Remembering Byron at his Bicentenary and Beyond
‘Newstead and I stand or fall together’: Remembering Byron at his Bicentenary and Beyond
Dr Sam Hirst
Over the next six months, I'll be undertaking a post-doctoral Knowledge Exchange fellowship, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and in collaboration with the University of Nottingham and Newstead Abbey.
Newstead Abbey is the ancestral home of Lord Byron, one of the most famous Romantic poets. This project focuses on the site as a literary heritage house and explores how the house brings to life the literary legacy and life of Lord Byron. Throughout the six months, I'll be working on new displays and selecting objects in the collection to be the “object of the month”. These displays will explore the possibilities of material history - how we can view the past through objects that remain.
I will examine what these objects, some of which have never been displayed at Newstead Abbey before, reveal to us about Byron, his life, his world and his work.
The project also focuses on collaboration with the house, its staff and volunteers. There will be monthly poetry groups and collaborative workshops, focusing on Byron's own words and how they can be used and explored in the house and grounds.
On this website, you can keep track of the projects I'm running, including trips to literary houses for inspiration and information, videos on the object of the month, poetry explorations and the collaborative work on Byron's history and writing.
Latest Updates
Update Three
The second object of the month was actually two objects. In the archives at Newstead, there is a selection of letters to, from and about Byron. We have two of his early letters to Elizabeth Pigot and her mother which relate to his relationship with John Edleston, Cambridge, and Edleston's tragic early death. These letters are an important piece of LGBTQIA+ history and give a real insight into Byron's early relationships.
You can come and see the letters in the house and see the full transcripts. After this month, the letters will be placed in the manuscript room as part of a larger display which includes Byron's poetry about Edleston and other items relating to this early relationship.
You can watch the video here where I read a number of sections of the letters and explore the story these fragments tell us about Byron's life and relationship.
Update Two
Each month, this year, I have organised an 'object of the month' display. Material history involves interacting with objects and the stories that they tell us. My work focuses on creating encounters with these objects for visitors, diving into what they tell us about Byron and his life, and supporting this exploration with Byron's own words - from letters, journals, poems and even wills.
You can see the displays in the project lab at Newstead Abbey, but I've also created a series of videos so that people can encounter these objects from the Newstead Archive wherever they are in the world.
The first object of the month was Byron's will from 1811, in which he makes unusual stipulations for how his body is to be treated, and leaves notes on legacies and debts which give an insight into his relationships and priorities at the time. You can click here to watch the video.
Update One
This week, we've been installing new displays throughout the house to create new and exciting opportunities to encounter Byron's work and life. The curator, Simon Brown, has created a thematic display in the library, so you can delve into Byron's politics, his passions, his early life, his legacy and more. My own work is going on display through the house (in the library, manuscript room, and Edward III room) with displays on Byron and the Gothic, Byron and Vampires, Byron's relationship with John Edleston, and Byron's national and international afterlives.
In this video, I give you a look behind the scenes at objects from the collection, explaining their relevance to the display on vampires, which explores Byron's impact on vampire literature and the controversies concerning the publication of John Polidori's 'The Vampyre' (wrongly attributed to Byron at the time).