3-008-393 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Byron's "Tomb" at Harrow, 1862. The poet Byron spent many boyhood hours in the churchyard of St Mary's, Harrow On The Hill, while a pupil at nearby Harrow School. Years later, after his 5-year-old daughter Allegra died, he wished to have a stone set up here in her memory. 'There is', he wrote in May 1822, 'a spot in the church-yard, near the footpath, on the brow of the hill looking towards Windsor, and a tomb under a large tree (bearing the name of Peachie, or Peachey), where I used to sit for hours and hours when a boy. This was my favourite spot'. However the Rector of Harrow, the Revd John William Cunningham, and the churchwardens considered Byron so immoral, they refused the stone, citing Allegra's illegitimacy which was compounded by the identification of the father's name (it's also likely Byron's infamous immorality helped sway their decision.) Allegra was buried in an unmarked plot outside the door of the South Porch of the church. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.