#Lordbyronweek takes a tour in the life, work, and legacy of Lord Byron – his life seems too fictional to be true, and the perfect manual for how to live as a Romantic hero
George Gordon Byron was born on the 22nd January 1788, in London (UK), the son of Captain John Byron and Scottish heiress Catherine Gordon. His paternal grandparent was Vice Admiral John Byron, who had set a new speed record for circumnavigating the globe, and was involved in the American Revolutionary War. While born in nobility, young George Gordon Byron did not grow up in extreme wealth, as his father was full of debts and squandered his wife’s fortune before dying in France of tuberculosis.
When George was 10, his great uncle died, and he inherited the title of Baron Byron of Rochdale (the sixth), as well as the ancestral home of Newstead Abbey, in Nottinghamshire; however, the mansion was in such a state of disrepair that it was unfit to live in, and the mother had to lease it to others who could afford the repairs and maintenance.
During his studies in Cambridge, he begins to write poems but also to have love affairs around and cumulating debts, inheriting his father’s complete disregard for finances. For his mandatory Grand Tour for a gentleman, the Napoleonic Wars force him to avoid most of Europe, to focus on the Mediterranean: beginning from Lisbon, he sailed to Sardinia, then Malta, from there Albania and Greece.
After the publication in 1812 of the first two cantos of “Childe Harold's Pilgrimage”, mostly written during his long tour, Byron suddenly became a celebrity in England and made his way back to the country, where he kept cumulating debts and lovers, in spite of his decision to marry heiress Annabella Millbanke, like his father, mostly to resolve his growing amount of debts – in 1815, their daughter Ada was born, who became eventually one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, those studies on general-purpose machines were fundamental to the development of computers. Byron’s reckless spending and love life, which included a public and outrageous affair with his half-sister Augusta Leigh, (whom he met he was 25), brought eventually Annabella to ask for a legal separation. Threatened with no less than lynching, Byron left England again never to return.
He lived first in Switzerland, in the famous Villa Diodati where on a rainy week he organised, with other writers, a scary stories competition that ended up in the creation of both “Frankenstein”, by Mary Shelley, and “The Vampyre”, by John William Polidori.
He then moved to Italy, and particularly in Venice, where he deepened his interest for the East, particularly Armenia, Greece, and the Ottoman Empire; he became more and more involved with the cause of the Greek independence movement. He eventually vowed to donate all of his wealth to the Greek independence fighters, and he joined Alexandros Mavrokordatos, one of the main architects of the Greek independence, in fighting against the Ottoman Empire; he paid for a brigade of more than 200 men, who became known as “the Byron brigade”. However, while preparing an important attack on a Turkish military base in Lepanto, he died of high fever in Missolonghi, on the 19th April 1819, two years before the country’s independence: he was 31 years old. Still, the news of his actions and death brought much attention to the Greek cause in the West, and helped to support the independence. In Greece, he is regarded as one of the heroes of the independence; and one of the greatest English poets of all time.
Here are some portraits of Lord Byron, from the collection of Dutch artist Alexander Ver Huell, who was born in 1822 and was one of the many young artists of the time with an obsession for Lord Byron; interestingly, Lord Byron face and style changes a lot in each of these portraits, giving back visually his multifaceted personalities and many lives as a poet, adventurer, womaniser, fighter.
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Gelders Archief , Lord Byron (1820), available here |
Gelders Archief , George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron (1824), available here |
Gelders Archief , Byron, Sept. 1, 1835, available here |
Gelders Archief , Georg Noel Gordon Byron, 1826-1850 (n/a), available here |
Gelders Archief , Lord Byron (1885), available here |
How did George Gordon Byron become Lord Byron? He was baptised as George Gordon Byron; his father wanted to call him William, but as he was absent from the very christening of his son, the mother chose to call him after her own father, George Gordon of Gight, who was a descendant of James I of Scotland and who had committed suicided a few years earlier. At the age of 10, he acquired the title of Baron Byron of Rochdale; but in 1822, only two years before his death, his mother-in-law Judith Noel, the Hon. Lady Milbanke, died, and her will required that he change his surname to "Noel" in order to inherit half of her estate; from then on, he signed himself "Noel Byron", which also had the advantage that his initials would read "N.B.", like those of his hero, Napoleon Bonaparte. Beforehand, he simply signed himself “Byron”, the common way to sign amongst the English peers; like in this 1819 letter to Mr Galignani (Giovanni Antonio Galignani), held at the Archivo Histórico Nacional, where he laments that in Mr Galignani’s journal (“Galignani’s Messenger”, a daily newspaper published in English but based in Paris) he was indicated as the author of the work “The vampire”, whereas he had never even heard of the work (even though, he was present at its inception without knowing!)
Archivo Histórico Nacional, Letter to Mr Galignani signed by Lord Byron, 1819, available here
Expectedly, Lord Byron was strongly opinionated, and not very diplomatic; his reputation as a literary critic was more controversial and polarizing. Some of his contemporaries admired his insights and literary judgments, while others found his criticisms to be overly harsh or biased – in any case, his influence as a literary critic was significant. In this manuscript held at the Library of the University of Basel, he reviewed “Gertrude of Wyoming” by his friend Thomas Campbells, whom he held in high consideration as an elevated poet.
Library of the University of Basel, Lord Byron review of “Gertrude of Wyoming” by Thomas Campbells, available here
Amongst Lord Byron’s love affairs, there was Claire Clermont, Mary Shelley’s step sister.
From their union, an extramarital child was born, Clara Allegra Byron, born in 1817. Allegra lived with Byron in Venice, and he opposed to her being raised in England, or to marry an
Englishman; he wanted her to be brought up as a Catholic, and he even arranged for her to inherit 5000 lire upon marriage or when she reached the age of 21 - provided she did not
marry a British native. On the contrary, he did not show particular affection for the mother of the child: in this letter by Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley’s husband, he instructed his
London banker to send 10 pounds to Claire Clairmont; he was obliged to support her for long periods when Byron refused to do so.
Library of the University of Basel, Letter by Percy Shelley to his London Bankers, Brooks and Co.,available here
As everyone knows, Lord Byron died while fighting for the independence of Greece, even if not on the battlefield. He had vowed to spend his entire fortune on Greek freedom, and he made very important financial contributions to the Greek cause. This agreement from the 8th February 1824 between Lord Byron and the General Guardianship (the institution in charge of the foreign loans obtained by the Greek provisional government to finance the revolution) established the provision of a large loan to the Greek government, with the term of repayment being the assignment of the incomes of the Missolonghi salt marshes to Lord Byron: it seems that, hadn’t he died only a few weeks later, Lord Byron’s desire was to establish himself in Greece permanently.
This was just a small selection of documents related to Lord Byron available in Archives Portal Europe! You can find here he results of a longer search in the portal conducted by our mighty ambassadors.
Gelders Archief , Lord Byron (1820), available here
Gelders Archief , George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron (1824), available here
Gelders Archief , Byron, Sept. 1, 1835, available here
Gelders Archief , Georg Noel Gordon Byron, 1826-1850 (n/a), available here
Gelders Archief , Lord Byron (1885), available here
Archivo Histórico Nacional, Letter to Mr Galignani signed by Lord Byron, 1819, available here
Library of the University of Basel, Lord Byron review of “Gertrude of Wyoming” by Thomas Campbells, available here
Library of the University of Basel, Letter by Percy Shelley to his London Bankers, Brooks and Co.,available here
General Archives of Greece, Agreement from the 8th February 1824 between Lord Byron and the General Guardianship, available here
Research by Anna Batzeli, Christos Mantzanas, Santiago Muriel.
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