Lady Byron

Anne Isabella Noel Byron, 11th Baroness Wentworth and Baroness Byron (née Milbanke; 17 May 1792 – 16 May 1860), nicknamed Annabella and commonly known as Lady Byron, was an educational reformer and philanthropist who established Ealing Grove School, possibly the first co-operative school in England, and was an active abolitionist. She married the poet George Gordon Byron, more commonly known as Lord Byron, and separated from him after less than a year, keeping their daughter Ada, later Ada Lovelace, in her custody despite laws at the time giving fathers sole custody of children. Lady Byron's reminiscences, published after her death by Harriet Beecher Stowe, revealed her fears about alleged incest between Lord Byron and his half-sister, Augusta Leigh. The scandal about Lady Byron's suspicions accelerated Byron's intentions to leave England and return to the Mediterranean where he had lived in 1810. Lady Byron and her marriage were possible sources of inspiration for the character of Helen Graham and the plot of "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" by Anne Bronte. The Byrons' daughter, Ada Lovelace, worked as a mathematician with Charles Babbage, the pioneer of computer science, and is known as the first programmer.