Tennyson Street (Opunake)

Tennyson Street in Ōpunake was named after the Victorian poet laureate Alfred Tennyson.

Born in Lincolnshire in 1809, Tennyson was the son of an Anglican clergyman and the fourth of 12 children, 11 of whom suffered mental breakdowns later in life. He began writing verse in his teens and by 1850 had become the most celebrated poet in Britain, with people following him in the streets and peering through his windows to watch him dine.

Alfred’s poems were inspired by myths and legends such as those of King Arthur, as well as modern events like the Crimean War. Phrases from his works that have entered the English language include “Nature, red in tooth and claw” and "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all". Queen Victoria was an admirer and created the title Baron Tennyson for him, the first time in history anybody had been given a title for services to poetry. 

Something of an eccentric, Tennyson was familiar with the new scientific theories of Darwin but also experimented with medical fads like hydropathy, which claimed water could cure any illness. He slept on the sheets from the bed in which his father had died in order to commune with his spirit, and habitually wore the same clothes for weeks at a time.

Alfred and his wife Emily were engaged for 13 years before they married in 1849, and went on to have two sons. He died in 1892 whilst reading a volume of Shakespeare and is buried in the Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey. An obituary in the Taranaki Herald proclaimed him “the sweetest, most musical, and most widely read English poet”.

Tennyson’s son Hallam, the second Baron, served as Governor-General of Australia, and his grandson captained the English cricket team in three tests. Great-grandson James moved to New Zealand in the 1950s after a career in the British Navy and David Tennyson, the sixth Baron, still lives in Christchurch.

Tennyson Street in Ōpunake is one of at least nine other streets named after the poet around New Zealand, with Lake Tennyson and Tennyson Inlet also honouring his memory.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.