Name:
George Gordon Byron
First Seen In:
Mary’s Story
Appearance:
The Haunting of Villa Diodati
Main Actor:
Main Voice Actor:
click on images to enlarge
Lord George Gordon Byron was a British Romantic poet and playwright during the early 19th century.
He was the sixth Baron Byron and a great-nephew of Lord William Byron. (The Witch from the Well) In his youth, his mentor was the Earl of Carlisle, who groomed him for service to the Grand Families of the Star Chamber. However, on his first mission for the Star Chamber in 1809, he was unwittingly used as bait for the Mal’akh during the Maltese incident, beginning his life-long resentment of the Chamber. (The Book of the War)
In 1814, Lord Byron was secretly married to the time traveller Amanda Freelove. After four months together, he left Amanda for Anne Milbanke. (The Broken Clock)
Weeks before leaving for Switzerland, Byron abandoned his wife Annabella and daughter Ada. (The Witch from the Well)
In 1815, Byron entered into a self-imposed exile from England and joined the Shelley Cabal in Europe. (The Book of the War) While they stayed at the Villa Diodati near Lake Geneva in Switzerland in June 1816, Byron challenged his friends Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley, and John Polidori to a competition to see which of them could write the best ghost story. (Mary’s Story, The Haunting of Villa Diodati)
Following the arrival of a seriously wounded Eighth Doctor at the Villa and his apparent death shortly thereafter, Byron suggested conducting an experiment to determine whether the “corpse” could be reanimated by lightning. While both Mary and Polidori strongly objected, Byron performed the experiment with Percy’s assistance.
A younger version of the Eighth Doctor, who arrived after his future self had been revived by the lightning, commented that Lord Byron’s look was “very Byronic.” (Mary’s Story)
Byron was remembered as having died of fever in Greece in 1824 (Managra) at the age of 36 While fighting with Greece liberationists against the Turks at Missolonghi. In reality, he had faked his death with Fletcher’s help: a corpse was pickled in brandy and shipped back to England, where, even though Hobhouse saw that it bore no resemblance to Byron, it was given an elaborate funeral and buried.
Byron then moved to the Eleven-Day Empire, a recruit of the Cult of Celebrity Death. However, his obsession with the Star Chamber led him to accidentally cause the Clockwork Ouroboros affairof 1834 and to create a lifelong enemy of Richard Francis Burton. (The Book of the War)
REFERENCES
The Fourth Doctor told Sarah Jane Smith that he was an old friend of Byron. (Managra) He later conferred to Byron’s daughter, Ada Lovelace, that he had met Lord Byron. He claimed he would”know that nose anywhere”. (The Enchantress of Numbers)
Aleister Portillon was an admirerof Byron and had a whole collection of books about him, including the biography written by Marchand. (The Witch from the Well)
Julius Otago believed that the Eighth Doctor was going for a Lord Byron look with his velvet jacket and stated that it would be tragic if it failed to impress the ladies. The Doctor told him that it was actually a Wild Bill Hickok outfit and that he had never had any complaints about it. (Children of the Revolution)
In an alternate timeline created by The Master, the Fourth Doctor correctly identified the Eighth Doctor’s clothes as a Wild Bill Hickok outfit. The Eighth Doctor commented that people often mistook it for a Lord Byron costume. (The Light at the End)
Lieutenant Mike Yates compared the Eighth Doctor’s appearance to that of Lord Byron. (Foreshadowing) the Tenth Doctor thought of the Eighth Doctor, specifically his hair, as “Byron-esque”, and felt that he looked much tougher than his predecessor. (The Red Bicycle)
There were three Byron Reprises in Europa: Mad Byron (a vampire), Bad Byron (who called himself Albé), and Dangerous Byron. (Managra)
Jan Rydd owned a book of Byron’s poetry. (Love and War)
the Eleventh Doctor cited Byron as one of the many people who loved Venice. (The Vampires of Venice)
When meeting Ada Lovelace, the Thirteenth Doctor mentioned him as her father (Spyfall) before meeting him later in that incarnation, when she recalled having met his daughter. (The Haunting of Villa Diodati)
BEHIND THE SCENES
He was portrayed by Hugh Grant in the Spanish film Rowing with the Wind.