Lord Byron: The Bad Boy of the 19th Century

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Lord Byron was a highly influential European writer in the late 18th and early 19th century. His satirical and often rebellious pieces caught the eye of the entirety of Europe, his personality and prose charming all. He is well-known to be a literary revolutionary in the Greece War of Independence from Turkey and it is suggested that rebellion movements across Europe looked to his works as a spearhead. Although his name does sound quite fancy, his time was not spent at tea parties and whatever else a Lord does with his spare time. Instead, his personal life was notoriously full of aristocratic scandals, debt, alcohol, and lots and lots of drugs, making the coined title “Bad Boy of the 19th Century” definitely well earned. 

In 1788, Lord Byron was born in London, England. His father was a wildly extravagant and handsome Captain Jack, a womanizer and lady-killer. Captain Jack was also known as ‘Mad Jack’ and also apparently, a “gold digger”. He married Byron’s mother, Catherine Gordon, not in the name of true love, not even for her looks (she was quite corpulent and this was the subject of many of Lord Byron’s jibes), but primarily for her income. You could imagine how good of a father he was. 

LORD BYRON, A CHILD: Dad, can we play football? Or some other fun, typical son-father activities? 

LORD BYRON: Dad? 

LORD BYRON: … 

After spending all of his wife’s money and doing a not-so-adequate job of fathering Lord Byron, he promptly left. Catherine Gordon grabbed her chubby infant child’s hand all the way to Scotland where they lived on a meager income until Byron was 10. Later ‘Mad Jack’ died in 1791 at the age of 35, and Lord Byron would tell his friends that his dad had died slitting his own throat. Very bad boy of him. 

(It is very likely ‘Mad Jack’ died of tuberculosis or overdosed instead.)

An affliction known as clubfoot or the congenial twisting of a foot burdened Lord Byron during his childhood and lingered throughout his life. This made him sensitive and unable to participate in many sports. (So no, he actually couldn’t play football* anyways. Take that ‘Mad Jack’.)

*Note: Football, of course, is not historically accurate. Cricket would probably be played between functional father-sons of the time.

Mad Jack aside, Lord Byron and his mother did not have a golden relationship either. His deformity created such a mental wound because of the outside world’s inhumane treatment and jeering taunts-neither of which excluding his mother. Catherine Gordon would often call Byron “a lame brat” among her vocabulary of insults.  

At this time the cheery son-mother were still leaving on a meager income, a result of falling into the costly trap of Captain Jack’s devilish looks. Luckily for Catherine Gordon, at the age of 10 Lord Byron was bequeathed with a surprising inheritance from his late great-uncle, the 5th Baron of Byron. This led his mother and Byron to go to Newstead Abbey, London, where Byron eventually fell in love with the macabre and gloomy halls, fitting right in. After living there for a while, Byron was sent to prestigious schools such as Harrow in 1801 and finally landing in Trinity College, Cambridge in 1905.   

Lord Byron’s love for animals throughout his entire life was strengthened by his stubborn and flamboyant personality. When his dog name ‘Smut’ was not allowed on the grounds of Cambridge, Lord Byron sought to get revenge by buying a tame bear. Because nowhere in the rules did Cambridge disallow bears, Lord Byron was reluctantly allowed to keep his bear.   

PROFESSOR: no dog ok?

LORD BYRON: But-

PROFESSOR: the rules, Byron. Read the rules. 

*The Next Day 

LORD BYRON: Hey profff

PROFESSOR: What now? 

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BEAR: RAWRRR (translation: yo) 

PROFESSOR: ADJIFHASODDASDISDAISOHDIASD (translation: I- How- WHAT)

PROFESSOR: But-

LORD BYRON: Gotta read the rules prof

Byron further stuck his point to his aghast professors and school administrators by leashing his bear and taking it on walks around campus. On top of that, he tried to enroll his bear as a student. Now imagine that letter of denial from the school (“Unfortunately, we cannot accept you as a student into our university, because, well, frankly, you are a bear.”) 

Bryon kept animals near throughout his life. In his Venetian palazzo, he kept a menagerie. His close friend Percy Shelley described his arrangement, “Lord B’s establishment consists…of ten horses, eight enormous dogs, three monkeys, five cats, an eagle, a crow, and a falcon…just met on the grand staircase five peacocks, two guinea hens, and an Egyptian Crane.”

Lord Byron was most defiantly an interesting and eccentric man, as all artists come and go, but his romantic life is no easy subject to untangle. He was blatantly bisexual, and as many aristocratic figures do, he had his fair share of incestual relationships. His first crush was his cousin, older and engaged, and at 16, when she married, Lord Byron reportedly fell physically ill. Rough go at first love. He also had a rumoured relationship with his half-sister, and potentially a child from their relationship. 

Scandal and rumors surrounding him and his half-sister persisted, even through his marriage with a likely heiress, Annabella Milbanke, and having his only legitimate child with her, Ada Lovelace. Ada later grew up to become a mathematical genius, who worked with Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine and initiated the programming language ADA, named in her honor. Interestingly, she had an equally scandalous and adventurous life herself. The opium doesn’t fall from the dealer, as they say. 

But before Lord Byron could see her grow up into a remarkable woman that he likely would’ve been proud of, because he had continued to have sexual escapades with actresses and others through his and Annabella’s marriage, they finally separated and Annabella and took Ada with her, when she was 5 weeks old. Sadly, Lord Byron did no better than his own father at parenting and never saw Ada again. (Though he did keep a picture of her on his desk and often referred to her in his poetry.)

At this time, Lord Byron had already achieved rock–star status because of his poetry and literary works, leading to him and his scandalous personal life being the hot subject of the public’s eye. The debt he had accumulated over the years of gambling, the rumour surrounding him and his family led to a suffocating environment in England, so in April 1816, he left, never to return. 

He traipsed through Europe with as much carefree energy as he did in Europe, leading to just as many scandals in Switzerland, Italy and Greece. Before arriving in Greece, Lord Byron agreed to act as an agent on the London Committee, which had been formed to aid the Greeks in their struggle for independence from the Ottaman Empire and Turkish rule. He donated much of his wealth to the Greek cause, money which would have made him a millionaire today. He said to his business agent in England, “I should not like to give the Greeks but a half helping hand”, adamant about spending his entire fortune to the Greek revolution. In Greece, he focused on uniting various Greek factions and took personal command of a brigard of Suliot soldiers, reputably the bravest of the Greek soldiers.  

Even though Lord Byron was fascinated in the game of war, he was not bloodthirsty or addicted to the violence of war like some of his predecessors in his profession. When nine-year-old muslimTurkish girl, Hato, was left orphaned as her parents were killed by Greeks, he adopted her and sent her to safety in Kephalonia in the midst of the religious tension between the Orthodox Greeks and Muslim Turks, knowing the environment would not be gracing to a Muslim child. 

But before he could see his revolution take place, suffering from various afflictions throughout his entire life, he fell terribly ill on September of 1824 and in April he contracted a fever and died. 

On his request, his body was transported back to England and but to perfectly summarize his life in two words, his body was refused in Westminster Abbey on the grounds of “questionable morality”. 

CLERGY: So we have a new request today. 

PRIEST: Yes? And? Who is it? 

CLERGY: Well… 

PRIEST: oh no

Ironically, 100 years later the Abbey put up a statue in Lord Byron’s honor, ending in a happy ending.  

Lord Byron, though scandalous and extravagant in his personal life, left readers around Europe entranced in his excellent works full of drama, wit and the essence of the Romantic era. Skepticism and cynicism crept through his poetry and plays, an important landmark for romantic literature. His multi-faceted personality continues to equally baffle and fascinate historians as well as each reader across the centuries. His love for animals and his empathy paints a stark contrast between the public scandals and promiscuity he famously left behind. Lord Byron’s legacy will forever be known 19th-century rock star of poetry and the bad boy(but not really) of romantic literature.