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| 1824 - Byron on his death bed in Greece |
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| George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron Poet superstar 22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824 |
"up Mansfield Road, and through Papplewick and Linby on to the Wighay, and thence to the Church, which had been visited all the morning by great numbers of people, most of whom also looked in the vault. The minute bell began to toll at half-past one, and some special visitors were permitted to enter the Church, where the splendid but mournful procession arrived at 18 minutes to 4 o'clock. The Rev. Charles Nixon read the service, and at the committal part thereof the attendants placed the coffin and urn in the vault, the bearer of the coronet on a crimson cushion standing at the top of the vault steps. The Vicar stood within the Communion Rails to read the last portion of the service."
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| The Byron family vault Byron's coffin (left) and coronet borne on a crimson cushion during the funeral procession |
"July 18, 1824. Poor Byron! I was grieved exceedingly at the tidings of his death; but when his remains arrived here, it seemed to make it almost a family sorrow. I wept then, for my heart was full of grief to think that fine eccentric genius, that handsome man, the brave asserter of the rights of the Greeks, and the first poet of our time, he whose name will be mentioned with reverence and whose glory will be uneclipsed when our children shall have passed to dust, to think that he lay a corpse in an inn in this very town. Oh! Anna, I could not refrain from tears.
"Byron's faithful, generous, undeviating friend, Hobhouse, who stood by him to the last, his friend through good and evil, -he only, excepting Byron's servants and the undertakers, came down to see the last rites paid. Hobhouse's countenance was pale, and strongly marked by mental suffering.
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| Mary Howitt, Nottingham author and poet, who attended Byron's funeral procession in 1824 aged 25 was the perfect demographic of Byron's adoring female fans. Older Mary became a famous children's book author. |
Old Market Square in the early 1800's
Scene of Byron's laying in state
before his funeral procession to Hucknall.
"But to particulars. On Fifth-day afternoon the hearse and mourning coaches came into Nottingham. In the evening the coffin lay in state. The crowd was immense. We went among the rest. I shall never forget it. The room was hung with black, with the escutcheons of the Byron family on the walls; it was lighted by six immense wax-candles, placed round the coffin in the middle of the room. The coffin was covered with crimson velvet, richly ornamented with brass nails; on the top was a plate engraved with the arms and titles of Lord Byron. At the head of the coffin was placed a small chest containing an urn, which enclosed the heart and brains. Four pages stood, two on each side. Visitors were admitted by twelves, and were to walk round only; but we laid our hands on the coffin. It was a moment of enthusiastic feeling to me, It seemed to me impossible that that wonderful man lay actually within that coffin. It was more like a dream than a reality.
"Nottingham, which connects everything with politics, could not help making even the passing respect to our poet's memory a political question. He was a Whig; he hated priests, and was a lover of liberty; he was the author of Don Juan' and Cain. So the Tory party, which is the same as saying the gentry, would not notice even his coffin. The parsons had their feud, and therefore not a bell tolled either when he came or went. He was a lover of liberty, which the Radical Corporation here thought made him their brother; therefore all the rabble rout from every lane and alley, and garret and cellar, came forth to curse and swear, and shout and push, in his honour. All religious people forswore him, on account of his licentiousness and blasphemy; they forgot his Childe Harold,' his Bride of Abydos," the Corsair,' and 'Lara.'
"The next morning all the friends and admirers of Byron were invited to meet in the market-place, to form a procession to accompany him out of town. Thou must have read in the papers the funeral train that came from London. In addition to this were five gentlemen's carriages, and perhaps thirty riders on horseback, besides Lord Rancliffe's tenantry, who made about thirty more, and headed the procession, and were by far the most respectable; for never, surely, did such a shabby company ride in the train of mountebanks or players. There was not one gentleman who would honour our immortal bard by riding two miles in his funeral train. The equestrians, instead of following two and two, as the paper says they did, most remarkably illustrated riding all sixes and sevens.
"William, Charles, Thomas Knott, and that odd Smith (thou rememberest him) went to Hucknall to see the interment. It, like the rest, was the most disgraceful scene of confusion that can well be imagined, for from the absence of all persons of influence, or almost of respectability, the rude crowd of country clowns and Nottingham Goths paid no regard to the occasion, and no respect or decency was to be seen. William says it was almost enough to make Byron rise from the dead to see the scene of indecorum, and the poor, miserable place in which he lies, though it is the family burial vault. "That mad-headed, impetuous Smith was, like the rest, enraged at the want of respect which was the most marked trait of the interment. Although he had that day walked in the heat of a broiling sun fourteen miles, he sat up and wrote a poem on the subject, which I send as a curiosity. He composed and copied it by three o'clock in the morning, went and called up Sutton, very much to his displeasure, had it sent to press by six o'clock, and by nine had the verses ready for publication. Byron's servants took four-and-twenty copies, and seemed much delighted with it.
William Howitt's poem inspired by Byron's internment
"Is it not strange that such an unusual silence is maintained by the poets on the subject of his death? It reminds me of the Eastern custom of breaking all instruments of music in any overwhelming grief, or on the occasion of the death of some favourite. It seems a theme too painful for any but a master-touch, and he is gone that could do best justice to such a subject."
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| 1824 - The reception of Lord Byron in Messolonghi in Greece during the War of Independence. (painted by Vryzakis Theodoros) Byron died at shortly after. Today he is a Greek national hero. His involvement may have been low on actual combat time but was influential on public opinion for the Greek cause. |
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| Greeks v. Turks at the 3rd Siege ofMissolonghi |
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| Byron in Albanian national dress. It was via his pro-Greek friend Ali Pasha of Albania that he got involved in the war. |
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| Byron's ancestral home was Newstead Abbey. The deer park, by his great uncle William Byron, 4th Baron Byron c.1700 |
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| Rev TG Barber |
In 1809 he attained his majority, took his seat in the House of Lords, and published English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. In the same year he set out on his first tour; and after visiting Portugal, Spain, Greece, Asia Minor, &c., returned to England in 1811.
Soon after his return he lost his mother. In 1812 he published Childe Harold, Cantos I. and II."
In 1816 he left England never to return. With increasing debt and an inability to fund his superstar life-style he sold Newstead to school friend Thomas Wildman in 1818. He spent a large part of his inherited family fortune restoring it and turning into the tourist mecca that it very quickly became and which it remains to this day.
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| Byron Grand Touring by VW Kombi |
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| Byron's actual carriage was modelled on his hero Bonaparte's own one |
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Notes and sources
Mary Howitt's autobiography https://archive.org/details/maryhowittautobi00howi/page/102/mode/2up?ref=ol&q=goths
The Nottingham Date Book https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Date_Book_of_Remarkable_and_Memorabl/SoQHAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA495&printsec=frontcover&dq=byron
William Howitt - A Poet's Thoughts at the Interment of Lord Byron, first edition, Printed for Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1824. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9bx_eus1LRMC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
The Watnall Hall grates... "I hear much of the goings on at Newstead. Colonel Wildman prevailed on Mrs. Rolleston to let him have the old grates from Watnall , and they are now among the precious "antiques" of Newstead." Spring 1835 written at Woodborough Hall from the Letters of Frances Rolleston https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=mNMxAQAAMAAJ&pg=GBS.PA92&hl=en_GB&q=wildman
Left Lion magazine https://leftlion.co.uk/features/2018/01/miranda-seymour-on-lord-byron/
Honourable mention to Sir Julien Cahn, eccentric local entrepreneur who bought Newstead and donated it to Nottingham City Council for the benefit of the people. He deserves an article of his own.
Newstead visitor numbers - With the coming of the railways in the 1830s and cheaper travel, visitor numbers grew to around 10,000 every year - "Byron and Newstead : the aristocrat and the abbey" by Beckett, J. V. ; "The fall and rise of the stately home" by Mandler, Peter
J H Beardsmore, The History of Hucknall Torkard, (1909) http://www.nottshistory.org.uk/books/hucknall1909/hucknall13.htm
Fiona MacCarthy's Byron: Life and Legend https://archive.org/details/byronlifelegend0000macc/page/n7/mode/2up
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/on-the-trail-of-the-real-lord-byron-126324.html
https://flashbak.com/they-dug-up-lord-byrons-body-in-1938-and-were-shocked-by-the-size-of-his-dick-417510/
At four o'clock on the afternoon of 15th June 1938, the doors to St. Mary Magdalene were locked. Inside, around forty people waited expectantly for the opening of the Byron vault.
When Byron died of fever at the age of 36 in Missolonghi, Greece, on 19th April 1826, his body was opened up by five physicians and his brain and internal organs removed. What they were looking for, one has to wonder, but it is believed the Greeks wanted a part of their hero poet to be kept in their country. Byron’s final adventure brought him to Greece with the intention of liberating the country from their Ottoman rulers. The thought of having a tangible symbol of the poet would be enough to inspire the Greeks to fight on.
Back in Blighty, there was controversy over where the poet was to be buried. Westminster Abbey refused on ground’s of Byron’s “questionable morality.” After several weeks of negotiations, the corpse was eventually shipped back to England, embalmed in a vat of brand, for burial at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene.
Early in 1938, Canon Barber confided in the church warden A. E. Houldsworth about his misgivings and expressed his intention to examine the Byron vault and “clear up all doubts as to the Poet’s burial place and compile a record of the contents of the vault.”
Canon Barber wrote to his local member of Parliament requesting permission from the Home Office to open the crypt. He also wrote to the surviving Lord Byron, who was then Vicar of Thrumpton, asking for permission to enter the family vault. The Vicar gave his agreement and “expressed his fervent hope that great family treasure would be discovered with his ancestors and returned to him.”
At four o’clock on the afternoon of 15th June 1938, the doors to St. Mary Magdalene were locked. Inside, around forty people waited expectantly for the opening of the Byron vault. According to notes written by Houldsworth, among those in attendance were:
Rev. Canon Barber & his wife
Mr Seymour Cocks MP
N. M. Lane, diocesan surveyor
Mr Holland Walker
Capt & Mrs McCraith
Dr Llewellyn
Mr & Mrs G. L. Willis (vicar’s warden)
Mr & Mrs c. G. Campbell banker
Mr Claude Bullock, photographer
Mr Geoffrey Johnstone
Mr Jim Bettridge (church fireman)
The others were not known to Houldsworth.
By six-thirty, masons were able to remove the large slab above the vault. Dr. Llewellyn used a miner’s safety to be lowered into the opening to test the air. The first view of the vault revealed it be a surprisingly small area with two ornate coffins.
From a distant view the two coffins appeared to be in excellent condition. They were each surmounted by a coronet… The coronet on the centre coffin bore six orbs on long stems, but the other coronet had apparently been robbed of the silver orbs which had originally been fixed on short stems close to the rim.
The coffins were covered with purple velvet, now much faded, and some of the handles had been removed. A closer examination revealed the centre coffin to be that of Byron’s daughter Augusta Ada, Lady Lovelace.
At the foot of the staircase, resting on a child’s lead coffin was a casket which, according to the inscription on the wooden lid and on the casket inside, contained the heart and brains of Lord Noel Byron. The vault also contained six other lead shells all in a considerable state of dissolution–the bottom coffins in the tiers being crushed almost flat by the immense weight above them.
Byron’s coffin was missing its nameplate, brass ornaments, and velvet covering. It looked solid but was soft and spongy to the touch. Houldsworth called on Johnstone and Bettridge to help raise the lid. Inside was a lead shell. When this was removed, another wooden coffin was visible inside.
After raising this we were able to see Lord Byron’s body which was in an excellent state of preservation. No decomposition had taken place and the head, torso and limbs were quite solid. The only parts skeletonised were the forearms, hands, lower shins, ankles and feet, though his right foot was not seen in the coffin. The hair on his head, body and limbs was intact, though grey. His sexual organ shewed quite abnormal development. There was a hole in his breast and at the back of his head, where his heart and brains had been removed. These are placed in a large urn near the coffin. The manufacture, ornaments and furnishings of the urn is identical with that of the coffin. The sculptured medallion on the church chancel wall is an excellent representation of Lord Byron as he still appeared in 1938.
It’s been claimed by some that Byron had an enormous erection. In the 1970s, Houldsworth told a local newspaper that Byron’s penis was as big and as long as “a pony’s.” It was noted the men in attendance took turns in entering the vault to view Byron’s body before returning (no doubt in shock and awe) to the church above. There is no mention as to how the women responded. Houldsworth also later wrote to one of Byron’s biographers, Elizabeth Longford, that the poet’s missing lower leg–the one with the club foot–was located at the bottom of the coffin.
Unfortunately, the photographer present refused to take any pictures of Byron’s corpse for fear of sacrilege–well, that was his excuse. However, he did take a picture of the two coffins which was featured in the Rev. Canon Barber’s book Byron–and Where he is Buried in 1939.
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