hand shadows in 1851. See Speel for some more info on Bursill.

Person, Sculpture

3 memorials
Lilian Faithfull

Lilian Faithfull

English teacher, headmistress, women's rights advocate, magistrate, social worker and humanitarian. Born Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, she graduated with a first in English at Oxford University in 188...

Person, Education, Gender Issues, Social Welfare

1 memorial