Colleges and halls of the University of Oxford Balliol College
College name	The Master and Scholars of Balliol College
Named after	John I de Balliol
Established	1263
Sister college	St John's College, Cambridge
Master	Sir Drummond Bone
Undergraduates	403
Graduates	228
Location of Balliol College within central OxfordCoordinates: 51°45′17″N 1°15′28″W / 51.7547°N 1.2578°W / 51.7547; -1.2578
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Balliol College ( /ˈbeɪliəl/), founded in 1263,^[1] is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England.

Traditionally, the undergraduates are amongst the most politically active in the university, and the college's alumni include three former prime ministers. H. H. Asquith (a Balliol undergraduate and British Prime Minister) once wryly described Balliol men as possessing "the tranquil consciousness of an effortless superiority." Adam Smith, a graduate student of the college, is perhaps its best known alumnus. As of 2009, Balliol had an endowment of £64 m.^[2]

History[link]

The College was founded in about 1263 (leading some to argue that it is the University's oldest college, a claim contested by University College and Merton College) by John I de Balliol under the guidance of the Bishop of Durham. After his death in 1268, his widow, Dervorguilla of Galloway (their son and grandson both became Kings of Scotland) made arrangements to ensure the permanence of the college in that she provided capital and in 1282 formulated the college statutes, documents that survive to this day.

Student life[link]

The college provides its students with a broad range of facilities, including accommodation, the great hall (refectory), a library, two bars, and separate common rooms for the fellows, the graduates and undergraduates. There are also garden quadrangles and a nearby sportsground and boat-house. The sportsground is mainly used for cricket, tennis, hockey and football. The majority of undergraduates are housed within the main college or in the modern annexes around the sportsground. Croquet may be played in the Master's Field, or garden quadrangles in the summer. The graduates are housed mainly within Holywell Manor which has its own bar, gardens, common room, gym and computing facilities. Balliol is proud to have a long standing Music Society which organises four free Sunday evening concerts in the College Hall each term. Balliol is the only Oxford college to have its own bridge club.

Balliol also takes pride in its college tortoises. The original tortoise, who resided at the College for at least 43 years, was known as Rosa, named after the notable German Marxist Rosa Luxemburg. Each June, pet tortoises from various Oxford colleges are brought to Corpus Christi College where they participate in a very slow race; Balliol's own Rosa competed and won many times. Rosa disappeared in the Spring of 2004, and while numerous conspiracy theories have abounded, none is officially recognised by the College. It should be noted that Rosa had a long and happy life through the care of David Russell (the Comrade Tortoise) and he was distraught to have had her lost. However, on 29 April 2007, Chris Skidmore, a Graduate of Christ Church working at the House of Commons, donated a pair of tortoises - one to his own college, and one to Balliol, where he had attended an open day in 1999. The new tortoise, Matilda died in April 2009. Taking care of the resident tortoise is one of the many tasks assigned to Balliol students each year. This position, known as "Comrade Tortoise", has been filled by a student every year. The Assistant Gardener, Steve Taylor who joined Balliol from Cotswold Wildlife Park assists Comrade Tortoise in the practical matters of testudinal care.

Balliol students are noted for their left-wing tendencies; the college ethos has been described as "conservatively left-wing". The JCR has had requests for the Sun and News of the World newspapers several times, but each time a majority of students voted against the idea. In 2008 it was voted by a GM that the JCR would receive a daily copy of the Sun. The Sun celebrated the decision by sending a bus full of Page Three girls to the college, describing the order as a lifted "ban".^[3] Following this decision, at the next fortnightly GM the decision was reversed.

Balliol's JCR is noted for being particularly active, providing many services for its members. These range from laundry facilities, one of the few entirely student-run bars left in Oxford (the Manager, Lord/Lady Lindsay, is elected each year by students in the JCR) to a cafeteria (known as Pantry), the only student-run establishment of its type, which serves itemised cooked breakfast until 11.30am and Lunch every day, and dinner 6 nights a week. Members of the JCR are encouraged to get involved with the running of these facilities.

Traditions and customs[link]

The front of the college in Broad Street.

The whole of the front of Balliol College as seen from Broad Street, looking west.

Along with many of the ancient colleges, Balliol has evolved its own traditions and customs over the centuries, many of which occupy a regular calendar slot.

• The patron saint of the College is Saint Catherine of Alexandria. On her feast day (25 November), a formal dinner is held for all final year students within Balliol. This festival was well established by 1550.
• Another important feast in the College calendar is the Snell Dinner. This dinner is held in memory of John Snell, whose benefaction established exhibitions for students from the University of Glasgow to study at Balliol (the first exhibitioners were matriculated in 1699) one of whom was Adam Smith. The feast is attended by fellows of Balliol College, the current Snell Exhibitioners, and representatives from Glasgow University and St John's College, Cambridge.
• By far the most eccentric is The Nepotists carol-singing event organised by the College's Arnold and Brackenbury society. This event happens on the last Friday of Michaelmas term each year. On this occasion Balliol students congregate in the college hall to enjoy mulled wine and the singing of hymns. The evening historically ended with a rendition of "The Gordouli" (see Balliol-Trinity Rivalry below) on Broad Street, outside the gates of Trinity College, although in recent years the song has been sung from within the college walls.

The Masque of Balliol[link]

In 1880, seven mischievous undergraduates at Balliol College, Oxford, published The Masque of B-ll--l, a broadsheet of forty quatrains making light of their superiors – the Master and selected Fellows, Scholars, and Commoners – and themselves. The outraged authorities immediately suppressed the collection, and only a few copies survived, three of which found their way into the College Library over the years, and one into the Bodleian Library. Verses of this form are now known as Balliol rhymes.

The best known of these rhymes is the one on Benjamin Jowett. This has been widely quoted and reprinted in virtually every book about Jowett and about Balliol ever since.

"First come I.

My name is J-W-TT.

There's no knowledge but I know it.

I am Master of this College,

What I don't know isn't knowledge."

This and 18 others are attributed to Henry Charles Beeching. The other quatrains are much less well known.

William Tuckwell included 18 of these quatrains in his Reminiscences in 1900, but they all came out only in 1939, thanks to Walter George Hiscock, an Oxford librarian, who issued them personally then and in a second edition in 1955.^[4]

Balliol-Trinity rivalry[link]

For many years, there has been a traditional and fierce rivalry shown between the students of Balliol and those of its immediate neighbour to the east, Trinity College.^[5] It has manifested itself on the sports field and the river; in the form of songs (of greater or less offensiveness) sung over the dividing walls; and in the form of "raids" on the other college. The rivalry poetically reflects that which also exists between Trinity College, Cambridge and Balliol's Sister College, St John's College, Cambridge.

In college folklore, the rivalry goes back to the late 17th century, when Ralph Bathurst, President of Trinity, was supposedly observed throwing stones at Balliol's windows.^[6] In fact, in its modern form, the rivalry appears to date from the late 1890s, when the chant or song known as a "Gordouli" began to be sung from the Balliol side.^[7] The traditional words run:

"Gordouli

Face like a ham,

Bobby Johnson says so

And he should know."^[8]

Although these words are now rarely heard, the singing of songs over the wall are still known as "a Gordouli". The traditional Gordouli is said to have been sung by Balliol and Trinity men in the trenches of Mesopotamia during the First World War.^[9]

The rivalry was given an extra edge in the early 20th century by the contrast between the radical tendencies of many Balliol students and Trinity's traditional conservatism and social exclusivity. The fact that Balliol (in contrast to Trinity) had admitted a number of Indian and Asiatic students also gave many of the taunts from the Trinity side a distinctly racist tone: Balliol students, for example, were sometime referred to as "Basutos".^[10]

In Five Red Herrings (1931), a Lord Peter Wimsey novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, Lord Peter (a Balliol man) is asked whether he remembers a certain contemporary from Trinity. "'I never knew any Trinity men,' said Wimsey. 'The Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.'"^[11] Sayers also alludes to the rivalry in Murder Must Advertise (1933).

One of the wittier raids from Balliol, in 1962 or 1963, involved the turfing of the whole of Trinity JCR (complete with daffodils).^[12] The last incident suspected to relate to the feud was the vandalisation of Trinity's SCR pond, which led to the death of all but one of the fish.^[13]

Buildings[link]

William Butterfield's chapel, seen from the Fellows' Garden

Hall and the Senior Common Room, seen from the Fellows' Garden

Front quadrangle[link]

The college has been on its present site since its inception by Balliol's scholars as their residence. A lease dating to 1263 to them is the traditional "foundation" date. The oldest parts of the college are the north and west ranges of the front quadrangle, dated to 1431, respectively the medieval hall, west side, now the "new library" and the "old library" first floor north side. The ground floor is the "Old" (i.e. Senior) Common Room. This means that Balliol's second library predates the publication of printed books in Europe. There is a possibility that the original Master's Chamber, south west side, adorned with a fine oriel window is earlier than these; it is now the Master's Dining Room. The Chapel is the third (perhaps fourth) on the site (William Butterfield) 1857. Alfred Waterhouse designed the main Broad Street frontage of the college, with gateway and tower, known as the Brackenbury Buildings, in 1867-68 Staircases ('Stc') I-VII, the first Stc next to the Chapel is the Organ Scholars lodgings. These replaced earlier structures.

Garden Quadrangle[link]

South-side is the front part of the Master's Lodgings on Broad Street from the Waterhouse improvements of the 1860s of the front quad. The neighbour to this is the Fisher Building of 1759 (Stc X) The undistinguished looking Stc XI, south west side, is in fact the oldest structure in this quadrangle, 1720, originally intended as accommodation for scholars from Bristol, hence its name. Continuing the west-side Stc XII-XIV dates from 1826, by George Basevi, and marks the beginnings of the college's academic renaissance being required for the increasing number of Commoners applying for places. Stc XV by Warren of 1912 filled in the last gap of the quadrangle; the ground floor and basement is the principal Junior Common Room. This unfortunately obscures the lines of the Salvin designed Stc XVI-XIX with Tower of 1853. As does the 1968 building by Beard Stc XX, replacing a Victorian structure. This completely hides a formal gateway similar to that at the Broad Street main entrance, this can be viewed outside from Little Magdalen Street, through the gap marked XIX one finds the small function room 'Massey Room'. At north side, of Stc XX is the 'Back Gate' which is part of the 1906 Warren building, west and north side, Stc XXI. At 1 St Giles Street is its neighbour which is part of the college and houses the Oxford Internet Institute. Beard's Stc XXII, replacing Victorian rooms, these were provided from the Vivian Bulkeley-Johnson benefaction. Beard's Stc XX and XXII are connected by the Snell Bridge accommodation at third floor level, which was provided from Glasgow University's Snell Benefaction.

The "new" hall (replacing that in the front quadrangle) is built on land given by Benjamin Jowett, a Victorian master of the college. Also by Alfred Waterhouse of 1877, it contains a Willis organ for concerts, again instituted by Jowett. The ground floor contains the college bar and shop i.e. 'The Buttery' (west side) and the Senior Common Room lunch room (east side). The 1966 new Senior Common Room range (Stc XXIII)(northern and eastern sides) was a benefaction of the Bernard Sunley Foundation and contains some smaller rooms and the principal SCR lounge, replacing Victorian facilities. Below this is a Lecture Room {'LR XXIII'}. The east side of the quad is a neighbouring wall with Trinity College, at the southern end is the Master's Garden, in front of the Chapel, and the Fellow's Garden in front of the 'Old' (Senior) Common Room. The Tower forming the corner between the 'Old Hall' and 'Old Library' is also by Salvin, of 1853 and balances that at Stc XVI-XIX.

Manor Road and Jowett Walk[link]

The 20th century saw several further additions to the college's accommodation, the Martin of 1966 ('Hollywell Minor') and Dellal (1986) buildings for graduates on Manor Road. Many undergraduates and some graduates live in buildings on Jowett Walk a phased development from the turn of the Millennium, containing a small theatre facility, five minutes' walking distance from the main College site; these two developments are on the curtilages of the Master's Field, the sports ground and pavilion facilities of the College. The majority of research and post-graduate students are housed in the Holywell Manor complex, on Manor Road a little further south of this. In 2008 it was announced that St Cross Church, next to the Manor, was to become the College's Historic Collections Centre, an extension to the Library's services. The church dates to the 15th Century. Jowett Walk has also provided accommodation for some non-Balliol undergraduates, as part of an arrangement with Wadham College.

The quad at Balliol is the scene of the well-known limerick that parodies the immaterialist philosophy of Bishop Berkeley:

There was a young man who said, God

Must think it exceedingly odd

If he finds that this tree

Continues to be

When there's no one about in the Quad

and also of the response, by the Balliol-educated Catholic theologian and Bible translator Ronald Knox, which more accurately reflects Berkeley's own beliefs:

Dear Sir, your astonishment's odd:

I am always about in the Quad.

And that's why the tree

Will continue to be,

Since observed by, Yours faithfully, GOD.

Notable people[link]

In common with many Oxford colleges, Balliol has produced a wide range of graduates in the fields of economics, history, law, physiology, medicine, management, humanities, mathematics, science, technology, media, philosophy, poetry, politics, and religion. They have also contributed significantly to public life. Balliol people were, for example, prominent in establishing the International Baccalaureate, the National Trust, the Workers Educational Association, the Welfare State, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Amnesty International.

Balliol has produced numerous Nobel Laureates. The number is either 5 or 12 depending on whether only alumni are counted or whether faculty who later went on to get the Nobel Prize are included. Five Nobel Laureates were students at Balliol (the most of any college at Oxford): Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood (Chemistry, 1956), Sir John Hicks (Economics, 1972), Baruch S. Blumberg (Physiology or Medicine, 1976), Anthony J. Leggett (Physics, 2003) and Oliver Smithies (Physiology or Medicine, 2007). Seven more have been Fellows of the College (this too is the largest number of any college at Oxford ): George Beadle (Physiology or Medicine), Norman Ramsey (Physics), Robert Solow (Economics), John Van Vleck (Physics), Gunnar Myrdal (Economics), Linus Pauling (both Peace and Chemistry) and William D. Phillips (Physics).

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins was a student there from 1959 to 1962. Adam Smith attended this college between 1740 and 1746 as a Snell Exhibitioner.

In politics, Balliol has produced three British Prime Ministers: H. H. Asquith, Harold Macmillan, and Edward Heath. At the mid point of the twentieth century members of the College held senior leadership positions in the three major political parties, those previously mentioned were supplemented by Jo Grimond (Liberal Leader), Denis Healey and Roy Jenkins both of whom had been Chancellor and both expected to serve as PM, the last named also led the Social Democratic Party and became President of the European Commission. The Mayor of London and former MP, Boris Johnson, attended Balliol.

Three kings, Olav V and Harald V of Norway, and Yang di-Pertuan Besar of Malaysia have studied at Balliol. Richard von Weizsäcker, President of Germany from 1984 to 1994, also studied at Balliol.

Shoghi Effendi, one of the appointed leaders of the Baha'i Faith from 1921 until his death in 1957, studied Economics and Social Sciences.

Balliol lawyers have also been prominent. Lord Bingham, who read History and has been the College's Visitor for many years, was the Senior Law Lord of the United Kingdom, while Sir Brian Hutton and Lord Rodger have held equivalent positions in Northern Ireland and Scotland, at one point, all three simultaneously. The famous Barrister George Carman QC studied Jurisprudence at Balliol.

Literary figures include Robert Southey, Matthew Arnold, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Arthur Hugh Clough, Hilaire Belloc, Ronald Knox, Graham Greene, Joseph Macleod, Anthony Powell, Aldous Huxley, Christopher Hollis, Robertson Davies, Nevil Shute and Chris Cleave. Perhaps its most famous literary characters, however, are fictional: author Dorothy Sayers' made her well-known detective Lord Peter Wimsey a graduate of, and noted cricketer for, Balliol. In a speech entitled "Captain Hook at Eton" in 1927, James M. Barrie indicated that Captain Hook attended Balliol. Among other fictional detectives from Balliol is Dr Gideon Fell, the creation of John Dickson Carr. Balliol's many crime writers include W. J. Burley, Robert Barnard, Tim Heald and Martin Edwards.

Notable Balliol philosophers and thinkers include T.H. Green, J. L. Austin, Charles Taylor, Bernard Williams, R.M. Hare, Michael Sandel, Joseph Raz among others.

Balliol members have had a predominance as holders of the office of Chancellor of the University from the 20th Century to the present; George Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon, Harold Macmillan, Roy Jenkins and Chris Patten, the last two being opposed in their election by Edward Heath and Lord Bingham of Cornhill respectively.

The College has also produced TV presenters Peter Snow and his son Dan Snow, as well as the journalist Christopher Hitchens.

Adam von Trott zu Solz the German diplomat and anti-Hitler plotter was a Rhodes Scholar at the College.

Howard Marks, a convicted drug dealer and later author, attended Balliol between 1964 and 1967 to study physics and then again between 1968 and 1969 to study History and Philosophy of Science.

Near-complete lists of Fellows and students can be found in the published Balliol College Register; the 1st edition (1914, covering matriculations 1832-1914), 2nd edition (1934, covering matriculations 1833-1933) and 3rd edition (1953, covering matriculations 1900-1950) are available online.

Academics and visiting academics[link]

As with all Colleges, Balliol has a more or less permanent set of teaching staff, known as Fellows. These include both Tutorial Fellows and Professorial Fellows. These are supplemented by academics on short term contracts. In addition, there are visiting international academics who come to Oxford for periods of up to a year. This is effected through the George Eastman Visiting Professorial Fellowship. The official list of current senior members of the College can be found here. There is an incomplete list of Balliol College academics past and present.

Institute and centre[link]

• Balliol, especially the previous Master, Andrew Graham, played a major role in 2000 and 2001 in setting up the Oxford Internet Institute. This was the world's first multidisciplinary research and policy centre in a university devoted to examining the impact on society of the Internet. It is a department of Oxford University, but is located in Balliol, and its Director is a Professorial Fellow of Balliol.

See also[link]

• Balliol College Boat Club

External links[link]

• Balliol College main website
• [Final broadcast by the outgoing Master, Andrew Graham] http://www.voicesfromoxford.com/balliol%20alumni%20september2011.html
• Junior Common Room website (undergraduate students)
• Middle Common Room website (graduate students)
• Balliol College Boat Club
• A virtual tour of Balliol College (360° photographs)
• Balliol College History & Archives

• Map sources for Balliol College, Oxford
• The Oxonian Review of Books (Oxford's postgraduate review, based at Balliol)

References[link]

• John Jones, Balliol College: A History, Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, revised. 2005.

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James Beeland Rogers, Jr.
Born	(1942-10-19) October 19, 1942 (age 69) Baltimore, Maryland, USA[1]
Alma mater	Balliol College, Oxford Yale University
Occupation	Chairman of Rogers Holdings and Beeland Interests, Inc. Co-founder of the Quantum Fund
Website
www.jimrogers.com

James Beeland Rogers, Jr. (born October 19, 1942) is an American investor and author. He is currently based in Singapore. Rogers is the Chairman of Rogers Holdings and Beeland Interests, Inc. He was the co-founder of the Quantum Fund with George Soros and creator of the Rogers International Commodities Index (RICI).

Rogers is an outspoken proponent of the free market, but he does not consider himself a member of any school of thought. Rogers acknowledged, however, that his views best fit the label of Austrian School of economics.^[2][3]

Early life and education[link]

Rogers was born in Baltimore, Maryland and raised in Demopolis, Alabama.^[1][4] He started in business at the age of five by selling peanuts and by picking up empty bottles that fans left behind at baseball games. He got his first job on Wall Street, at Dominick & Dominick, after graduating with a bachelor's degree in History from Yale University in 1964. Rogers then acquired a second BA degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Balliol College, Oxford University in 1966.

Business career[link]

1970-2002[link]

In 1970, Rogers joined Arnhold and S. Bleichroder. In 1973, Rogers co-founded the Quantum Fund with George Soros. During the following 10 years, the portfolio gained 4200% while the S&P advanced about 47%.^[5] The Quantum Fund was one of the first truly international funds.

In 1980, Rogers decided to "retire", and spent some of his time traveling on a motorcycle around the world. Since then, he has been a guest professor of finance at the Columbia Business School.^[6]

In 1989 and 1990, Rogers was the moderator of WCBS' The Dreyfus Roundtable and FNN's The Profit Motive with Jim Rogers. From 1990 to 1992, he traveled through China again, as well as around the world, on motorcycle, over 100,000 miles (160,000 km) across six continents, which was picked up in the Guinness Book of World Records. He tells of his adventures and worldwide investments in Investment Biker, a bestselling investment book.

In 1998, Rogers founded the Rogers International Commodity Index. In 2007, the index and its three sub-indices were linked to exchange-traded notes under the banner ELEMENTS. The notes track the total return of the indices as an accessible way to invest in the index. Rogers is an outspoken advocate of agriculture investments.

Between January 1, 1999 and January 5, 2002, Rogers did another Guinness World Record journey through 116 countries, covering 245,000 kilometers with his wife, Paige Parker, in a custom-made Mercedes. The trip began in Iceland, which was about to celebrate the 1000th anniversary of Leif Eriksson's first trip to America. On January 5, 2002, they were back in New York City and their home on Riverside Drive. His route around the world can be viewed on his website, jimrogers.com. He wrote Adventure Capitalist following this around-the-world adventure. It is currently his bestselling book.

2002 to present[link]

On his return in 2002, Rogers became a regular guest on Fox News' Cavuto on Business and other financial TV shows.^[7] In 2002, Rogers said that Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan's "reaction to the stock-market bubble has caused two more bubbles to grow: a real-estate bubble and a consumer-debt bubble."^[8] In 2006, Rogers said he was shorting US financials, home builders and Fannie Mae.^[9][10]

In 2005, Rogers wrote Hot Commodities: How Anyone Can Invest Profitably in the World's Best Market. In this book, Rogers quotes a Financial Analysts Journal academic paper co-authored by Yale School of Management professor, Geert Rouwenhorst, entitled Facts and Fantasies about Commodity Futures. Rogers contends this paper shows that commodities investment is one of the best investments over time, which is a concept somewhat at odds with conventional investment thinking.

In December 2007, Rogers sold his mansion in New York City for about 16 million USD and moved to Singapore. Rogers claimed that he moved because now is a ground-breaking time for investment potential in Asian markets. Rogers's first daughter is now being tutored in Mandarin to prepare her for the future. He is quoted as saying: "If you were smart in 1807 you moved to London, if you were smart in 1907 you moved to New York City, and if you are smart in 2007 you move to Asia." In a CNBC interview with Maria Bartiromo broadcast on May 5, 2008, Rogers said that people in China are extremely motivated and driven, and he wants to be in that type of environment, so his daughters are motivated and driven. He also stated that this is how America and Europe used to be. He chose not to move to Chinese cities like Hong Kong or Shanghai due to the high levels of pollution causing potential health problems for his family; hence, he chose Singapore. He has also advocated investing in certain smaller Asian frontier markets such as Sri Lanka and Cambodia, and currently serves as an Advisor to Leopard Capital’s Leopard Sri Lanka Fund.^[11] However, he is not fully bullish on all Asian nations, as he remains skeptical of India's future - "India as we know it will not survive another 30 or 40 years".^[12] In 2008 Rogers endorsed Ron Paul for President of the United States.^[13]

Rogers has two daughters with Paige Parker. Hilton Augusta (nicknamed Happy) was born in 2003, and their second daughter Beeland Anderson in 2008. His latest book, A Gift To My Children, contains lessons in life for his daughters as well as investment advice and was published in 2009.

On November 4, 2010, at Oxford University’s Balliol College, he urged students to scrap career plans for Wall Street or the City, London’s financial district, and to study agriculture and mining instead. “The power is shifting again from the financial centers to the producers of real goods. The place to be is in commodities, raw materials, natural resources."^[14]

In February 2011 Rogers announced that he has started a new index fund which focuses on "the top companies in agriculture, mining, metals and energy sectors as well as those in the alternative energy space including solar, wind and hydro."^[15] The index is called The Rogers Global Resources Equity Index and according to Rogers, only the best and most liquid companies go into the index.

Bibliography[link]

• 1995: Investment Biker: Around the World with Jim Rogers. - ISBN 1-55850-529-6
• 2003: Adventure Capitalist: The Ultimate Road Trip. - ISBN 0-375-50912-7
• 2004: Hot Commodities: How Anyone Can Invest Profitably in the World's Best Market. - ISBN 1-4000-6337-X
• 2007: A Bull in China: Investing Profitably in the World's Greatest Market. - ISBN 1-4000-6616-6
• 2009: A Gift to My Children: A Father's Lessons For Life And Investing. - ISBN 1-4000-6754-5

Further reading[link]

• Schwager, Jack D. (1993). Market Wizards: Interviews with Top Traders. Collins; Reissue edition. ISBN 0-88730-610-1. 
• Train, John (2003). Money Masters of Our Time. Collins; Reprint edition. ISBN 978-0-88730-970-0. 

External links[link]

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (September 2010)

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Jim Rogers

• The Millennium Adventure, Official Jim Rogers website
• The Rogers International Commodity Index A site for information on the RICI

Articles

• "An Early Christmas for Jim Rogers". - BusinessWeek - December 8, 2004.
• "Invest In Commodities – and Keep Your Shirt". - November 23, 2006.
• "We Want Our Kids To Learn Chinese". - MySinchew. - July 19, 2008. - (article about Rogers' life in Singapore)
• "Adventure Capitalist". - PODER Magazine. - April 2010.

Interviews

• Curated Interview With Jim Rogers From Market Wizards
• Jim Rogers on the British Pound, US Dollar, And China
• Jim Rogers, The Adventure Capitalist
• Jim Rogers and George Soros Started the Quantum Fund
• rediff.com: The Money Interview/Jim Rogers, investor, globetrotter
• Financial Sense Newshour's Ask The Expert: Jim Rogers:
  • 2003.
  • May 6, 2004.
• Riverside Conversations: a 3 Part TV Series with Marc Faber
• SCMP video interview, September 8, 2008.
• Investors Chronicle interview. - (on the decline of the US/Europe, emerging markets, commodities). - November 2008.
• Bloomberg Night Talk interview. - November 24, 2008.
• Jim Rogers on The Lew Rockwell Show:
  • "The Crash of '08". - December 12, 2008. - (*.MP3 audio)
  • "Economic Advice to My Children (and You)". - May 17, 2009. - (*.MP3 audio)
• Bloomberg TV Jim Rogers Special. - December 24, 2008.
• TIME Q&A: Jim Rogers:
  • April 28, 2009.
  • October 31, 2008.
• Interview from March 2009 on Channel 4
• Jim Rogers Sat 3 Interview German TV Sat 3
• Euro is not to blame for crisis, BBC News, 26 December 2011.

References[link]

Professor Sir (James) Drummond Bone (born 11 July 1947) FRSE FRSA is a British Byron scholar and current Master of Balliol College, Oxford. Bone had previously served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Liverpool from 2002 to 2008.

Education[link]

Bone attended Ayr Academy, a non-denominational secondary school, followed by the University of Glasgow, where he obtained an MA in 1968 and won a Snell Exhibition to study at Balliol College, Oxford from 1968 to 1972.^[1]

Career[link]

Bone is a specialist on the works of Romantic poet Lord Byron, and on leaving Oxford in 1972 became lecturer in English and Comparative Literature at the University of Warwick. He returned to Glasgow in 1980 as a lecturer in English Literature, becoming Senior Lecturer in 1989 and titular Professor in 1995.^[1] From 1991 to 1995, he was Dean of the Faculty of Arts, and in 1995 became Vice-Principal.

In 2000, he left Glasgow to become Principal of Royal Holloway, University of London and Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of London, and in 2002 became Vice Chancellor of the University of Liverpool. Although head of the University, he continued to teach an undergraduate class on Byron, and was also chairman of the Liverpool Culture Company, directing the city's preparations to be European Capital of Culture in 2008. He also served as President of Universities UK, a committee of university heads, from 2005 to 2007.^[2] He retired from Liverpool in 2008, and from October 2011 will be Master of Balliol College, Oxford.^[3]

He is an acknowledged expert on Lord Byron's work and is Vice-President of the Byron Society. He was editor of The Byron Journal from 1978 to 1988 and has been co-editor of journal Romanticism since 1995.^[4] He is a member of the Steering Group of the Council for College and University English, a Fellow of the English Association, and an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts (1995) and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2008).^[4]

Honours[link]

Professor Bone was knighted in the 2008 Birthday Honours for services to Higher Education and the regeneration of the North-West. He also received honorary degrees of Doctor of Letters (DLitt) from the Universities of Liverpool (2008), Lancaster (2008) and Chester (2009), and Doctor of the University (DUniv) from the University of Glasgow (2010).^[4] Bone is also a Maserati enthusiast,^[5] and was made a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Coachmakers and Coach Harness Makers, a Livery Company promoting the automobile industry.^[4]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Profile on Education Guardian
• University of Liverpool Press release
• JISC bio

}} }}

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The Right Honourable The Lord Byron FRS
Portrait of Lord Byron by Thomas Phillips
Born	George Gordon Byron (1788-01-22)22 January 1788 London, Great Britain
Died	19 April 1824(1824-04-19) (aged 36) Missolonghi, Aetolia-Acarnania, Ottoman Empire
Occupation	Poet, politician
Nationality	British
Literary movement	Romanticism
Notable work(s)	Don Juan, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
Children	Ada Lovelace, Allegra Byron
Influences John Milton, Alexander Pope, Edmund Spenser
Influenced Alexander Pushkin, Ivan Turgenev, Mikhail Lermontov, Seamus Heaney, Ilia Chavchavadze, Ebenezer Elliott, Knut Hamsun, John Clare, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Anne Brontë, Gustave Flaubert, Laza Kostić, Heinrich Heine, James Joyce
Signature

George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, FRS (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was a British poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement. Among Byron's best-known works are the brief poems She Walks in Beauty, When We Two Parted, and So, we'll go no more a roving, in addition to the narrative poems Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan. He is regarded as one of the greatest British poets and remains widely read and influential.

He travelled to fight against the Ottoman Empire in the Greek War of Independence, for which Greeks revere him as a national hero.^[1] He died at 36 years old from a fever contracted while in Missolonghi in Greece.

Byron was celebrated in life for aristocratic excesses including huge debts, numerous love affairs, rumours of a scandalous incestuous liaison with his half-sister, and self-imposed exile. It has been speculated that he suffered from bipolar I disorder, or manic depression.^[2][3]

Name[link]

Byron's names were changed throughout his life. He was the son of Captain John "Mad Jack" Byron and his second wife, the former Catherine Gordon (d. 1811), a descendant of Cardinal Beaton and heiress of the Gight estate in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.^[4] Byron's father had previously seduced the married Marchioness of Caermarthen and, after she divorced her husband the Earl, had married her. His treatment of her was described as "brutal and vicious", and she died after having given birth to two daughters, only one of which survived: Byron's half-sister, Augusta.^[5]

Byron's paternal grandparents were Vice-Admiral The Hon. John "Foulweather Jack" Byron and Sophia Trevanion.^[6] Vice Admiral John Byron had circumnavigated the globe, and was the younger brother of the 5th Baron Byron, known as "the Wicked Lord".

He was christened "George Gordon Byron" at St Marylebone Parish Church after his maternal grandfather, George Gordon of Gight, a descendant of James I of Scotland, who had committed suicide^[7] in 1779.

In order to claim his second wife's estate in Scotland, Byron's father had taken the additional surname "Gordon", becoming "John Byron Gordon", and he was occasionally styled "John Byron Gordon of Gight". Byron himself used this surname for a time and was registered at school in Aberdeen as "George Byron Gordon". At the age of 10, he inherited the English Barony of Byron of Rochdale, becoming "Lord Byron", and eventually dropped the double surname (though after this point his surname was secondary to his peerage).

When Byron's mother-in-law, Judith Noel died in 1822, her will required that he change his surname to "Noel" in order to inherit half her estate, and so he obtained a Royal Warrant allowing him to "take and use the surname of Noel only". The Royal Warrant also allowed him to "subscribe the said surname of Noel before all titles of honour", and from that point he signed himself "Noel Byron" (the usual signature of a peer being merely the peerage, in this case simply "Byron"). It is speculated that this was so that his initals would read "N.B." mimicking those of his hero, Napoleon Bonaparte. He was also sometimes referred to as "Lord Noel Byron", as if "Noel" were part of his title, and likewise his wife was sometimes called "Lady Noel Byron". Lady Byron eventually succeeded to the Barony of Wentworth, becoming "Lady Wentworth".

Early life[link]

John Byron married his second wife for the same reason he married his first: her fortune.^[8] Byron's mother had to sell her land and title to pay her new husband's debts, and in the space of two years the large estate, worth some £23,500, had been squandered, leaving the former heiress with an annual income in trust of only £150.^[5] In a move to avoid his creditors, Catherine accompanied her profligate husband to France in 1786, but returned to England at the end of 1787 in order to give birth to her son on English soil. He was born on 22 January in lodgings on Holles Street in London.

Catherine Gordon, Byron's mother

Catherine moved back to Aberdeenshire in 1790, where Byron spent his childhood.^[7] His father soon joined them in their lodgings in Queen Street, but the couple quickly separated. Catherine regularly experienced mood swings and bouts of melancholy,^[7] which could be partly explained by her husband's continuing to appear in order to borrow money from her. As a result, she fell even further into debt to support his demands. It was one of these importunate loans that allowed him to travel to Valenciennes, France, where he died in 1791.^[9]

When Byron's great-uncle, the "wicked" Lord Byron, died on 21 May 1798, the 10-year-old boy became the 6th Baron Byron of Rochdale and inherited the ancestral home, Newstead Abbey in Nottinghamshire. His mother proudly took him to England, but the Abbey was in an embarrassing state of disrepair and rather than live there, his mother decided to rent to Lord Grey de Ruthyn, among others, during his adolescence.

Described as "a woman without judgment or self-command", Catherine either spoiled and indulged her son or aggravated him with her capricious stubbornness. Her drinking disgusted him, and he often mocked her for being short and corpulent, which made it difficult for her to catch him to discipline him. She once retaliated and, in a fit of temper, referred to him as "a lame brat".^[10]

Birth defect[link]

From birth, Byron suffered from a deformity of his right foot. Generally referred to as a "clubfoot", some modern medical experts maintain that it was a consequence of infantile paralysis (poliomyelitis), and others that it was a dysplasia, a failure of the bones to form properly.^[11] Whatever the cause, he was afflicted with a limp that caused him lifelong psychological and physical misery, aggravated by painful and pointless "medical treatment" in his childhood and the nagging suspicion that with proper care it might have been cured.^[12] He was extremely self-conscious about this from a young age, nicknaming himself le diable boiteux^[13] (French for "the limping devil", after the nickname given to Asmodeus by Alain-René Lesage in his 1707 novel of the same name). Although he often wore specially made shoes in an attempt to hide the deformed foot,^[14] he refused to wear any type of brace that might improve the limp.^[7]

Scottish novelist John Galt felt his oversensitivity to the "innocent fault in his foot was unmanly and excessive" because the limp was "not greatly conspicuous." He first met Byron on a voyage to Sardinia and didn't realise he had any deficiency for several days, and still could not tell at first if the lameness was a temporary injury or not. But by the time he met Byron he was an adult and had worked to develop "a mode of walking across a room by which it was scarcely at all perceptible".^[10] The motion of the ship at sea may also have helped to create a favourable first impression and hide any deficiencies in his gait, but Galt's biography is also described as being "rather well-meant than well-written", so Galt may be guilty of minimising a defect that was actually still noticeable.^[15]

'Anticipated life' and the poet's psyche[link]

"I am such a strange mélangé of good and evil that it would be difficult to describe me."^[16]

As a boy, his character is described as a "mixture of affectionate sweetness and playfulness, by which it was impossible not to be attached", although he also exhibited "silent rages, moody sullenness and revenge" with a precocious bent for attachment and obsession.^[17] He described his first intense feelings at age eight for Mary Duff, his distant cousin:

"How very odd that I should have been so devotedly fond of that girl, at an age when I could neither feel passion, nor know the meaning of the word and the effect! My mother used always to rally me about this childish amour, and at last, many years after, when I was sixteen, she told me one day, 'O Byron, I have had a letter from Edinburgh, and your old sweetheart, Mary Duff, is married to Mr C***.' And what was my answer? I really cannot explain or account for my feelings at that moment, but they nearly threw me into convulsions...How the deuce did all this occur so early? Where could it originate? I certainly had no sexual ideas for years afterwards; and yet my misery, my love for that girl were so violent, that I sometimes doubt if I have ever been really attached since. Be that as it may, hearing of her marriage several years after was like a thunder-stroke – it nearly choked me—to the horror of my mother and the astonishment and almost incredulity of every body. And it is a phenomenon in my existence (for I was not eight years old) which has puzzled, and will puzzle me to the latest hour of it; and lately, I know not why, the recollection (not the attachment) has recurred as forcibly as ever...But, the more I reflect, the more I am bewildered to assign any cause for this precocity of affection."^[17]

Byron also became attached to Margaret Parker, another distant cousin,.^[18] While his recollection of his love for Mary Duff is that he was ignorant of adult sexuality during this time, and was bewildered as to the source of the intensity of his feelings, he would later confess that:

"My passions were developed very early – so early, that few would believe me – if I were to state the period – and the facts which accompanied it. Perhaps this was one of the reasons that caused the anticipated melancholy of my thoughts – having anticipated life."^[19]

This is the only reference Byron himself makes to the event, and he is ambiguous as to how old he was when it occurred. After his death, his lawyer wrote to a mutual friend telling him a "singular fact" about Byron's life which was "scarcely fit for narration". But he disclosed it nonetheless, thinking it might explain Byron's sexual "propensities":

"When nine years old at his mother's house a [F]ree Scotch girl [May, sometimes called Mary, Gray, one of his first caretakers] used to come to bed to him and play tricks with his person."^[20]

Gray later used these sexual intimacies as leverage to ensure his silence if he were tempted to disclose the "low company" she kept during drinking binges.^[21] She was later dismissed, supposedly for beating Byron when he was 11.^[18]

A few years later, while he was still a child, Lord Grey (unrelated to May Gray), a suitor of his mother's, also made sexual advances to him.^[22] Byron's personality has been characterised as exceptionally proud and sensitive, especially when it came to his deformity.^[5] And although Byron was a very self-centered individual, it is probable that like most children, he would have been deeply disturbed by these sexual advances. His extreme reaction to seeing his mother flirting outrageously with Lord Grey after the incident suggests this; he did not tell her of Grey's conduct toward him, he simply refused to speak to him again and ignored his mother's commands to be reconciled.^[22]

Byron's proclivity for, and experimentation in, bisexuality may be a result of his being sexually imprinted by both genders at an early age. Leslie Marchand, one of Byron's biographers, controversially theorises that Lord Grey's advances prompted Byron's later sexual liaisons with young men at Harrow and Cambridge. Another biographer, Fiona MacCarthy, has posited that Byron's true sexual yearnings were for adolescent males.^[14]

While he desired to be seen as sophisticated, uncaring and invincible, he actually cared deeply what people thought of him. He believed his tendency to melancholy and depression was inherited, and he wrote in 1821, "I am not sure that long life is desirable for one of my temper & constitutional depression of Spirits."^[23] He later earned a reputation as being extravagant, courageous,^[7] unconventional, eccentric, flamboyant^[14] and controversial.^[23] He was independent and given to extremes of temper; on at least one trip, his travelling companions were so puzzled by his mood swings they thought he was mentally ill.

In spite of these difficulties and eccentricties, Byron was noted for the extreme loyalty he inspired among his friends.^[7][23]

Education and early loves[link]

Byron received his early formal education at Aberdeen Grammar School, and in August 1799, entered the school of Dr. William Glennie, in Dulwich.^[24] Placed under the care of a Dr. Bailey, he was encouraged to exercise in moderation, but could not restrain himself from "violent" bouts in an attempt to overcompensate for his deformed foot. His mother interfered with his studies, often withdrawing him from school, with the result that he lacked discipline and his classical studies were neglected.

In 1801 he was sent to Harrow, where he remained until July 1805.^[7] An undistinguished student and an unskilled cricketer, he did represent the school during the very first Eton v Harrow cricket match at Lord's in 1805.^[25]

His lack of moderation was not just restricted to physical exercise. Byron fell in love with Mary Chaworth, whom he met while at school,^[7] and she was the reason he refused to return to Harrow in September 1803. His mother wrote, "He has no indisposition that I know of but love, desperate love, the worst of all maladies in my opinion. In short, the boy is distractedly in love with Miss Chaworth."^[7] In Byron's later memoirs, "Mary Chaworth is portrayed as the first object of his adult sexual feelings."^[26]

Byron finally returned in January 1804,^[7] to a more settled period which saw the formation of a circle of emotional involvements with other Harrow boys, which he recalled with great vividness: "My School friendships were with me passions (for I was always violent)."^[27] The most enduring of those was with John FitzGibbon, 2nd Earl of Clare — four years Byron's junior — whom he was to meet unexpectedly many years later in Italy (1821).^[28] His nostalgic poems about his Harrow friendships, Childish Recollections (1806), express a prescient "consciousness of sexual differences that may in the end make England untenable to him".^[29]

John FitzGibbon, 2nd Earl of Clare

<poem style="margin-left: 4em; font-style: italic;"> "Ah! Sure some stronger impulse vibrates here, Which whispers friendship will be doubly dear To one, who thus for kindred hearts must roam, And seek abroad, the love denied at home." </poem>

The following autumn he attended Trinity College, Cambridge.,^[30] where he met and formed a close friendship with the younger John Edleston. About his "protégé" he wrote, "He has been my almost constant associate since October, 1805, when I entered Trinity College. His voice first attracted my attention, his countenance fixed it, and his manners attached me to him for ever." In his memory Byron composed Thyrza, a series of elegies.^[23]

In later years he described the affair as "a violent, though pure love and passion." This statement, however, needs to be read in the context of hardening public attitudes toward homosexuality in England, and the severe sanctions (including public hanging) against convicted or even suspected offenders.^[31] The liaison, on the other hand, may well have been 'pure' out of respect for Edleston's innocence, in contrast to the (probably) more sexually overt relations experienced at Harrow School.^[32] Also while at Cambridge he formed lifelong friendships with men such as John Cam Hobhouse and Francis Hodgson, a Fellow at King's College, with whom he corresponded on literary and other matters until the end of his life.

Physical appearance[link]

Portrait by Richard Westall

Byron's house in Southwell, Nottinghamshire

Byron's adult height was about 5 feet 11 inches (1.80 m), his weight fluctuating between 9.5 stone (133 lb; 60 kg) and 14 stone (200 lb; 89 kg). He was renowned for his personal beauty, which he enhanced by wearing curl-papers in his hair at night.^[33] He was athletic, being a competent boxer and horse-rider and an excellent swimmer.

Byron and other writers, such as his friend Hobhouse, described his eating habits in detail. At the time he entered Cambridge, he went on a strict diet to control his weight. He also exercised a great deal, and at that time wore a great number of clothes to cause himself to perspire. For most of his life he was a vegetarian, and often lived for days on dry biscuits and white wine. Occasionally he would eat large helpings of meat and desserts, after which he would purge himself. Although he is described by Galt and others as having a predilection for "violent" exercise, Hobhouse makes the excuse that the pain in his deformed foot made physical activity difficult, and his weight problem was the result.^[33]

Early career[link]

While not at school or college, Byron lived with his mother at Burgage Manor in Southwell, Nottinghamshire, in some antagonism.^[7] While there, he cultivated friendships with Elizabeth Pigot and her brother, John, with whom he staged two plays for the entertainment of the community.

During this time, with the help of Elizabeth Pigot, who copied many of his rough drafts, he was encouraged to write his first volumes of poetry. Fugitive Pieces was printed by Ridge of Newark, which contained poems written when Byron was only 14. However, it was promptly recalled and burned on the advice of his friend, the Reverend Thomas Beecher, on account of its more amorous verses, particularly the poem To Mary.^[34]

Hours of Idleness, which collected many of the previous poems, along with more recent compositions, was the culminating book. The savage, anonymous criticism this received (now known to be the work of Henry Peter Brougham) in the Edinburgh Review prompted his first major satire,^[18] English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809). It was put into the hands of his relation R.C. Dallas requesting him to "...get it published without his name"^[35] Dallas gives a large series of changes and alterations, as well as the reasoning for some of them. He also states that Byron had originally intended to prefix an argument to this poem, and Dallas quotes it.^[36] Although the work was published anonymously, by April, Dallas is writing that "you are already pretty generally known to be the author."^[37] The work so upset some of his critics they challenged Byron to a duel; over time, in subsequent editions, it became a mark of prestige to be the target of Byron's pen.^[18]

After his return from his travels, he again entrusted Dallas as his literary agent to publish his poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, which Byron thought of little account. The first two cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage were published in 1812, and were received with acclaim.^[14][38] In his own words, "I awoke one morning and found myself famous".^[39] He followed up his success with the poem's last two cantos, as well as four equally celebrated Oriental Tales, The Giaour, The Bride of Abydos, The Corsair, and Lara, A Tale. About the same time, he began his intimacy with his future biographer, Thomas Moore.

Personal life[link]

First travels to the East[link]

Teresa Makri in 1870

Byron racked up numerous debts as a young man, due to what his mother termed a "reckless disregard for money".^[7] She lived at Newstead during this time, in fear of her son's creditors.^[7]

He had planned to spend early 1808 cruising with his cousin George Bettesworth, who was captain of the 32-gun frigate HMS Tartar. Bettesworth's unfortunate death at the Battle of Alvøen in May 1808 made that impossible.

From 1809 to 1811, Byron went on the Grand Tour, then customary for a young nobleman. The Napoleonic Wars forced him to avoid most of Europe, and he instead turned to the Mediterranean. Correspondence among his circle of Cambridge friends also suggests that a key motive was the hope of homosexual experience,^[40] and other theories saying that he was worried about a possible dalliance with the married Mary Chaworth, his former love (the subject of his poem from this time, "To a Lady: On Being Asked My Reason for Quitting England in the Spring").^[18] Attraction to the Levant was probably a motive in itself; he had read about the Ottoman and Persian lands as a child, was attracted to Islam (especially Sufi mysticism), and later wrote, “With these countries, and events connected with them, all my really poetical feelings begin and end."^[41] He travelled from England over Portugal, Spain and the Mediterranean to Albania and spent time at the court of Ali Pasha of Ioannina,^[42] and in Athens. For most of the trip, he had a travelling companion in his friend John Cam Hobhouse. Many of these letters are referred to with details in Recollections of the Life of Lord Byron.^[43]

Byron began his trip in Portugal from where he wrote a letter to his friend Mr. Hodgson in which he describes his mastery of the Portuguese language, consisting mainly of swearing and insults. Byron particularly enjoyed his stay in Sintra that is described in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage as "glorious Eden". From Lisbon he travelled overland to Seville, Jerez de la Frontera, Cadiz, Gibraltar and from there by sea on to Malta and Greece.^[44]

While in Athens, Byron met Nicolò Giraud, who became quite close and taught him Italian. It was also presumed that the two had an intimate relationship involving a sexual affair.^[45] Byron sent Giraud to school at a monastery in Malta and bequeathed him a sizeable sum of seven thousand pounds sterling. The will, however, was later cancelled.^[46] In 1810 in Athens Byron wrote Maid of Athens, ere we part for a 12-year-old girl, Teresa Makri [1798–1875], and reportedly offered £500 for her. The offer was not accepted.^{[citation needed]}

Byron made his way to Smyrna where he and Hobhouse cadged a ride to Constantinople on HMS Salsette. While Salsette was anchored awaiting Ottoman permission to dock at the city, on 3 May 1810 Byron and Lieutenant Ekenhead, of Salsette's marines, swam the Hellespont. Byron commemorated this feat in the second canto of Don Juan. He returned to England from Malta in June 1813 aboard HMS Volage.

Affairs and scandals[link]

• 

  Lady Caroline Lamb

• 

  Jane Elizabeth Scott "Lady Oxford"

• 

  Augusta Leigh

• 

  Anne Isabella Milbanke in 1812 by Sir George Hayter

In 1812, Byron embarked on a well-publicised affair with the married Lady Caroline Lamb that shocked the British public.^[47] She had spurned the attention of the poet on their first meeting, subsequently giving Byron what became his lasting epitaph when she famously described him as "mad, bad and dangerous to know".^[48] This didn't prevent him from pursuing her.^[49][50] Byron eventually broke off the relationship and moved swiftly on to others (such as that with Lady Oxford), but Lamb never entirely recovered, pursuing him even after he tired of her. She was emotionally disturbed, and lost so much weight that Byron cruelly commented to her mother-in-law, his friend Lady Melbourne, that he was "haunted by a skeleton".^[51] She began to call on him at home, sometimes dressed in disguise as a page boy,^[47] at a time when such an act could ruin both of them socially. One day, during such a visit, she wrote on a book at his desk, "Remember me!" As a retort, Byron wrote a poem entitled Remember Thee! Remember Thee! which concludes with the line "Thou false to him, thou fiend to me".

As a child, Byron had seen little of his half-sister Augusta Leigh; in adulthood, he formed a close relationship with her that has been interpreted by some as incestuous,^[51] and by others as innocent.^[18] Augusta (who was married) gave birth on 15 April 1814 to her third daughter, Elizabeth Medora Leigh.

Eventually Byron began to court Lady Caroline's cousin Anne Isabella Milbanke ("Annabella"), who refused his first proposal of marriage but later accepted him. Milbanke was a highly moral woman, intelligent and mathematically gifted; she was also an heiress. They married at Seaham Hall, County Durham, on 2 January 1815. The marriage proved unhappy. He treated her poorly. They had a daughter (Augusta Ada). On 16 January 1816, Lady Byron left him, taking Ada with her. On 21 April, Byron signed the Deed of Separation. Rumours of marital violence, adultery with actresses, incest with Augusta Leigh, and sodomy were circulated, assisted by a jealous Lady Caroline.^[51] In a letter, Augusta quoted him as saying: "Even to have such a thing said is utter destruction and ruin to a man from which he can never recover."

Later years[link]

• 

  Percy Bysshe Shelley 1819

• 

  Mary Shelley 1840

• 

  Claire Clairmont

After this break-up of his domestic life, Byron again left England, and, as it turned out, it was forever. He passed 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.

Frontispiece to a c. 1825 edition of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

Kept indoors at the Villa Diodati by the "incessant rain" of "that wet, ungenial summer" over three days in June, the five turned to reading fantastical stories, including Fantasmagoriana, and then devising their own tales. Mary Shelley produced what would become Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, and Polidori was inspired by a fragmentary story of Byron's, "Fragment of a Novel", to produce The Vampyre, the progenitor of the romantic vampire genre.^[52] Byron's story fragment was published as a postscript to Mazeppa; he also wrote the third canto of Childe Harold. Byron wintered in Venice, pausing his travels when he fell in love with Marianna Segati, in whose Venice house he was lodging, and who was soon replaced by 22-year-old Margarita Cogni; both women were married.^[53] Cogni could not read or write, and she left her husband to move into Byron's Venice house.^[53] Their fighting often caused Byron to spend the night in his gondola; when he asked her to leave the house, she threw herself into the Venetian canal.^[53]

In 1817, he journeyed to Rome. On returning to Venice, he wrote the fourth canto of Childe Harold. About the same time, he sold Newstead and published Manfred, Cain and The Deformed Transformed. The first five cantos of Don Juan were written between 1818 and 1820, during which period he made the acquaintance of the young Countess Guiccioli, who found her first love in Byron, who in turn asked her to elope with him.^[53] It was about this time that he received a visit from Thomas Moore, to whom he confided his autobiography or "life and adventures", which Moore, Hobhouse, and Byron's publisher, John Murray,^[53] burned in 1824, a month after Byron's death.^[14]

Children[link]

• 

  Ada Lovelace
  (1815–1852)

• 

  Clara Allegra Byron (1817–1822)

• 

  Elizabeth Medora Leigh (1814–1849) (presumed)

Byron had a child, The Hon. Augusta Ada Byron ("Ada", later Countess of Lovelace), in 1815 with Annabella Byron, Lady Byron (née Anne Isabella Milbanke, or "Annabella"), later Lady Wentworth. Ada Lovelace, notable in her own right, collaborated with Charles Babbage on the analytical engine, a predecessor to modern computers. She is recognised^[54] as the world's first programmer.

He also had an illegitimate child in 1817, Clara Allegra Byron, with Claire Clairmont, stepsister of Mary Shelley and stepdaughter of Political Justice and Caleb Williams writer, William Godwin.

Allegra is not entitled to the style "The Hon." as is usually given to the daughter of barons, since she was illegitimate. Born in Bath in 1817, Allegra lived with Byron for a few months in Venice; he refused to allow an Englishwoman caring for the girl to adopt her, and objected to her being raised in the Shelleys' household.^[53] He wished for her to be brought up Catholic and not marry an Englishman.^[53] He made arrangements for her to inherit 5,000 lira upon marriage, or when she reached the age of 21, provided she did not marry a native of Britain.^[53] However, the girl died aged five of a fever in Bagna Cavallo, Italy while Byron was in Pisa; he was deeply upset by the news.^[53] He had Allegra's body sent back to England to be buried at his old school, Harrow, because Protestants could not be buried in consecrated ground in Catholic countries.^[53] At one time he himself had wanted to be buried at Harrow. Byron was indifferent towards Allegra's mother, Claire Clairmont.^[53]

Although it cannot be proved, some^[who?] attest that Augusta Leigh's child, Elizabeth Medora Leigh, was fathered by Byron.

It is thought^{[by whom?]} that Lord Byron had a son by a maid he employed at Newstead named Lucy. A letter of his to John Hanson from Newstead Abbey, dated 17 January 1809, refers to the situation: "You will discharge my Cook, & Laundry Maid, the other two I shall retain to take care of the house, more especially as the youngest is pregnant (I need not tell you by whom) and I cannot have the girl on the parish." The letter may be found in many editions of Byron's letters, such as Marchand's 1982 Byron's Letters and Journals. The poem "To My Son" may be about this child; however, the dating gives difficulties; some editors^[specify] attribute the poem to a date two years earlier than the letter.

Political career[link]

Byron first took his seat in the House of Lords 13 Mar 1809,^[55] but left London on 11 Jun 1809 for the Continent.^[56] A strong advocate of social reform, he received particular praise as one of the few Parliamentary defenders of the Luddites: specifically, he was against a death penalty for Luddite "frame breakers" in Nottinghamshire, who destroyed textile machines that were putting them out of work. His first speech before the Lords was loaded with sarcastic references to the "benefits" of automation, which he saw as producing inferior material as well as putting people out of work. He said later that he "spoke very violent sentences with a sort of modest impudence", and thought he came across as "a bit theatrical".^[57] The full text of the speech, which he had previously written out, were presented to Dallas in manuscript form and he quotes it in his work.^[58] In another Parliamentary speech he expressed opposition to the established religion because it was unfair to people of other faiths.^[59] These experiences inspired Byron to write political poems such as Song for the Luddites (1816) and The Landlords' Interest, Canto XIV of The Age of Bronze.^[60] Examples of poems in which he attacked his political opponents include Wellington: The Best of the Cut-Throats (1819); and The Intellectual Eunuch Castlereagh (1818).^{[citation needed]}

Life abroad[link]

Reasons for his departure[link]

Ultimately, Byron resolved to escape the censure of British society (due to allegations of sodomy and incest) by living abroad,^[14] thereby freeing himself of the need to conceal his sexual interests (MacCarthy pp. 86, 314).^[26] Byron left England in 1816 and did not return for the last eight years of his life, even to bury his daughter.^[14][53]

The Armenians in Venice[link]

In 1816, Byron visited Saint Lazarus Island in Venice, where he acquainted himself with Armenian culture with the help of the abbots belonging to the Mechitarist Order. With the help of Father H. Avgerian, he learned the Armenian language,^[53] and attended many seminars about language and history. He wrote English Grammar and Armenian (Qerakanutyun angghiakan yev hayeren) in 1817, and Armenian Grammar and English (Qerakanutyun hayeren yev angghiakan) in 1819, where he included quotations from classical and modern Armenian. Byron also participated in the compilation of the English Armenian dictionary (Barraran angghieren yev hayeren, 1821) and wrote the preface in which he explained the relationship of the Armenians with and the oppression of the Turkish "pashas" and the Persian satraps, and their struggle of liberation. His two main translations are the Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, two chapters of Movses Khorenatsi's History of Armenia and sections of Nerses of Lambron's Orations.^[61] His fascination was so great that he even considered a replacement of the Cain story of the Bible with that of the legend of Armenian patriarch Haik.^[61] He may be credited with the birth of Armenology and its propagation.^[61] His profound lyricism and ideological courage has inspired many Armenian poets, the likes of Ghevond Alishan, Smbat Shahaziz, Hovhannes Tumanyan, Ruben Vorberian and others.^[61]

In Italy and Greece[link]

Statue of Lord Byron in Athens.

The Byron's cave in Portovenere, Italy, called in his honour, because in this place that drew inspiration and meditation for his literary works

From 1821 to 1822, he finished Cantos 6–12 of Don Juan at Pisa, and in the same year he joined with Leigh Hunt and Percy Bysshe Shelley in starting a short-lived newspaper, The Liberal, in the first number of which appeared The Vision of Judgment. For the first time since his arrival in Italy, Byron found himself tempted to give dinner parties; his guests included the Shelleys, Edward Ellerker Williams, Thomas Medwin, John Taaffe, and Edward John Trelawney; and "never," as Shelley said, "did he display himself to more advantage than on these occasions; being at once polite and cordial, full of social hilarity and the most perfect good humour; never diverging into ungraceful merriment, and yet keeping up the spirit of liveliness throughout the evening."^[62]

Shelley and Williams rented a house on the coast and had a schooner built. Byron decided to have his own yacht, and engaged Trelawny’s friend, Captain Daniel Roberts (Royal Navy officer), to design and construct the boat. Named the Bolivar, it was later sold to Charles John Gardiner, 1st Earl of Blessington, and Marguerite, Countess of Blessington when Byron left for Greece in 1823.^[63][64] Byron attended the funeral of Shelley, which was orchestrated by Trelawny after Williams and Shelley drowned in a boating accident on 8 July 1822. His last Italian home was Genoa, where he was still accompanied by the Countess Guiccioli, and the Blessingtons; providing the material for Lady Blessington’s work: Conversations with Lord Byron, an important text in the reception of Byron in the period immediately after his death.

Byron was living in Genoa, when in 1823, while growing bored with his life there, he accepted overtures for his support from representatives of the movement for Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire.^[65] With the assistance of his banker and Captain Roberts, Byron chartered the Brig Hercules to take him to Greece. On 16 July, Byron left Genoa arriving at Kefalonia in the Ionian Islands on 4 August. His voyage is covered in detail in Sailing with Byron from Genoa to Cephalonia.^[66] There is a mystical coincidence in Byron’s chartering the Hercules. The vessel was launched only a few miles south of Seaham Hall, where in 1815 Byron married Annabella Milbanke. Between 1815 and 1823 the vessel was in service between England and Canada. Suddenly in 1823, the ship’s Captain decided to sail to Genoa and offer the Hercules for charter.

After taking Byron to Greece, the ship returned to England, never again to venture into the Mediterranean. "The Hercules was age 37 when on 21 September 1852, her life ended when she went aground near Hartlepool, only 25 miles south of Sunderland, where in 1815, her keel was laid; Byron’s keel was laid nine months before his official birth date, 22 January 1788; therefore in ship-years, he was age 37, when he died in Missolonghi."^[67] Byron spent £4000 of his own money to refit the Greek fleet, then sailed for Missolonghi in western Greece, arriving on 29 December, to join Alexandros Mavrokordatos, a Greek politician with military power. During this time, Byron pursued his Greek page, Lukas Chalandritsanos, but the affections went unrequited.^[14] When the famous Danish sculptor Thorvaldsen heard about Byron's heroics in Greece, he voluntarily resculpted his earlier bust of Byron in Greek marble.^[53]

Death[link]

Mavrokordatos and Byron planned to attack the Turkish-held fortress of Lepanto, at the mouth of the Gulf of Corinth. Byron employed a fire-master to prepare artillery and took part of the rebel army under his own command, despite his lack of military experience, but before the expedition could sail, on 15 February 1824, he fell ill, and the usual remedy of bloodletting weakened him further.^[68] He made a partial recovery, but in early April he caught a violent cold which therapeutic bleeding, insisted on by his doctors, aggravated. It is suspected this treatment, carried out with unsterilised medical instrumentation, may have caused him to develop sepsis. He developed a violent fever, and died on 19 April.^[68] His physician at the time, Julius van Millingen, son of Dutch-English archaeologist James Millingen, was unable to prevent his death. It has been said that had Byron lived and gone on to defeat the Ottomans, he might have been declared King of Greece. However, contemporary scholars have found such an outcome unlikely.^[14]

Post mortem[link]

Lord Byron on his deathbed as depicted by Joseph-Denis Odevaere c.1826 Oil on canvas, 166 × 234.5 cm Groeningemuseum, Bruges. (Note the sheet covering his misshapen right foot)

Alfred, Lord Tennyson would later recall the shocked reaction in Britain when word was received of Byron's death.^[14] The Greeks mourned Lord Byron deeply, and he became a hero.^[69][70] The national poet of Greece, Dionysios Solomos, wrote a poem about the unexpected loss, named To the Death of Lord Byron.^[71] Βύρων ("Vyron"), the Greek form of "Byron", continues in popularity as a masculine name in Greece, and a suburb of Athens is called Vyronas in his honour.

Byron's body was embalmed, but the Greeks wanted some part of their hero to stay with them. According to some sources, his heart remained at Missolonghi.^[72] His other remains were sent to England for burial in Westminster Abbey, but the Abbey refused for reason of "questionable morality".^[14][73] Huge crowds viewed his body as he lay in state for two days in London.^[14] He is buried at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire.

At her request, Ada Lovelace, the child he never knew, was buried next to him. In later years, the Abbey allowed a duplicate of a marble slab given by the King of Greece, which is laid directly above Byron's grave. Byron's friends raised the sum of 1,000 pounds to commission a statue of the writer; Thorvaldsen offered to sculpt it for that amount.^[53] However, for ten years after the statue was completed in 1834, most British institutions turned it down, and it remained in storage. The statue was refused by the British Museum, St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey and the National Gallery.^[53] Trinity College, Cambridge, finally placed the statue of Byron in its library.^[53]

In 1969, 145 years after Byron's death, a memorial to him was finally placed in Westminster Abbey.^[74] The memorial had been lobbied for since 1907; The New York Times wrote, "People are beginning to ask whether this ignoring of Byron is not a thing of which England should be ashamed ... a bust or a tablet might be put in the Poets' Corner and England be relieved of ingratitude toward one of her really great sons."^[75]

Robert Ripley had drawn a picture of Boatswain's grave with the caption "Lord Byron's dog has a magnificent tomb while Lord Byron himself has none". This came as a shock to the English, particularly schoolchildren, who, Ripley said, raised funds of their own accord to provide the poet with a suitable memorial. (Source: Ripley's Believe It or Not!, 3rd Series, 1950; p. xvi.)

On a very central area of Athens, Greece, outside the National Garden, is a statue depicting Greece in the form of a woman crowning Byron. The statue was made by the French Henri-Michel Chapu and Alexandre Falguière.

Upon his death, the barony passed to Byron's cousin George Anson Byron, a career naval officer.

Poetic works[link]

Byron wrote prolifically.^[76] In 1832 his publisher, John Murray, released the complete works in 14 duodecimo volumes, including a life^[57] by Thomas Moore. Subsequent editions were released in 17 volumes, first published a year later, in 1833.

Although Byron falls chronologically into the period most commonly associated with Romantic poetry, much of his work looks back to the satiric tradition of Alexander Pope and John Dryden.

[edit] Don Juan

Byron's magnum opus, Don Juan, a poem spanning 17 cantos, ranks as one of the most important long poems published in England since John Milton's Paradise Lost.^[77] The masterpiece, often called the epic of its time, has roots deep in literary tradition and, although regarded by early Victorians as somewhat shocking, equally involves itself with its own contemporary world at all levels — social, political, literary and ideological.

Byron published the first two cantos anonymously in 1819 after disputes with his regular publisher over the shocking nature of the poetry; by this time, he had been a famous poet for seven years, and when he self-published the beginning cantos, they were well received in some quarters.^[38] It was then released volume by volume through his regular publishing house.^[38] By 1822, cautious acceptance by the public had turned to outrage, and Byron's publisher refused to continue to publish the works.^[38] In Canto III of Don Juan, Byron expresses his detestation for poets such as William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.^[38][78]

Lord Byron (1803), as painted by Marie Louise Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun

Byronic hero[link]

The figure of the Byronic hero pervades much of his work, and Byron himself is considered to epitomise many of the characteristics of this literary figure.^[14] Scholars have traced the literary history of the Byronic hero from John Milton, and many authors and artists of the Romantic movement show Byron's influence during the 19th century and beyond, including Charlotte and Emily Brontë.^[14] The Byronic hero presents an idealised, but flawed character whose attributes include^{[citation needed]}: great talent; great passion; a distaste for society and social institutions; a lack of respect for rank and privilege (although possessing both); being thwarted in love by social constraint or death; rebellion; exile; an unsavory secret past; arrogance; overconfidence or lack of foresight; and, ultimately, a self-destructive manner. Finally, Stendhal's hero Julien Sorel in The Red and the Black seems to have been inspired by Don Juan.^{[citation needed]}

Parthenon marbles[link]

Byron was a bitter opponent of Lord Elgin's removal of the Parthenon marbles from Greece, and "reacted with fury" when Elgin's agent gave him a tour of the Parthenon, during which he saw the missing friezes and metopes. He penned a poem, The Curse of Minerva, to denounce Elgin's actions.^[79]

Sea and swimming[link]

He enjoyed adventure, especially relating to the sea.^[7]

The first recorded notable example of open water swimming took place on 3 May 1810 when Lord Byron swam from Europe to Asia across the Hellespont Strait.^[80] This is often seen as the birth of the sport and pastime and to commemorate it, the event is recreated every year as an open water swimming event.^[81]

Celebrity[link]

Byron is considered to be the first modern-style celebrity. His image as the personification of the Byronic hero fascinated the public,^[14] and his wife Annabella coined the term "Byromania" to refer to the commotion surrounding him.^[14] His self-awareness and personal promotion are seen as a beginning to what would become the modern rock star; he would instruct artists painting portraits of him not to paint him with pen or book in hand, but as a "man of action."^[14] While Byron first welcomed fame, he later turned from it by going into voluntary exile from Britain.^[23]

Fondness for animals[link]

Byron had a great love of animals, most notably for a Newfoundland dog named Boatswain. When the animal contracted rabies, Byron nursed him, albeit unsuccessfully, without any thought or fear of becoming bitten and infected.^[82][83]

Although deep in debt at the time, Byron commissioned an impressive marble funerary monument for Boatswain at Newstead Abbey, larger than his own, and the only building work which he ever carried out on his estate. In his 1811 will, Byron requested that he be buried with him.^[53] The 26 verse poem, Epitaph to a Dog, has become one of his best-known works, but a draft of an 1830 letter by Hobhouse shows him to be the author, and that Byron decided to use Hobhouse's lengthy epitaph instead of his own, which read: "To mark a friend's remains these stones arise/I never knew but one—and here he lies."^[84]

Byron also kept a tame bear while he was a student at Trinity, out of resentment for rules forbidding pet dogs like his beloved Boatswain. There being no mention of bears in their statutes, the college authorities had no legal basis for complaining: Byron even suggested that he would apply for a college fellowship for the bear.^[85]

During his lifetime, in addition to numerous dogs and horses, Byron kept a fox, four monkeys, a parrot, five cats, an eagle, a crow, a crocodile, a falcon, five peacocks, two guinea hens, an Egyptian crane, a badger, three geese, a heron and a goat with a broken leg. Except for the horses, they all resided indoors at his homes in England, Switzerland, Italy and Greece.

Lasting influence[link]

Stained glass at Ottawa Public Library features Charles Dickens, Archibald Lampman, Duncan Campbell Scott, Lord Byron, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, William Shakespeare, Thomas Moore

The re-founding of the Byron Society in 1971 reflects the fascination that many people have for Byron and his work.^[86] This society has become very active, publishing an annual journal. Today 36 Byron Societies function throughout the world, and an International Conference takes place annually.

Byron exercised a marked influence on Continental literature and art, and his reputation as a poet is higher in many European countries than in Britain or America, although not as high as in his time, when he was widely thought to be the greatest poet in the world.^[23] Byron has inspired works by Franz Liszt, Hector Berlioz, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and Giuseppe Verdi.^[23]

Depictions in fiction and film[link]

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Byron first appeared as a thinly disguised fictional character in his ex-love Lady Caroline Lamb's book Glenarvon, published in 1816.^[14]

The archetypal vampire character, notably Bram Stoker's Dracula, is based on Byron. The gothic ideal of a decadent, pale and aristocratic individual who enamors himself to whomever he meets, but who is perceived to have a dark and dangerous inner-self is a literary form derived from characteristations of Byron. The image of a vampire portrayed as an aristocrat was created by John Polidori, in "The Vampyre", during the summer of 1816 which he spent in the company of Byron. The titled Count Dracula is a reprise of this character.

Byron was the subject of a 1908 play Byron by Alicia Ramsey and its 1922 film adaptation A Prince of Lovers in which he was played by Howard Gaye.

Byron is the main character of the film Byron by the Greek film maker Nikos Koundouros.

Byron's spirit is one of the title characters of the Ghosts of Albion books by Amber Benson and Christopher Golden. John Crowley's book Lord Byron's Novel: The Evening Land (2005) involves the rediscovery of a lost manuscript by Lord Byron, as does Frederic Prokosch's The Missolonghi Manuscript (1968).

Byron appears as a character in Tim Powers's time travel/alternative history novels The Stress of Her Regard (1989) and The Anubis Gates (1983), Walter Jon Williams's fantasy novella Wall, Stone Craft (1994), and also in Susanna Clarke's alternative history Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (2004).

Byron appears as an immortal, still living in modern times, in the television show Highlander: The Series in the fifth season episode The Modern Prometheus, living as a decadent rock star.

Tom Holland, in his 1995 novel The Vampyre: Being the True Pilgrimage of George Gordon, Sixth Lord Byron, romantically describes how Lord Byron became a vampire during his first visit to Greece — a fictional transformation that explains much of his subsequent behaviour towards family and friends, and finds support in quotes from Byron poems and the diaries of John Cam Hobhouse. It is written as though Byron is retelling part of his life to his great great-great-great-granddaughter. He describes travelling in Greece, Italy, Switzerland, meeting Percy Bysshe Shelley, Shelley's death, and many other events in life around that time. The Byron as vampire character returns in the 1996 sequel Supping with Panthers.

Byron and Percy and Mary Shelley are portrayed in Roger Corman's final film Frankenstein Unbound, where the time traveller Dr. Buchanan (played by John Hurt) meets them as well as Victor von Frankenstein (played by Raúl Juliá).

The Black Drama by Manly Wade Wellman,^[87] originally published in Weird Tales, involves the rediscovery and production of a lost play by Byron (from which Polidori's The Vampyre was plagiarised) by a man who purports to be a descendant of the poet.

Tom Stoppard's play Arcadia revolves around a modern researcher's attempts to find out what made Byron leave the country, while Howard Brenton's play Bloody Poetry features Byron, in addition to Polidori, the Shelleys and Claire Clairmont.

Television portrayals include a major 2003 BBC drama on Byron's life, an appearance in the 2006 BBC drama, Beau Brummell: This Charming Man, and minor appearances in Highlander: The Series (as well as the Shelleys), Blackadder the Third, episode 60 (Darkling) of Star Trek: Voyager, and was also parodied in the animated sketch series, Monkey Dust.