George Gordon Byron (the poet later known as Lord Byron) was born on the 22nd of January 1788 in Dover, Kent, he was the son of Captain "Mad Jack" Byron and his third wife Catherine Gordon the heiress of Gight in Aberdeenshire.
His paternal grandfather Vice-Admiral The Hon John "Foulweather Jack" Byron had circumnavigated the globe and was the younger brother of the 5th Baron Byron, known as "the Wicked Lord".
In 1779 his maternal grandfather, George Gordon of Gight, a descendant of King James 1st, committed suicide leaving Byron's mother Catherine to sell her land and title to pay her husbands debts after he had squandered all her money and spent most of his life away from the family and home in order to avoid his creditors.
Foot Rest Ottoman
Catherine and the young George Gordon Byron then moved back to Aberdeenshire and on the 21st May 1798 the death of the 10 year old boys great-uncle the "wicked" Lord Byron made him the 6th Baron Byron with the estate and wealth of Newstead Abbey in Nottinghamshire, England, which was at the time rented out to Lord Grey de Ruthyn leaving the new Lord Byron to remain in Scotland to continue his early education.
During these formative preteen years Lord Byron described how his governess, May Gray, would come to his bed and "play tricks with his person", which according to this new 6th Baron Byron "caused melancholy of my thoughts - having anticipated life". Gray was dismissed soon after.
In 1801 Byron left Aberdeen Grammar School to be sent to Harrow where he remained until 1805, during that time he experienced his first loves for Mary Duff and later Margaret Parker, both of whom were his distant cousins, Byron also fell for Mary Chaworth for whom he refused to return to Harrow resulting in his mother writing "He has no indisposition that I know of but love, desperate love, the worst of all maladies in my opinion, in short, the boy is distractedly in love with Miss Chaworth". He in his own later memoirs wrote "Mary Chaworth is portrayed as the first object of his adult sexual feelings".
Byron eventually returned to Harrow in January 1804 to a more settled period but which involved emotional attachments within a circle of other Harrow boys of this he wrote "My school friendships were with me passions(for I was always violent)".
One of his most enduring relationships was with John FitzGibbon, 2nd Earl of Clare, whom he later met unexpectedly in Italy in 1821, his nostalgic poem for Harrow boys friendships, Childish Recollections (1806) express a prescient "consciousness of sexual differences that may in the end make England untenable to him".
After Harrow Byron moved to Trinity College in Cambridge where he formed a close friendship with the younger John Edleston, his protégé about whom he wrote, "He has been my almost constant associate since October, 1805, when I entered Trinity College. His voice first attracted my attention, his countenance fixed it, and his manners attached me to him for ever". In later years he described the affair as "a violent, though pure love and passion". This however was against a backdrop of hardening public opinion to homosexuality in England where public hangings were not uncommon for convicted or even suspected offenders.
Also whilst at Cambridge Byron formed lifelong friendships with such men as John Cam Hobhouse and Francis Hodgson, a fellow at Kings College with whom he corresponded on literary matters for the rest of his life.
As a young man Byron had a "reckless disregard for money" and created debts that saw his mother living at Newstead Abbey in fear of his creditors, but still he undertook a Grand Tour of the Mediterranean as was customary for a young nobleman of the day (The Napoleonic Wars at this time made Europe untenable), his correspondences of the day suggest his trip was in part inspired by the fear of the English attitude to homosexuality, however other theories include note to his renewed dalliances with the now married Mary Chaworth who became the subject of his poem of the time "To a Lady: On Being Asked My Reason for Quitting England in the Spring".
Byron throughout his life obtained a reputation for being extravagant, melancholic, courageous, unconventional, eccentric, flamboyant and controversial, he was given to extremes of temper and mood swings that on more than one occasions brought about suspicions of his mental state. He was renowned for his personal beauty, was athletic, being a competent boxer, horse rider and swimmer but despite all this he suffered from a deformed right foot "clubfoot" from birth.
He was very fond of animals, most notably his Newfoundland dog named Boatswain and he was said to have once kept a pet bear when told his rooms were not allowed pet dogs.
Byron's life included the highly documented love for Lady Caroline Lamb who later hounded him such that he wrote of her now wasted frame as causing him to be "haunted by a skeleton". He had many loves and scandals, was married and divorced and produced at least three noted children, legitimate or otherwise.
He took his seat in the House of Lords for a short period in 1809 and was a strong advocate of social reform and a defender of the Luddites who fought to defend their jobs in the Nottinghamshire textile mills..
He lived and worked with the Armenians in Venice for many years and became a hero to the Greeks for his help in supporting their movement for independence against the Ottoman Empire.
George Gordon Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, had a tempestuous life and died aged 36 years from a fever contracted in Messolonghi in Greece. His life and his loves were the source of his copious volumes of work and this brief article can merely skim the surface of the mans history and his craft. Much is written on the Internet about this legend in poetic works and I hope this spurs you on to find out more.
Happy reading.
Monopod Tripod Combination Bed Rail Bolts Flashes For Canon Rebel