Thread by @Beeestonia

THE NOT ENTIRELY OBVIOUS NOTTINGHAM ESSAY: PART 1: TWO PLAQUES.

Here's a story about two plaques in Nottm city centre, and why they might have a strange link that spans a century and created one of the most recognisable characters of all time.

So, let's see the plaques.

We'll begin with the 1st. It's in Exchange Arcade (under the Council House Dome where all the posh shops are), marking onthe former home of Henry Kirke White, a poet who took the whole Romantic Poet idea of dying young to the extreme. Henry who? We'll call him HKW from here on..

The rest of this thread disappeared into the ether when I posted it. Ta, Twitter.

I'll write it again at some point and save the text this time

I swear this isn't some sort of teaser campaign.

It'll be worth the wait, I promise. There were literally minutes of painstaking, deep-dive research put into putting together a further strand of my theory that Nottingham is the centre of the cultural universe.

While two of the most famous live fast/good-looking- corpse guys, Byron and Shelly, died before middle age (36 and 29, respectively) HKW made them look like a pair of Methuselahs, booting the bucket at a tender 21, in 1806.

The son of a butcher (something he had in common with Herbert Kilpin, the Nottm born and bred founder of AC Milan -watch the @LeftLion film, it's ace) he was a prodigy of sorts, and took to writing verse in between bouts of deathly consumption.

To save him from the polluted air of industrial revolution era Nottingham, which by all accounts was utterly filthy, he moved to Wilford, and was encouraged to take long country walks. And so he did, venturing further down the Trent to that well-known beauty spot, Clifton.

I know, I know. Modern day Clifton is hardly the most beautiful area, after millions of tons of concrete was dumped on it in the fifties to build what was then Europe's largest council estate. But mock not. It's been home to @JakeBugg and the wonderful @samthesparrow. Also....

The old Clifton Village is a beauty. Behind that is a place once hugely fashionable amongst those seeking a Sylvian paradise by the Trent. Clifton Grove was - is- a beautiful area. I was there just today...

HKW would go there frequently and fell in love with the area, to the extent it inspired a long and rather readable poem, appropriately called 'Clifton Grove' On publication it was a hit, and attracted the admiration of Robert Southey and a young Lord Byron.

Here, have a taste.

Yet this fame was short-lived: a move to Cambridge to study and further his talents resulted in him becoming obsessive about Christianity, illness and his death.
The Famous Notts Romantic Poet crown would be claimed by Byron just a few years later.

His legacy faded fast. While a decent poet, his religious obsessiveness fell out of favour and Byron, who was very much inspired by HKW, swiftly eclipsed him. However, you'll find him in this painting that can be found in @BromleyHouseLib ...

Titled 'Clifton Grove' it shows the area as it was in the 19th Century and was painted by John Rawson Walker. Check out a figure, barely visible, sitting beneath a towering oak...

It's our mate HKW!

A decent legacy, no doubt, but there is one much, much more prestigious.

I reckon that Henry Kirke White was an inspiration for Peter Pan.

Here's the other plaque, marking the place JM Barrie worked when he (briefly lived in Nottingham) as a young writer. He was here just shy of a year. You'll find this on Pelham Street.

He too loved Clifton Grove, and one day while there with a friend, George Basil Barham, said, upon seeing an 'urchin' in the woods "See that lad, his name's Peter and he has lost his shadow. His sister's pinned that rag on him for a shadow."

It's long been noted that the Arboretum, just up from the city centre @TrentUni campus, was the inspiration for many aspects of Neverland. My theory is, however, that HKW, who the well-read Barrie would be well aware of, was at least a part of the creation of Peter Pan.

Other candidates were likely blended into the character: Barrie's brother died young, giving a profound emotional jolt. Barrie himself was quite childlike, under 5ft tall and boyish in stature. Fictional characters really have a single source.

But I still think that somewhere in the story of Peter Pan, a story retold in many ways and an iconic character, Henry Kirke White lives on. The End.

Ps: I decided not to pursue this further by pointing out that Pan's companion Tinker Bell was based on the Nottingham stream, Tinker's Leen and the most famous pub on the Market Square.

@threadreaderapp unwrap