Lord Byron

"Byron" and "George Byron" redirect here. For other uses, see Byron (disambiguation) and George Byron (disambiguation).

The Right Honourable

The Lord Byron

FRS
Portrait of Byron
Portrait by Thomas Phillips, c. 1813
BornGeorge Gordon Byron
(1788-01-22)22 January 1788
London, England
Died19 April 1824(1824-04-19) (aged 36)
Missolonghi, Aetolia, Ottoman Empire (present-day Aetolia-Acarnania, Greece)
Resting placeChurch of St. Mary Magdalene, Hucknall, Nottinghamshire
Occupation
  • Poet
  • politician
Alma materTrinity College, Cambridge
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1815; sep. 1816)​
PartnerClaire Clairmont
Children
Parents
Signature
In office
13 March 1809 – 19 April 1824
Hereditary peerage
Preceded byThe 5th Baron Byron
Succeeded byThe 7th Baron Byron

George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, FRS (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824) was a British poet and peer.[1][2] He is one of the major figures of the Romantic movement,[3][4][5] and is regarded as being among the greatest of British poets.[6] Among his best-known works are the lengthy narratives Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage; many of his shorter lyrics in Hebrew Melodies also became popular.

Byron was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, before he travelled extensively in Europe. He lived for seven years in Italy, in Venice, Ravenna, and Pisa after he was forced to flee England due to threats of lynching.[7] During his stay in Italy, he would frequently visit his friend and fellow poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.[8] Later in life, Byron joined the Greek War of Independence to fight the Ottoman Empire, for which Greeks revere him as a folk hero.[9] He died leading a campaign in 1824, at the age of 36, from a fever contracted after the first and second sieges of Missolonghi.

His one child conceived within marriage, Ada Lovelace, was a founding figure in the field of computer programming based on her notes for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine.[10][11][12] Byron's extramarital children include Allegra Byron, who died in childhood, and possibly Elizabeth Medora Leigh, daughter of his half-sister Augusta Leigh.

  1. ^ McGann, Jerome (2004). "Byron, George Gordon Noel, sixth Baron Byron (1788–1824), poet". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/4279. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. Retrieved 8 February 2021. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. ^ "Lord Byron". The British Library. Retrieved 17 October 2020.
  3. ^ Marchand, Leslie A. (15 April 2019). "Lord Byron". Lord Byron | Biography, Poems, Don Juan, Daughter, & Facts. Encyclopædia Britannica. London: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
  4. ^ "Byron and Scotland". Robert Morrison.com.
  5. ^ "Lord Byron (George Gordon)". Poetry Foundation. 30 December 2018. Retrieved 30 December 2018.
  6. ^ "The Nation's Favourite Poet Result – TS Eliot is your winner!". BBC. Retrieved 25 May 2019.
  7. ^ Poets, Academy of American. "About George Gordon Byron | Academy of American Poets". poets.org. Retrieved 5 November 2022.
  8. ^ Perrottet, Tony (29 May 2011). "Lake Geneva as Shelley and Byron Knew It". The New York Times.
  9. ^ "Byron had yet to die to make philhellenism generally acceptable." – Plomer (1970).
  10. ^ Fuegi, J; Francis, J (October–December 2003). "Lovelace & Babbage and the creation of the 1843 'notes'". IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. 25 (4). Washington DC: IEEE Computer Society: 16–26. doi:10.1109/MAHC.2003.1253887. ISSN 1058-6180.
  11. ^ Phillips, Ana Lena (November–December 2011). "Crowdsourcing Gender Equity: Ada Lovelace Day, and its companion website, aims to raise the profile of women in science and technology". American Scientist. 99 (6). Research Triangle Park, NC: Xi Society: 463. doi:10.1511/2011.93.463.
  12. ^ "Ada Lovelace honoured by Google doodle". The Guardian. London. 10 December 2012. Retrieved 10 December 2012.