Irresistible Research Rabbit Hole: The Awesome Women of Lord Byron's Family
I'm on an insanely short deadline to get
Idelle's Inheritance (a little time-travel novella in Englightenment Edinburgh)
out the door... naturally that means I'm procrastinating down research
rabbitholes that aren't even relevant to what I'm writing right now. But I just
discovered the most amazing family, all descending from/related to Lord Byron,
the infamous poet, lover, and Venetian-sea-swimming playboy.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Byron
This needs sharing, and saving for later!
I did not realize before today that Ada Lovelace, who did a lot of the mathematics leading to the first computers (of course, most historians mention/credit it all to Charles Babbage, and forget to speak of Countess Lovelace, sigh), was Lord Byron's daughter!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Recently, since historians have started adding women to the historical record where they belong, she is getting her proper credit as the world's first computer programmer.
She had three children (daughter the coolest, see below), had an active brainy life doing things like translating articles about engines from Italian, and died of uterine cancer at 36.
Ada's mother, Anne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Byron completely hated everything about Byron's love of love, so she saw to it that Ada was extremely educated to try to counter the likelihood of madness. Well, Mama Anne didn't manage to educate the tendency of the Byron line to die in their thirties (as her father and grandfather also did), but she did create a line of extraordinary women!
-- a small detour to the other side of the blanket --
Lord Byron (his first name was George -- did you know?) left England just a month after Ada was born. Maybe it was because he also had a child with his half-sister? Ada, actually, is officially named Augusta after said half-sister, with whom he seemed by all accounts to be in love.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusta_Leigh
Unfortunately, that daughter (if she was indeed Byron's or not) ended up living one of the many lives that illustrate that men can sleep around all they like, but when women do, it often ends in poverty and tragedy, sigh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Medora_Leigh
-- end detour --
But... back to the legitimate line, who fared so much better and became famous. All because of that magic societal word, "legitimate" and possibly due to Lord Byron's notoriety and poetic fame (spurred on by his estranged wife's vocal, outspoken hatred -- so she did the line a good turn that way, perhaps? It can't have been pleasant for Ada as a child, though).
Ada's
daughter, (Byron's grand-daughter) Baroness of Wentworth (pictured at the left), is credited with
having brought the Arabian breed of horses to England (particularly, the best
breeding stock). Like, actually going to Arabia and bringing back those
beautiful horses. What a time in history! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And her daughter spoke Arabic and Turkish owned a famed Arabian horse-breeding stable from age 44 to 84 (oh good! I've just turned 44. There's hope for me yet. And MC Beaton only really got going at my age too). I love finding stories of strong women.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Blunt-Lytton,_16th_Baroness_Wentworth
Thank goodness that Byron created one legitimate offspring before he became an expat.
And maybe thank goodness that he married such a mismatched woman for himself, and she was so obsessed with erasing his memory in her daughter that she educated her so heavily! The world's first computer programmer was a woman.
And that made me wonder about their
antecedents, too.Ah, lookie here, his daddy "Mad Jack" also loved the ladies, as he was multiply married. Lord Byron, of course, was also rumoured to be mad, and like Byron also died in his 30s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Byron_(British_Army_officer)
His granddaddy also had a cool nickname, "Foul Weather Jack" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Byron He was born in 1723 and one of his interesting roles was as the governor of Newfoundland, over by Canada.
Medora wasn't Byron's child. That was a lie put out by Lady Caroline Lamb and Lady Byron. After Lady Byron separated from her husband -- and it was her idea which she pushed through -- Byron never saw his wife or daughter again. He asked about her in many letters but he died when she was only 8 . He died in April 1824 eight years after he left England Ada had been born in December 1815 as only around 5 months old when he left. It is said that her mother didn't even allow a picture of her father and definitely not his poems. Ada had a bent for mathematics as her mother had so was tutored by university dons .Her mother didn't want her to have any imaginative literature. I do not have the capacity to evaluate Ada's contribution to computer science. There are those who say her equations were sloppy and weren't advanced enough. I don't know. One biography of her is Ada Enchantress of Numbers. Though her descendants are connected with Arabian horses -- the Wentworth barony can be held by a woman but is now with the earls of Lytton-- earlier it was Augusta's mother's family that had connections to the foundation horse. There was a mare named Medora that was connected to the D'Arcy's ( Augusta's mother who was baroness Conyers in her own right) . Medora the mare won a prestigious race in 1814.Augusta's husband was connected to many in the racing world. Augusta's daughter Medora was the daughter of her husband like al her other children. Augusta and Ada both died before Lady Byron. After everyone was dead the story was published saying that Medora was Byron's incestuous child. Lady Byron told Medora and Ada this earlier . One of the "proofs" was that her name was Medora and Byron had a character i a poem that bore than name .They neglected to mention the mare or that it was a pretty name. Though her mother had her tutored in mathematics, Ada wasn't really supposed to do anything with that knowledge. her mother hoped it would be a check on the Byron part of her. Ada was restless, unhappy, frustrated, and generally miserable , it seems. She started trying to use math to set up a gambling system but wasn't successful. If she could have had more education and more structured work such as she was doing with Babbage it would have been better. She had father's intelligence but also inherited recklessness . Sometimes I think she just wanted to shock her mother.
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