• Name: Keir, Peter
• Gender: Male
• Birth Date: 1760
• Death Date: 7  December  1832
• Occupation: engineer

The identification is tentative but is firm around Keir's death, and the absence of Keir entries subsequently suggest that this Keir accounts for earlier entries. There are C Keir entries also, but these have not been identified or coded. There are over a hundred references to Keir between 1798-1832. The first is a call when Keir is nah, calls on him succesfully a few weeks later. The great majority of the entries are 1798-1808. There is nothing in any of the biographies, or anything to suggest Godwin meets Robert keir, whom J Ann Hone identifies as an apprentice axle- maker, and one of the LCS members who were arrested in 1798 and imprisoned without trial for nearly 3 years (J Ann Hone, For the Cause of Truth, pp. 48-9).

The death of Keir is well documented:
The Times, 8 December 1832:
'Yesterday morning, about 11 o'clock, the neighbourhood of Camden town was thrown into a great state of alarm in consequence of a report that Mr. Peter Keir, engineer, of College-street, had terminated his existence by shooting himself through the head, the particulars of which are as follows. The unfortunate gentleman, who was 72 years of age, had been often heard to say that when his property was all gone he would shoot himself; yesterday morning, at breakfast time, his wife remarked to him that the gloominess of the day was enough to make any one destroy themselves; of that he took no notice, but at 10 o'clock retired to his dressing-room, about half an hour after which his wife heard a very heavy fall, and on going up stairs to see the cause, discovered the deceased lying at full length at the entrance of the bed-room, his head literally shattered to pieces; in his right hand he held an air pistol, which had been discharged, and on the floor the fellow one lay, loaded, both of which were immediately taken possession of by the parish beadle. The body now awaits a coroner's inquest.'

and on 11 December 1832:
'CORONER's INQUEST.-MELANCHOLY SUICIDE.-Yesterday afternoon an inquest was held at the Bell and Crown, King's-road, Camden-town, before Mr. Stirling and a highly respectable jury, on view of the body of Mr. Peter Keir, engineer, of College-street, who terminated his existence on Friday last by shooting himself through the head (the particulars of which appeared in our paper of Saturday.) It appeared from the evidence now adduced, that the deceased had been formerly in very good circumstances, but from various untoward misfortunes had latterly been reduced to the greatest state of exigency, which preyed heavily on his mind, and it is supposed cause him to commit the above-mentioned and dreadful act. The jury after viewing the body returned a verdict of "Temporary insanity."'

The dates match Godwin's final ref to Keir - 7.12.1832 'Peter Keir dies' - and it is on this basis that we identity him as the primary Keir in the diary. There is no reason to think Godwin would note his death if they had not been friends (given that he was not a prominent public figure), no mentions of Keir appear after this date, the fact that he was a fairly undistinguished engineer explains why he is not mentioned in any other sources, his age at death - 72 - suggests he was born in 1760, which makes him 38 when he first appears in the diary, and the hard times he had fallen on perhaps explains why he had disappeared from the diary in the seven years before his death.

• The Times, 8 December and 11 December 1832
• J. Ann Hone, For the Cause of Truth: Radicalism in London, 1796-1821 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982)

This table lists the people this person is most frequently noted with in the diary.