Two hundred years after his death, Lord Byron remains one of Britain’s most controversial poets. But who was the real man behind this scandalous reputation? Charlotte May and Amy Wilcockson look at his life through nine objects.
The teenage letter-writer
In May 1798, the fifth Lord Byron died. The unexpected heir to the title was his great-nephew, George Gordon Byron, who became the sixth Baron Byron of Rochdale at just 10 years old. Born on 22 January 1788, Byron spent his early years with his mother in Aberdeen after being abandoned by his father, John ‘Mad Jack’ Byron.
Following the inheritance of his great-uncle’s title, Byron headed south to the family’s ancestral home, Newstead Abbey in Nottinghamshire, but found it had fallen into a ruinous state. Byron and his mother therefore ended up residing at Burgage Manor, in the nearby town of Southwell.
The above letter, written in August 1804 when Byron was 16 years old, was sent to Elizabeth Pigot (1783–1866), one of his earliest correspondents and potentially his first real friend. Pigot lived with her family opposite the poet’s house in Southwell, and described Byron as a “fat, bashful boy”.
Despite this rather unflattering description, Pigot was fond of Byron, and their friendship grew. Indeed, the message (sent while Byron was away at Harrow School in Middlesex) reveals his “great pleasure” in having recently received a drawing of a coat of arms from Pigot, and how happy he would be to hear her sing one of his favourite tunes. After writing that he sincerely hopes to see her again soon, he signs off with genuine warmth: “My dear Miss Pigot, I remain, your affectionate friend.”
Pigot’s copies of Byron’s poems were later sent to the bookseller John Ridge and published in Byron’s first poetry collections Fugitive Pieces (1806) and Hours of Idleness (1807). It was the latter that launched his career.
Byron the boxer
The young Byron was very proud of his athletic pursuits. He played in the first cricket match between Harrow and Eton in 1805, swam the Hellespont (a perilous strait in Turkey) in 1810, rode horses between neighbouring estates in Nottinghamshire, and received professional tuition from boxer John ‘Gentleman’ Jackson in pugilism.
These leather boxing gloves, now on display at Newstead Abbey, were used by Byron during this time. In his second self-published volume of poetry, Poems on Various Occasions (1807), Byron reflected on the pivotal role that sport had played during his school days, writing enthusiastically about “cricket’s manly toil” and the importance of sports, studies and pupils’ souls being together as one.
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Such athletic hobbies were expected of gentlemen, and gave Byron – who had to wear a foot brace in his early years due to an unspecified physical disability – a way to conform to early 19th-century notions of masculinity. Crucially, it also enabled the poet to affiliate himself with the heroes of classical Greek literature, with sport – particularly swimming – incorporated into the plots of many myths and legends.
A macabre relic
The item shown above is a replica of the skull cup that Byron drank from during the wild parties he hosted at Newstead Abbey. Fashioned from the top of a real human skull supposedly discovered by one of the abbey’s gardeners, it has since become a symbol of the poet’s interest in the macabre, as well as his life of excess.
In fact, such was Byron’s fixation with the skull (which he presumed to have belonged to a monk before the Reformation) that he even commemorated it in a poem, entitled Lines Inscribed Upon a Cup Formed from a Skull: Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone, In aid of others’ let me shine; And when, alas! our brains are gone, What nobler substitute than wine?
Despite the poem’s name, it is unlikely that the words were inscribed on the original cup, and it should probably be seen as more of a drinking song than a serious attempt to reconcile thoughts of an afterlife. But while Byron is popularly remembered as a gothic, irreligious and controversial poet, he wasn’t entirely dismissive of faith. Overall, his writing demonstrates a strong, learned interest in both religious doctrine and religious identities.
The original cup has never been found, and is rumoured to have been buried in an unknown location at Newstead Abbey.
Dangerous liaisons
When Lord Byron returned to Newstead Abbey in 1808, having spent three years studying at Trinity College, Cambridge, he brought this elaborate wooden bed back with him.
Featuring coronets (heraldic crowns) above each of its four corners, its opulent design demonstrated Byron’s aristocratic status and marked him out as a baron. The bed, and the easily accessible pistol he kept alongside it, both reinforce the popular idea that Byron was “mad, bad and dangerous to know” – a phrase coined by the author Lady Caroline Lamb, with whom he had a short, passionate affair.
Indeed, Byron’s tumultuous relationships, with both men and women, have largely defined his legacy. While he could be a good friend and lover, he could also be a dangerous enemy – particularly via his pen. For example, following poor reviews of Hours of Idleness, he published the poem English Bards and Scotch Reviewers in 1809, savagely attacking his critics and other popular English poets of the period, such as William Wordsworth.
Many of Byron’s later works, such as Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812–18) and Manfred (1817), went on to feature protagonists that seemingly drew from his own melancholic, brooding character. This created the archetype of the ‘Byronic hero’ and contributed to his already controversial reputation.
Man’s best friend
Byron is one of the most famous animal lovers in British literature, and there are a number of stories detailing his fondness for his non-human companions. For example, when banned from bringing a new dog to university in 1805, Byron instead bought a tame bear, and told the Trinity College authorities that he wished it to “sit for a Fellowship”.
Later, he travelled across Europe with an entire menagerie of creatures, which lived inside his homes. According to fellow poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, these animal friends included “ten horses, eight enormous dogs, three monkeys, five cats, an eagle, a crow, and a falcon… five peacocks, two guinea hens, and an Egyptian crane”. Byron’s most beloved pet, however, was his Newfoundland dog, Boatswain, whose large metal collar is shown above.
Tragically, Boatswain was bitten by a rabid dog in 1808, and died shortly afterwards. Distraught, Byron commissioned a large tomb for Boatswain to be built in the grounds of Newstead Abbey, complete with verses from a poem entitled Epitaph to a Dog. Byron planned for his own body to be placed alongside Boatswain’s following his death.
However, the poet’s wishes were ignored, and his body was instead interred in the Byron family vault at St Mary Magdalene Church in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire. The marker for his resting place is significantly smaller than that of Boatswain’s, even to this day.
Family affair
Arguably the most salacious story concerning Lord Byron is the suggestion that he had an incestuous relationship with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh.
Five years his elder, Leigh was the daughter of ‘Mad Jack’ Byron and his first wife, Amelia Byron. The siblings had initially become close following the death of the poet’s mother in 1811, when he was 23. Byron wrote several poems addressed to his half-sister, including Epistle to Augusta, which includes the lines, “For thee, my own sweet sister, in thy heart / I know myself secure, as thou in mine… We are entwin’d”.
It was first printed in 1830, as, despite being written in 1816, Augusta forbade its publication during Byron’s lifetime. Intense speculation has endured as to whether Augusta’s daughter, Elizabeth Medora Leigh, born in 1814, was Byron’s child. It is probable the truth will never fully be uncovered – researchers have spent decades analysing the letters between them, as well as references to the siblings in the writings of other people.
The section of tree shown above is an unlikely physical signifier of the strong relationship between the two half-siblings – whatever that relationship may have been. Dated just five months after Elizabeth Medora’s birth, Byron carved the words “Byron / 20th September 1814 / Augusta” in the tree’s trunk. The etching was made on Byron’s last visit to Newstead Abbey, which he sold in 1818 during his self-imposed exile to Italy following the breakdown of his marriage.
Marriage and melancholy
The ring shown here was exchanged in the wedding ceremony between Lord Byron and his bride, Anna Isabella (known as Annabella) Milbanke, on 2 January 1815. It began a disastrous marriage that would be dissolved in 1816 after the new Lady Byron accused her husband of cruelty, homosexual affairs and acts of incest.
As soon as the newlyweds departed from the ceremony at the home of the Milbanke family, Seaham Hall, Byron began to regret his decision, with Annabella later recounting Byron’s exclamations of “it’s too late now”. The panic and claustrophobia of the marriage hit Byron immediately, and heralded months of abusive behaviour towards Annabella, which she documented in the belief that Byron was going mad.
Annabella gave birth to their only child, Ada, on 10 December 1815, and when the tenancy on their London residence ended in January 1816, Byron told his wife to move back to her parents’ estate with the baby. This was the last time that Annabella saw Byron.
Although Annabella was known as Lady Byron for the rest of her life, she was a fascinating figure in her own right. A highly intelligent woman, Annabella educated her daughter in maths and science, and Ada – later Ada Lovelace – is now well known for her work in the development of computer science.
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Freedom fighter
In July 1823, Byron joined the Greek war of independence from Ottoman rule. The poet had first visited Greece in 1809 and fallen in love with the country and its culture, leading him to support its struggle for nationhood to the extent that he helped fund the uniforms, equipment and upkeep of soldiers himself.
The helmet shown here was designed and worn by Byron, and based on a description of the Trojan prince Hector’s armour in Homer’s Iliad. It shows how Byron used classical Greek literature as a source of inspiration, and perhaps to keep his spirits up during a difficult conflict that was made worse by floods and earthquakes.
Eventually, the war took its toll: after months of declining health, Byron caught a violent fever and died on 19 April 1824, prompting outpourings of grief in both Britain and Greece. He never did get to wear the helmet in battle. In many ways, Byron’s dramatic demise – and his subsequent portrayal as a martyr and freedom fighter – was befitting of the way he had sought to present himself.
In 1806, aged 18, he had published the poem A Fragment, in which he boldly declared “My epitaph shall be my name alone”. Indeed, more than two centuries on, Byron is considered to be the archetypal Romantic poet, renowned the world over for his complex personal life and politics, as well as his poetry.
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This article was first published in the April 2024 issue of BBC History Magazine