George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron‎, also known as Lord Byron, was born 22 January 1788 in London, England, and raised by his mother, Catherine Gordon, in Aberdeen. His life was complicated by his father, who died deep in debt when he was a child. He was able to work his way through school, and his life advanced after he inherited his great-uncle's title of "Lord Byron" and the Newstead Abbey estate.

Byron was the son of Captain John "Mad Jack" Byron and his second wife, the former Catherine Gordon, heiress of Gight in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The Byron family had a spotted history: many of those with the title Lord Byron had a history of inconstancy and debt, and the fifth Lord Byron gained reputations of being a whoremaster and a murderer. John Byron was the first child of Vice-Admiral John Byron, the second son of the fourth Lord Byron. Like the rest of his family, his personal history was one of turmoil; he was one of nine children and was sent to a military school when it became clear that he was unfit for academia. He gambled profusely until his parents refused to pay off his debts, and he soon developed a reputation for womanizing and exploiting his companions for money. In 1778, when 22, he ran off to France with the already married Amelia d'Arcy, the heiress of the Earl of Holderness and of Baroness Conyers and the current Marchioness of Carmarthen. He married her in 1779; they had three children, of whom only their daughter Augusta survived. Conyers died in 1784, and John Byron, in debt, returned home. Soon after, he met Catherine Gordon, who was called his "Golden Dolly" for her fortune of 23,000 pounds; she was a direct descendant of James I of Scotland.

The Gordon family, like the Byron family, had a history of turmoil and death; her grandfather drowned in 1760, her sister Abercromby died in 1777, her father drowned in Bath Canal in 1779, her other sister Margaret died in 1780, and her mother died in 1782. Her parents, in order to preserve the family name, had introduced a clause in their will that required the husband of their daughter to take the Gordon name as his own, which John Byron was eager to do. The two married in Bath, 13 May 1785, and John Byron became John Byron Gordon. Soon after the marriage, he sold her property, the Castle of Gight, for 18,690 pounds to pay off his debts. By 1786, she lost her fortune and her land to John Byron's creditors but she never blamed him for her loss. They first moved to France, and then she returned to England in 1787 alone, in which condition she stayed in until after the birth of Byron.