What scenes of childhood still unsung remain!
Yet let me hush this shadow of the past,
This parting song, the dearest and the last...
- from Childish Recollections , Hours of Idleness

William, the 5th Baron Byron, was renowned for being quite the 'man about town', known as 'the wicked Lord Byron'. His nephew, and the future 6th Baron Byron's father, was known as Captain 'Mad Jack' John Byron. So, when George Gordon Noel Byron was born on 22 January, 1788, it may have seemed inevitable that he was set for a life of high society, women, and poetry if what his ancestors did was anything to go by.

Byron was known only as George Gordon as a child, and lived with his mother Catherine Gordon. He was born with a right club foot [And also a caul over his head. ] which hindered his ability to do certain activities, like dancing. At first he was educated at a grammar school in Aberdeen, Scotland, when the family moved there to avoid creditors. However, on the death of the 5th Baron in 1798, Byron inherited his titles and estates and moved into the ruinous Byron ancestral home