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Alfred Tennyson (August 6, 1809 – October 6, 1892), was Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria’s reign, and remains one of the most popular British poets. He was the leading poet of the Victorian Age with his works including The Charge of the Light Brigade, a dramatic tribute to the British cavalrymen involved in an ill-advised charge on October 25, 1854, during the Crimean War. Other works include Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington and Morte d’Arthur. This Victorian suburb was started on land that had belonged to Sir Charles Flower, a merchant, who traded in salt meat, butter and cheese, and was described as having acquired “an ample fortune” before serving as Lord Mayor of London in 1808. By 1878 the area was held by the Birkbeck Freehold Land Society, a noted haven for savings of the provident working class, divided the land into aproximately 500 plots laid out in a series of roads, which were named after famous poets such as Byron, Milton, Shakespeare and Tennyson. Hence the name Poets Corner.
