The Poet Who Brought a Bear to College

George Gordon Byron wrote some of the most celebrated poetry in the English language. He became famous overnight when Childe Harold's Pilgrimage sold out in three days. He swam the Hellespont. He died at thirty-six fighting for Greek independence, and his death arguably helped win the war.

He also kept a bear at Cambridge because nobody said he couldn't.

When Trinity College informed Byron that dogs were not permitted in student rooms, he consulted the statutes, confirmed that they mentioned nothing about bears, and installed a tame one in his turret lodgings. He reportedly suggested it might sit for a fellowship. At his ancestral home, Newstead Abbey, the menagerie eventually included a wolf, a fox, a badger, monkeys, an eagle, a crow, a falcon, and — if secondary sources are to be believed — a crocodile. He once described his household as a Noah's Ark without the flood.

But the animal Byron loved most was a Newfoundland dog named Boatswain. When Boatswain contracted rabies in November 1808, Byron nursed him through it personally, wiping the foam from his dying dog's mouth with his bare hands. He knew what rabies was. He did not care.

He buried Boatswain at Newstead Abbey and built him a monument. It is larger than Byron's own grave.