Anne Isabella Milbanke

Anne Isabella Noel Byron
Anne Isabella Milbanke in 1812 by Charles Hayter
Born	Anne Isabella Milbanke (1792-05-17)17 May 1792 Elemore Hall, County Durham, England
Died	16 May 1860(1860-05-16) (aged 67)
Cause of death	Breast cancer
Resting place	Kensal Green Cemetery
Title	Baroness Wentworth
Spouse(s)	George Byron, Baron Byron (m. 1815; separated 1816)
Children	Ada, Countess of Lovelace
Parent(s)	Sir Ralph Milbanke, 6th Bt. Hon. Judith Noel

Anne Isabella Noel Byron, 11th Baroness Wentworth and Baroness Byron (née Milbanke; 17 May 1792 – 16 May 1860), nicknamed Annabella, was the wife of poet George Gordon Byron, more commonly known as Lord Byron.

A highly educated and strictly religious woman, she seemed an unlikely match for the amoral and agnostic poet, and their marriage soon ended in acrimony. Lady Byron’s reminiscences, published after her death by Harriet Beecher Stowe, revealed her fears about an alleged incest Lord Byron had with his half-sister. 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.

Their daughter Ada worked as a mathematician with Charles Babbage, precursor of computer science. Lady Byron had felt that an education in mathematics and logic would counteract any possible inherited tendency towards Lord Byron's insanity and romantic excess.

Her names were unusually complex. She was born Anne Isabella Milbanke, the only child of Sir Ralph Milbanke, 6th Baronet, and his wife the Hon. Judith Noel, sister of Thomas Noel, Viscount Wentworth. When Lord Wentworth died, a few months after her marriage to Lord Byron, Lady Milbanke and her cousin Lord Scarsdale jointly inherited his estate. The family subsequently took the surname Noel over Milbanke.

Lord Wentworth had been both a viscount and a baron. Upon his death the viscountcy became extinct, and the barony fell into abeyance between Lady Milbanke and Lord Scarsdale. After their deaths, the barony passed to Lady Byron, and she became Baroness Wentworth in her own right; however, she did not use the title. She signed her letters "A. I. Noel Byron" and her will as "Baroness Noel-Byron". The world knew her as "Lady Byron", and her friends and family called her by her nickname "Annabella".

She was a gifted child. To cultivate her obvious intelligence, her parents hired as tutor a former Cambridge University professor by the name of William Frend. Under his direction, her education proceeded much like that of a Cambridge student; her studies involved classical literature, philosophy, science and mathematics, in which she particularly delighted. This fascination led her husband to nickname her his "princess of parallelograms".