George Gordon, sixth baron Byron, was born on 22nd January 1788 at 16 Holles Street, London. He was the son of the profligate “mad Jack” Captain Byron, formerly of the Guards, by his second wife, Catherine Gordon of Gight, Aberdeen, Scotland. Within two years, Mrs. Byron, her fortune having been dissipated by her husband, returned to Aberdeen with her son, and in 1791 her husband died in France (aged thirty-six). In 1794 George Gordon, on the death of the fifth Lord Byron’s grandson, became heir to the barony to which he succeeded in May 1798 and was brought back to England. He entered Harrow School in 1801, Trinity College, Cambridge in 1805, and took his seat in the House of Lords in 1809.
His first excursion into poetry, Fugitive Pieces (1806) was destroyed at the request of a
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Citation: Kelsall, Malcolm. "George Gordon, Lord Byron". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 January 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=683, accessed 24 November 2024.]
