JOHN

See also:

• JOHN KEATE (1773—1852)

KEATE (1773—1852)  , English schoolmaster, was born at Wells, Somersetshire, in 1773, the son of Prebendary William Keate . He was educated at Eton and King's College, Cam-bridge, where he had a brilliant career as a scholar; taking holy orders, he became, about 1797, an assistant master at Eton College . In 1809 he was elected headmaster . The discipline of the school was then in a most unsatisfactory condition, and Dr Keate (who took the degree of D.D. in 1810) took stern measures to improve it . His partiality for the birch became a by-word, but he succeeded in restoring order and strengthening the weakened authority of the masters . Beneath an outwardly rough manner the little man concealed a really kind heart, and when he retired in 1834, the boys, who admired his courage, presented him with a handsome testimonial . A couple of years before he had publicly flogged eighty boys on one day . Keate was made a canon of Windsor in 1820 . He died on the 5th of March 1852 at Hartley Westpall, Hampshire, of which parish he had been rector since 1824 . See Maxwell Lyte, History of Eton College (3rd ed., 1899) ; Collins, Etoniana; Harwood, Alumni Etonienses; Annual Register (1852); Gentleman's Magazine (1852) . the American Civil War he lived in Paris, but early in 1861 he hastened home to join the Federal army . At first as a brigade commander and later as a divisional commander of infantry in the Army of the Potomac, he infused into his men his own cavalry spirit of dash and bravery .

At

Williamsburg, Seven Pines, and Second Bull Run, he displayed his usual romantic courage, but at Chantilly (Sept . 1, 1862), after repulsing an attack of the enemy, he rode out in the dark too far to the front, and mistaking the Confederates for his own men was shot dead . His body was sent to the Federal lines with a message from General Lee, and was buried in Trinity Churchyard, New York . His commission as major-general of volunteers was dated July 4, 1862, but he never received it . See J . W. de Peyster, Personal and Military History of Philip Kearny (New York, 1869) .