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George Keats (28 February 1797 –24 December 1841) was a business, civic, and cultural leader in | Louisville, Kentucky, as it emerged from a frontier | entrepôt into a mercantile center of the old northwest.

During these years, 1821-41, Keats led a philosophical society, meant to overcome Louisville’s raw culture, operating a literary salon in his living room, which evolved into the Lyceum, and then into the board of Louisville College, precursor to the | University of Louisville. In 1827 Keats was elected to the Ohio Bridge Commission, laying the foundation for the river’s first crossing. The state government appointed him to the board of the Bank of Kentucky in 1832. He joined the boards of ten other organizations, including the | Kentucky Historical Society, and the Harlan Museum, which he headed. In 1841 he was elected to the city council.

George Keats operated a sawmill, a base from which he developed numerous properties, most notably the Louisville Hotel, which survived from 1835 until 1853. Keats died Christmas Eve, 1841, of a gastrointestinal ailment.

Early Life
Keats, a younger brother of | John Keats, was likely born in London’s | Moorfields district above the Swan and Hoop ostelry, owned by his grandfather John Jennings and managed by his father Thomas Keats. By 1800 the family moved to Craven Street, a mile away in | Hackney. When George was six, and his brother John eight, they were sent to John Clarke’s liberal school in | Enfield. After visiting the boys, their father was killed in a late-evening riding accident 15 April 1804. Ten weeks later, the boys’ mother Frances Jennings Keats married William Rawlings, abandoning her children, including younger siblings Tom and Fanny, to live with her parents, retired in | Edmonton. George was the future poet’s closest friend and helpmate through Clarke’s School in Enfield.

Grandfather Jennings died 8 March 1805. Their mother Frances Rawlings returned to her mother, destitute and disease-ridden, to die of consumption before 10 March 1810. Their grandmother Alice Whalley Jennings relinquished custody to guardians, including Richard Abbey, in July 1810 and subsequently died before 19 December 1814. Abbey removed the boys from Clarke’s school, apprenticing John Keats to Thomas Hammond, an Edmonton surgeon, and taking George Keats into his tea wholesaling business on Pancras Lane off London’s Poultry street. George, thirteen, lived in a dormitory above Abbey’s counting house, while sister Fanny stayed in the Abbeys’ suburban home in | Walthamstow.

In the fall of 1815 John Keats moved to | London, registering at | Guy’s Hospital for courses in dressing, a step towards licensure as a surgeon. George and John maintained an active social life, in part revolving around John’s increasing interest in poetry and his involvement with the Leigh Hunt circle. During these years George was an important helpmate and influence on the poet, acting as an agent, dealing with John’s publisher, and serving as a house manager for the three siblings, including their sickly brother Tom. By the end of 1816 and into 1817, George quit Abbey’s employment, John abandoned medicine for poetry, the boys left a noisy and smoky | Cheapside for | Hampstead, and George became engaged to Georgiana Augusta Wylie (c. 1797 – 3 April 1879).