Sir John Byron Junior

Sir John Byron was an English landowner and knight, also known as "Little Sir John with the Great Beard". He is ancestor of the famous English poet George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron.

John was the son of Sir John Byron whose estates in Lancashire and Nottinghamshire he inherited in 1576, upon the death of his father. John was knighted in 1579, and had served as High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire in 1596. He married Alice Strelley and had seven children, 4 sons and 3 daughters. His eldest son Anthony was to succeed his estates but he feel out of favor with John because of marriage which his father opposed. John meant to disinherit Anthony but he died in 1587. Apparently, he died of laughter. Anthony played a practical joke on a young servant by having something put under the saddle of the horse the man was going to mount. He laughed so much at the young man’s discomfiture that he died. However it may be, Anthony died and heir of Sir John became his younger son, also named John.

Portrait of Sir John Byron, painted in 1599, hung at Byron’s family home, Newstead Abbey, in Nottinghamshire until it disappeared without trace after 1851. It was rediscovered after more than 160 years by Philip Mould, an English art dealer, writer and broadcaster.