Early life of Lord Byron article) 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
Lord Byron in England.) He journeyed through Belgium and continued up the Rhine river. In the summer of 1816 he settled at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva, Switzerland, with his personal physician, the young, brilliant and handsome John William Polidori. There Byron befriended the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Shelley's future wife Mary Godwin. He was also joined by Mary's stepsister, Claire Clairmont, with whom he had had an affair in London. Several times Byron went to see Germaine de Staël and her Coppet group, which turned out to be a valid intellectual and emotional support to Byron at the time.