Born Holles Street, baptised at St Marylebone church in the same year. Spent the first 10 years of his life in Aberdeen with his mother. On the death of a great-uncle in 1798 he succeeded to the title Baron Byron of Rochdale. For a poem he wrote to his friend, see Tom Moore. Famously described as "mad, bad and dangerous to know" by Lady Caroline Lamb who did not survive her affair with him well. Died in Missolonghi Greece having gone there to fight but died of illness before seeing any action. A brief marriage to Anne Isabella Milbanke produced Ada Lovelace. Byron also features on BrusselsRemembers.
Another daughter, Allegra, died aged 5 and Byron had her buried at his old school, Harrow. For information about Allegra's mother see the plaque to Mary and Percy Shelley.
Byron was buried in St. Mary Magdalene Hucknall, near Nottingham.
2022: Listening to BBC’s “Mark Steel’s In Town, Nottingham” we were entertained to hear this phallocentric story: In 1938 the vicar at the church, Canon Houldsworth, wanted to confirm that Byron’s body was indeed in the vault. Permission to open the vault was granted on condition that a representative of government was present so a local MP, Seymour Cocks, was one of a party of around 40 people who, on 15 June 1938, gathered for the opening. Byron’s body was found as expected. Flashbak has a gruesome description of the state it was in, which was “excellent”, including “His sexual organ shewed quite abnormal development.” The BBC programme reports Houldsworth as describing how the body looked: “he was built like a pony.” The programme gives their source for the story as an article written by the journalist Byron Rogers.
