Allegra Byron Allegra Byron Clara Allegra Byron (12 January 1817 – 20 April 1822) was the illegitimate daughter of the poet George Gordon, Lord Byron and Claire Clairmont. Born in Bath, England, she was initially named Alba, meaning "dawn", or "white", by her mother. At first she lived with her mother, her mother's stepsister, Mary Shelley, and Mary's husband Percy Bysshe Shelley. When she was fifteen months old, she was turned over to Byron, who changed her name to Allegra. Byron placed her with foster families and later in a Roman Catholic convent, where she died at age five of typhus or
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.