Looking back on the Byron bicentenary

A year ago, on Friday 19 April 2024, Trinity College announced the discovery of a letter about Lord Byron’s notorious memoirs, written the year before he died and his memoirs destroyed.

Byron died on 19 April 1824 in Missolonghi while supporting the Greek fight for independence from the Ottoman Empire.

Elizabeth Palgrave’s letter of 1823 to her father describes her shock and horror at the poet’s treatment of his wife and his mockery of her family and neighbours ‘mentioned by name & classed in the wittiest but most cruel manner.’

Discovered by Wren Library archivist Adam Green in the papers of Elizabeth’s father, the banker Dawson Turner, the letter attracted national and international media coverage, including by the BBC.

As the bicentenary year of the poet’s death ends, here is a reminder of recordings and publications from Trinity’s Byron Festival.

You can watch parts of The Byrothon – a 24-hour reading of Byron’s works by students, staff, Fellows and alumni in the College’s Antechapel.

The Byrothon’s opening session, features actor and alumnus Pip Torrens.

The ‘Byrencore’ features the highlights of the Byrothon.

Two of poet’s most well-known works are also available: When We Two Parted and The Destruction of Sennacherib.

Emeritus Professor Adrian Poole, co-organiser of the Byron Festival at Trinity, is editor of Byron and Trinity: Memorials, Marbles and Ruins, which is free to download from Open Book Publishers.

Dr Anne Toner, co-organiser of the Byron Festival, is editing, with Dr Marc Gotthardt and Dr Dan Sperrin, a publication of academic papers and new poems, Byron Now: Bicentenary Perspectives. This will be published in due course by Open Book Publishers.

Trinity Fellow in Linguistics, Professor Napoleon Katsos, convened an event, under the auspices of the Cambridge Centre for Greek Studies, exploring Byron’s contribution to the foundation of the modern Greek state and his legacy in Greek literature and the arts. Professor Katsos also organised the bicentenary wreath laying by a Greek delegation at Byron’s statue in the Wren Library .

Meanwhile Trinity College contributed to the Byron Society’s fund to raise money to move the poet’s Grade II listed memorial from what is now a traffic island on Park Lane to a location near Hyde Park’s Victoria Gate.

The Byron Society has received a National Lottery Heritage Fund award for the relocation, which will take place in 2026.

Byron is famous for many things: in Cambridge he is most well-known for keeping a pet bear at Trinity. One aim of Trinity’s Byron Festival was to encourage awareness of the breadth and vitality of Byron’s  writing – as Professor Poole says, ‘there is definitely more to Byron than his bear.’

‘Bringing to life his work as part of the bicentenary commemoration has been a privilege. I hope that readers will continue to engage with his inspiring and provocative work for years to come,’ he said.