Person    | Male  Born 7/5/1812  Died 12/12/1889

Robert Browning

Categories: Poetry, Seriously Famous

Countries: Italy

Poet and playwright. Born Camberwell. His works include ‘Home Thoughts from Abroad’ and ‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin’. He fell in love with Elizabeth Barrett and married her secretly because of her father’s disapproval. They escaped to Italy. Browning died Palazzo Rezzonico, Venice and is buried in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey.

Browning's homes in London are remarkably well plaqued. Chronologically they should be visited: SE5, SE14, *, W2, W8. The * represents a plaque gap, 1846 - 1862, which is the period that the Brownings were on the Continent. When Elizabeth died, Browning returned to London with their son, Pen. In 1866 Browning's sister, Sarianna, came to keep house for him and stayed for the rest of his life. The W2 house, which was rented, developed defects and that prompted Browning to buy the W8 house. Pen married a rich American and lived in Venice in Palazzo Rezzonico, where Browning was visiting when he died.

From Londonist's Secrets of London's Canals we learnt that it was Browning that, having just returned from Italy, named the canals near his W2 home 'Little Venice' and the triangle of water there is know as Browning's Pool.

Fun fact: Robert Browning was not as well-versed in vulgar slang as he needed to be. He misread a bawdy 17th century reference to an “Old Nun’s Twat” as referring to part of a nun’s habit, and so he went on to innocently use “twat” in his poem Pippa Passes:
“Then, owls and bats,
Cowls and twats,
Monks and nuns, in a cloister’s moods,
Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry!”

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

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Robert Browning

Commemorated ati

Robert Browning - SE14

The cottage was 'Telegraph Cottage' which Browning described as "resembling a...

Read More

Robert Browning - SE5

{Beneath a silhouette:}  Robert Browning poet, born Camberwell 1812, lived on...

Read More

Robert Browning - W2 sculpture

2015: The attribution of this work, ‘Two Doves’, to William Mitchell is being...

Read More

Robert Browning - W2 Westminster plaque

He lived at what was number 19 Warwick Crescent.

Read More

Robert Browning - W8

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

Read More

This section lists the memorials created by the subject on this page:
Robert Browning

Creations i

Robert Browning Settlement

The quotation is from Browning's poem 'Saul': "I have gone the whole round o...

Read More

Rossetti fountain

Unveiled by William Holman Hunt. There must have been a committee to erect th...

Read More

Other Subjects

Laurence Binyon

Laurence Binyon

Poet.  Born Lancaster.  Worked at the British Museum and become expert in Chinese and Japanese art.  Wrote 'For the Fallen' in 1914.  Red Cross volunteer at the Western Front in WW1.  Died in a nur...

Person, Poetry

13 memorials
Alice Meynell

Alice Meynell

Poet and journalist.  Alice Thompson was born in Barnes.  Her paternal grandmother was an unmarried Creole.  Educated with her sister entirely by their father as they lived a peripatetic life mainl...

Person, Journalism / Publishing, Poetry, Italy

1 memorial
George MacDonald

George MacDonald

Poet, novelist and Christian minister. Born Aberdeenshire. Works include: 'At the Back of the North Wind', 'Lilith'. Influenced: C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, W. H. Auden, Tolkien. Died at Ashtead...

Person, Literature, Poetry, Religion, Scotland

2 memorials
Kate Greenaway

Kate Greenaway

Illustrator of children's books and poet. Born 21 Cavendish Street N1 (now entirely post-war blocks of flats). She and her family moved to Upper Street in 1852. She worked for London branch of Marc...

Person, Art, Children, Poetry, Seriously Famous

3 memorials
Shropshire Lad

Shropshire Lad

A cycle of sixty-three poems by A. E. Housman. Published in 1896, most were written when Housman was unwell and depressed. The poems, nostalgic and evocative of the English "blue remembered hills",...

Media, Poetry

2 memorials