The only daughter of Captain "Mad Jack" Byron by his first wife, Amelia d'Arcy, Baroness Conyers. She spent her early years being cared for by various relatives after the early death of her mother and later her grandmother. She did not become close to her half-brother, George Gordon Byron, until 1804 when they became regular correspondants and mutual confidants. They became close after the death of Byron's mother, and although Augusta was married by this time to a Colonel George Leigh, it is quite possible that they had a love affair and that he was the father of her daughter Elizabeth Medora, born in 1814. Byron married Annabelle Milbanke but the marriage collapsed after fourteen months and he left England amid growing rumours of scandal, incest being one of the rumours. Byron's 'Epistle to Augusta' and 'Stanzas to Augusta', written in 1816 during his exile, are addressed to her. Regardless of the child's paternity, Colonel Leigh seems to have accepted her as one of his own and she grew up seemingly untainted by the scandal that had damaged her mother's reputation and sent her uncle into exile. Augusta died in 1851, and is buried in the same cemetery as her ex-sister in law, Annabelle.
The only daughter of Captain "Mad Jack" Byron by his first wife, Amelia d'Arcy, Baroness Conyers. She spent her early years being cared for by various relatives after the early death of her mother and later her grandmother. She did not become close to her half-brother, George Gordon Byron, until 1804 when they became regular correspondants and mutual confidants. They became close after the death of Byron's mother, and although Augusta was married by this time to a Colonel George Leigh, it is quite possible that they had a love affair and that he was the father of her daughter Elizabeth Medora, born in 1814. Byron married Annabelle Milbanke but the marriage collapsed after fourteen months and he left England amid growing rumours of scandal, incest being one of the rumours. Byron's 'Epistle to Augusta' and 'Stanzas to Augusta', written in 1816 during his exile, are addressed to her. Regardless of the child's paternity, Colonel Leigh seems to have accepted her as one of his own and she grew up seemingly untainted by the scandal that had damaged her mother's reputation and sent her uncle into exile. Augusta died in 1851, and is buried in the same cemetery as her ex-sister in law, Annabelle.
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