William Byron, 5th Baron Byron William Byron, 5th Baron Byron William Byron, 5th Baron Byron (5 November 1722 – 19 May 1798), was a British nobleman, peer, politician, and great uncle of the poet George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron who succeeded him . As a result of a number of stories that arose after a duel, and then because of his financial difficulties, he became known as "the Wicked Lord" and "the Devil Byron". Byron was the son of William Byron, 4th Baron Byron and his wife Hon. Frances Berkeley, a descendant of John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton. He inherited his title
Lord Byron "low company" she kept during drinking binges. She was later dismissed, supposedly for beating Byron when he was 11. A few years later, while he was still a child, Lord Grey De Ruthyn (unrelated to May Gray), a suitor of his mother's, also made sexual advances on him. Byron's personality has been characterised as exceptionally proud and sensitive, especially when it came to his deformity. His extreme reaction to seeing his mother flirting outrageously with Lord Grey De Ruthyn after the incident suggests this; he did not tell her of Grey's conduct toward him, he simply refused to speak to