Британдық теңізші офицері Джон Байрон: Өмірбаяны мен саяхаттары

British naval officer

Vice Admiral John Byron (8 November 1723 – 1 April 1786) was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer. He earned the nickname "Foul Weather Jack" in the press because of his frequent encounters with bad weather at sea. As a midshipman, he sailed in the squadron under George Anson on his voyage around the world, though Byron's ship, HMS Wager, made it only to southern Chile, where it was wrecked. He returned to England with the captain of the ship. He was governor of Newfoundland following Hugh Palliser, who left in 1768. He circumnavigated the world as a commodore with his own squadron in 1764–1766. He fought in battles in the Seven Years' War and the American Revolution. He rose to Vice Admiral of the White before his death in 1786. His grandsons include the poet Lord Byron and George Anson Byron, admiral and explorer, who were the 6th and 7th Baron Byron, respectively.

Byron was the second son of William Byron, 4th Baron Byron and Frances Berkeley, the daughter of William, 4th Baron Berkeley. After studying at Westminster School he joined the Royal Navy at the age of 14, making his first voyage aboard HMS Romney in 1738–40.

According to a note written by his wife Sophia to their financial agent, John Byron died on 1 April 1786 at home in Bolton Row, London (not 10 April, as subsequent biographies claim). On that date nine days later his remains were buried in the Berkeley family vault situated beneath the chancel of the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Twickenham. John's life was a great inspiration for his grandson the poet George Gordon Byron, though they never met. The poet both drew from his grandfather's experiences in his writing, using his 'Narrative' for the shipwreck scene in Don Juan, and wrote of the kinship he felt in having such a turbulent, unlucky life: he wrote in an epistle to his half sister Augusta Leigh that "he had no rest at sea, nor I on shore".

John Byron's experiences in the Anson voyage form the basis of the novel The Unknown Shore by Patrick O'Brian. It closely follows Byron's account in The Narrative of the Honourable John Byron (1768). In The Dark Design by Philip José Farmer, John Byron is a crewmember of the schooner The Razzle Dazzle. In The Wager by David Grann, John Byron's experiences aboard The Wager and while shipwrecked are central to the narrative of the story.