Consider a young man named John Keats. He stood here at Guy’s Hospital. He was a trainee doctor. This statue of John Keats commemorates his time here.
The John Keats Statue is in an alcove. It stands in the grounds of Guy’s Hospital. The statue was sculpted by Stuart Williamson. It was unveiled in 2007.
John Keats trained as a surgeon-apothecary at Guy’s from 1815 to 1816. He was just 14 when he apprenticed as an apothecary. This was like being a GP today. Later, he moved to Guy’s for further training. He worked under the surgeon Astley Cooper.
Keats wasn’t just a dreamer. He was successful and focused at Guy’s. He passed a difficult exam. He was appointed to the position of ‘dresser’. Dressers assisted surgeons. They were on duty 24/7 one week every four weeks. It was like working in A&E.
Surgery then was brutal. There was no anaesthesia. Only alcohol and opium were used. Dressers held down patients during operations. They also disposed of amputated limbs. Keats was sensitive to others’ pain. But he was also professionally calm. In 1816, he saved a woman’s life. She had been shot in the head. Keats extracted the bullet.
Imagery from the human body appears in Keats’s poetry. He knew what a ‘naked brain’ was. He had seen one in the anatomy room. He knew the limitations of medicine. His mother and brother died of tuberculosis. He later died of the same disease in Rome.
Keats’s poetry acknowledges human suffering. It does not offer easy answers. The John Keats Statue also commemorates Dr Robert Knight. He trained and worked at Guy’s too. The statue was unveiled by Andrew Motion. He wrote a Keats biography.
Around the alcove is a long wooden panel. It serves as a backrest. It quotes Keats’s poem, “Fall of Hyperion. A Dream”. It says: “Sure a poet is a sage a humanist, physician to all men.”
A paving stone in front of the seat says: “John Keats by Stuart Williamson. In memory of Dr R. K. Knight”. Another stone says it was commissioned by charities. A plaque calls the statue John Keats, bronze, Stuart Williamson.
So, the next time you read Keats’s poetry remember his time here. Remember his medical training. Remember his empathy for human suffering. The John Keats Statue reminds us of the connection between art and medicine. It shows how a doctor became one of history’s great poets.