A Byron Chronology

Abstract

1788(22 Jan) George Gordon Byron is born in lodgings at 16 Holies Street, Cavendish Square, London, only child of John Byron (1756–91) and his second wife, Catherine, née Gordon (1765–1811), who had married on 13 May 1785 at St Michael’s Church, Bath. John Byron, the eldest son of the second son of the fourth Lord Byron, had previously married (in 1779) Amelia, Lady Carmarthen (died 28 Jan 1784), the divorced wife of the Marquess of Carmarthen, who had borne him a daughter, Augusta Mary (born 26 Jan 1784), half-sister of B. In the autumn of 1787, B’s parents had gone to France to escape their creditors, but had returned separately to England not long before his birth. The child is born with a clubbed right foot and is seen by John Hunter, the famous surgeon. (29 Jan) B is christened at Marylebone parish church.