George Byron, 7th Baron Byron

Admiral George Anson Byron, 7th Baron Byron (8 March 1789– 1 March 1868) was the seventh Baron Byron and successor of the poet George Gordon Byron in that peerage. Also a career military officer and notable for being his predecessor's opposite in temperament and lifestyle. He inherited the title from his cousin George, Lord Byron, the poet, in 1824.

He was the only son of George Anson Byron, and grandson of the admiral and explorer John Byron, who circumnavigated the world with George Anson in 1740-44.

Naval career

Byron joined the Royal Navy as a volunteer in December 1800, serving in the Napoleonic Wars, and attaining the rank of captain in 1814. In 1824 Byron was chosen to accompany homewards the bodies of Hawaiian king and queen Liholiho and Kamamalu, who had died of measles during a state visit to England. He sailed on the HMS Blonde in September 1824, accompanied by several naturalists and, amongst his lieutenants, Edward Belcher. On his return journey in 1825, Byron discovered and charted Malden Island, which he named after his surveying officer, Mauke, and Starbuck Island. Starbuck was named in honour of Capt. Valentine Starbuck, an American whaler who had sighted the island while carrying the Hawaiian royal couple to England in 1823/4, but had probably been previously by his cousin and fellow-whaler Capt. Obed Starbuck in 1823. Malden may have been the island sighted by another whaling captain William Clark in 1823, aboard the Winslow. Byron retired as Admiral in 1862.

Notes

References

• Dunmore, John (1992); Who's Who in Pacific Navigation, Australia:Melbourne University Press, ISBN 052284488X
• Quanchi, Max & Robson, John, (2005); Historical Dictionary of the Discovery and Exploration of the Pacific Islands, USA: Scarecrow Press, ISBN 0810853957