Annabella Byron

Anne Isabella Milbanke, better known as Annabella Byron, was a wife of Lord George Gordon Byron, (PROSE: The Book of the War) and the mother of Ada Lovelace. (AUDIO: The Enchantress of Numbers, PROSE: The Book of the War)

Lord Byron left his recent wife, the time traveller Amanda Freelove, for Anne Milbanke in 1814. (AUDIO: The Broken Clock) Anne married Lord Byron on 2 January 1815. He called her his Princess of Parallelograms. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

Weeks before leaving to Switzerland, Byron abandoned her and their daughter Ada. Mary Shelley described Annabella as sweet. (AUDIO: The Witch from the Well) In June 1816, Byron was separated from his wife and was staying at Villa Diodati near Lake Geneva with Mary and Percy Shelley, the rumours being so disastrous that he was unable to return to England. (TV: The Haunting of Villa Diodati).

It was through her mother's influence that Ada came to see her father, Lord Byron, with disdain. (AUDIO: The Enchantress of Numbers) In fact, the Star Chamber recruited a young Ada through Annabella, and had her raised separate from her father's influence so that her mind could be conditioned for science rather than poetry. (PROSE: The Book of the War) She raised her daughter to think of Byron as a madman, as she could think of no other explanation for the man's behaviour. (AUDIO: The Enchantress of Numbers)