The+Birth,+Life+and+Death+of+Lord+Byron

toc On the 22nd day January, 1788, a son was born to Captain John (though he was not present) and Catherine Byron. Delivered by the famous surgeon John Hunter at Cavendish Square in London, the child is christened at Marylebone parish church, 7 days later, with the name George Gordon Byron. The family was known for its continual problems with money and creditors, the sexual promiscuity of its members, and a history of heavy drinking. Captain John, it is assumed, married the Scottish Catherine Gordon primarily for her money, though did not last long, and spent most of his time avoiding her, hiding out on the continent.

From this auspicious lineage, came a man who would launch the second wave of the Romantic movement and captivate much of Europe.

=Early Life= Byron's father was absent for what little of the boys life he remained alive for. He died abroad, possibly of suicide, when Byron was 2 years old, and Byron's memories of him primarily consisted of the raucous marital disagreements that his parents would engage in during the rare moments that his father was at home in England. It could certainly be argued that this lack of any model of happy, civil or even co-habitational married life would have a profound impact on the pattern of Byron's own relationships, later in life. His father was frequently and publicly adulterous during his marriage, which Byron heard about during his mother's ranting and he may have been molested by his nurse as a young boy. All these factors, added together, give a possible explanation for Byron's lifelong struggle with sexuality, commitment and propriety.

Byron and his mother struggled, financially, throughout his young life but, when his great uncle, the 5th Lord Byron, died without heirs, George Gordon inherited the--somewhat disreputable--estate and title of the Byron family. Byron inherited what would become known as his primary estate in England, Newstead Abbey =Death=