Collection of research materials collected by Godfrey W. Ferguson (d. c 1939/40) of Belfast, President of the Belfast Literary Society (1922-23, 1934-35), concerning Anne Isabella Milbanke, Lady Byron (1792-1860), wife of the Romantic Poet, Lord George Gordon Byron (1788-1824), and, in particular, the controversy surrounding the breakdown of their marriage in 1816 and her descendants’ attempts to defend her memory in later years. The collection consists of some 140 typescript copies of correspondence between Lady Byron’s god-son, Hugh M. de Fellenberg Montgomery of Blessingbourne, Co. Tyrone (1844-1924), and members of the Milbanke family, 1921-24, typescript copies of letters, journal extracts and verse by Lady Byron, 1814-57, and newspaper cuttings and extracts relating to Lord Byron, 1920-39. The collection also contains copies of papers delivered by Ferguson to the Belfast Literary Society on the essayist and poet, Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) in 1910 and the Byron controversy in November 1934 and papers relating to the deposit of a small collection of Montgomery-Byron correspondence, 1814-18, at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland in 1934.
Lady Byron. History. Literature
The G.W. Ferguson Collection consists of approx. 10 items including typescript copies of correspondence (approx. 140 letters bound in 5 softback folders), newspaper cuttings and extracts (28 printed items) and other papers [1920-1939].
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It is unclear as to whether the collection was purchased by, or presented to, the University.