Early Life
Jack Keane was born in the port town of Whitby, the son of an Irish parson, The Reverend Dr. William Keane. He was the eldest of five. His father died in 1873, when Keane was only 19 years old.
In his book On Blue-water, Keane tells us that he attended "a large and well-known public school". It is not know which school, although it is known that it was not Charterhouse, which both his father and younger brother Robert attended. He was soon expelled for breaking bounds; an event which seems to have determined him to "be off on my own account".
Keane claims to have run away to sea, but the evidence suggests that at the age of twelve he was put onto a collier brig by his father, to cool his temper and curb his bad behaviour. Upon his return he was given into the hands of a private tutor, an elderly parson in a remote part of the East Riding of Yorkshire. This had little effect on the young Keane, who soon took up with local poachers and huntsmen.
Keane's whereabouts throughout his early life are not entirely known, but in 1868, at the age of fourteen, he was living with wealthy relatives in Madras.
Read more about this topic: John Fryer Thomas Keane
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“If there is a price to pay for the privilege of spending the early years of child rearing in the driver’s seat, it is our reluctance, our inability, to tolerate being demoted to the backseat. Spurred by our success in programming our children during the preschool years, we may find it difficult to forgo in later states the level of control that once afforded us so much satisfaction.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“What makes saintliness in my view, as distinguished from ordinary goodness, is a certain quality of magnanimity and greatness of soul that brings life within the circle of the heroic.”
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896)