With Lord Byron at the Sandwich Islands in 1825

Aug 4, 2016



The Lord Byron of the title is not the famous poet, but rather his cousin and successor of the peerage, the naval commander George Gordon Byron. He was commander of the HMS Blonde on its 1824/1825 voyage to Hawaii, undertaken primarily with the solemn mission of returning the bodies of King Kamehameha II (Liholiho) and Queen Kamamalu, both of whom had died of measles in England while trying to visit King George IV. In addition to the artist Robert Dampier, the crew also consisted of the Scottish botanist James McCrae of the Royal Horticultural Society, whose diary of the voyage, published in 1922, is featured here.