Early life of Lord Byron Early life of Lord Byron George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron of Rochdale, better known as the poet Lord Byron, was born 22 January 1788 in Holles Street, London, England, and raised by his mother in Aberdeen, Scotland. His life was complicated by his father, who died deep in debt when he was a child. He was able to work his way through school, and his life advanced after he inherited both his great-uncle's title in 1798 and the Newstead Abbey estate. Byron was the son of Captain John "Mad Jack" Byron and his second wife, the former Catherine Gordon,
Lord Byron in Italy he frequently visited his friend and fellow poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Later in life Byron joined the Greek War of Independence fighting the Ottoman Empire, for which Greeks revere him as a national hero. He died in 1824 at the age of 36 from a fever contracted in Missolonghi. Often described as the most flamboyant and notorious of the major Romantics, Byron was both celebrated and castigated in his life for his aristocratic excesses, which included huge debts, numerous love affairs with both men and women, as well as rumours of a scandalous liaison with his half-sister. One