|
Year
|
Date
|
Chronology Entry
|
| 1778 |
Summer |
John Byron, the father of the poet,
captivates the wealthy heiress Marchioness Carmarthen, wife
of the Marquis of Leeds, into an elopement. |
| 1779 |
June 9 |
Following her divorce by Act of Parliament,
John Byron marries the Marchioness. |
| 1783 |
|
Augusta Byron (the poet's half-sister)
born. |
| 1784 |
Jan. 26 |
Lady Carmarthen dies in France. At some
point, Augusta is placed in the care of Francis Leigh, her
paternal aunt. |
| 1785 |
Spring |
John Byron travels to the ballrooms of Bath
where he meets the inexperienced, young heiress Catherine
Gordon of Gight. |
| May 13 |
John Byron marries Catherine Gordon and lays
waste to her inheritance over the next several years. |
| 1787 |
Sept. |
Catherine Gordon joins her husband in France
where he had gone to escape creditors.
Augusta, now four, is placed in Catherine's care after her
arrival. |
| 1788 |
Jan. 22 |
George Gordon Byron born in London at 16
Holles Street, Cavendish Square. He has a caul and a deformed
foot.
The family moves frequently to avoid creditors. |
| Feb. 29 |
The infant Byron is christened in Marylebone
parish church.
Mrs. Byron chooses the Duke of Gordon and her relative
Colonel Duff of Fetteresso as his godfathers. |
| early March |
Catherine Gordon Byron (CGB) arranges a
settlement, securing a portion of her inheritance (4,222 )
from her husband's creditors.
Of this, 3,000 is invested five-per-cents, and the interest
on the remaining 1,222 becomes her grandmother Duff's life
annuity.
The interest from her investment offers CGB a yearly income
of 150. |
|
Year
|
Date
|
Chronology Entry
|
| 1789 |
|
CGB moves to Queen Street, Aberdeen, where
she and her young son can live more easily on her
income. |
| summer |
John Byron lives on the Kent coast at
Sandgate Castle where his kinsman William John Byron
visits. |
| August |
John Byron moves back to Scotland, but soon
takes up lodgings at the opposite end of Queen Street. He and
his wife live more amicably, visiting and drinking tea.
John Byron leaves Aberdeen within several weeks. |
| June 14 |
Storming of the Bastille |
| 1790 |
|
John Byron visits Aberdeen for money to
travel to France. He lives in his sister's house in
Valenciennes. |
| 1791 |
May |
Mrs. Byron moves to better accommodations--a
first floor flat--at 64 Broad Street. |
| June 21 |
John Byron makes his will, making his
three-year-old son his executor. |
| August 2 |
John Byron dies in France. |
| 1792 |
|
George Gordon Byron studies under a series
of teachers: first at Mr. Bowers's co-ed Grammar School where
he learns "little"; then with a clergyman named Ross under
whom he learned to read; then with a tutor named Paterson who
introduced basic Latin Grammar. |
| 1794 |
July 31 |
William John Byron, heir presumptive to the
Byron title and estates, is killed by cannon-ball at the
Battle of Calvi in Corsica.
George Gordon Byron becomes heir presumptive. |
| 1794-98 |
|
Byron attends Aberdeen Grammar School. |
| 1795[?] |
summer
vacation |
CGB and the young Byron visit Margaret
Gordon Duff, CGB's grandmother, at Banff. |
| 1795 |
|
CGB arranges to have Byron's first portrait
drawn--one of him holding a bow and arrow--by the Edinburgh
artist, John Kaye. |
| 1795 or 96 |
|
Recuperating from scarlet fever, George
Gordon Byron vacations with his mother in the valley of the
Dee, within sight of Morven and Lachiny Gair, which inspires
a poem of the same name. His love of Scottish highland
scenery appears in his early poetry, particularly in his
volume Hours of Idleness. |
|
Year
|
Date
|
Chronology Entry
|
| 1796 |
|
First love affair--a passionate attachment
to Mary Duff, a distant cousin he met at dancing-school
either in Aberdeen or Banff. |
| 1798 |
May 21 |
Fifth Lord Byron dies, his estate riddled
with debt.
George Gordon becomes the Sixth Baron Byron of
Rochdale.
John Hanson, a Chancery Solicitor, is consulted in Byron's
affairs and becomes both business agent and a sort of
guardian. |
| June 16 |
The fifth Lord Byron is finally buried,
after solicitors determine the estate has enough money to
bury him. |
| late Aug. |
Byron and CGB travel to Newstead Abbey, the
ancestral Byron estate in Nottinghamshire, only to find it in
almost complete decay.
Byron and his mother determine to repair the Abbey and live
there. |
| 1799 |
|
Accompanied by May Gray, his nurse, Byron
lives with the Parkyns family, Nottingham, while the quack
Lavender doctors his foot.
Under tutelage of "Dummer" Rogers, Byron reads parts of
Virgil and Cicero. |
| July 12 |
Byron travels to London with John
Hanson.
CGB reveals to Hanson that her yearly income has been reduced
to 122. |
| July 13 |
Byron meets Frederick Howard, fifth Earl of
Carlisle (1748-1825), distantly related to Byron (the son of
Byron's paternal great aunt).
Hanson encourages Lord Carlisle to confer on the young lord's
education and to act as his official guardian.
Carlisle uses his influence to get CGB a yearly provision of
300 out of the Civil List. |
| July 17 |
Drs. Baillie and Laurie examine Byron's club
foot; at their recommendations Mr. T. Sheldrake makes a brace
(which Byron neglects to wear). |
| Sept. 1 |
Byron enters Dr. Glennie's School,
Dulwich. |
| August/Sept. |
Hanson dismisses May Gray after learning
that she had been in the habit of coming to bed with Byron
and indulging in sexual play.
Byron also admits to Gray's beatings, drunkenness and general
neglect of her duties. |
| 1800 |
Nov. 27 to
early January |
Byron spends Christmas holidays with the
Hanson children at Earl's Court, Kensington. |
| mid. January |
CGB's increased income allows her to move to
Sloane Terrrace, London, near the Hansons and Dr. Glennie's
School. |
| Jan 16. |
CGB meets Lord Carlisle for the first
time. |
| Spring |
To Hanson's dismay, CGB interferes with
Byron's education by keeping him out of school. |
| Summer |
Byron and his mother spend the summer
holiday in Nottingham and Newstead.
Byron falls in love with first cousin, Margaret Parker (d.
1802), who inspires his "first dash into poetry" (Poetry I
5n; Detached Thoughts , No. 79) |
| |
Catherine Gordon Byron's interference in the
young Lord's education becomes unreasonable, and she is
denied her weekly visits with Byron by his guardians.
Her temper and tantrums alienate Lord Carlisle. |
| Christmas |
Byron spends the holidays at Earl's Court
with the Hansons. |
| |
Dr. Baillie and Dr. Maurice Laurie evaluate
Byron's foot, and Laurie prescribes a new brace to replace
those designed by Sheldrake. |
