We’re the new romantics! Descendants of Byron, Shelley and Wordsworth show off their creative sides for Tatler magazine photoshoot
- Descendants of Shelleys, Byron and Wordsworth dubbed the ‘New Romantics’
- Kitty Wordsworth runs the female-led theatre company Damsel Productions
- Yoga teacher Jayna Cavendish, 31, is descended from Shelley and his wife Mary
Their ancestors were the Romantic poets and writers who revolutionised – and scandalised – British society 200 years ago.
Descendants of Mary and Percy Shelley, Lord Byron and William Wordsworth, they display creativity of their own.
The three were photographed for Tatler in celebration of their famous forebears – and their own accomplishments as a culture club dubbed the ‘New Romantics’.
Kitty Wordsworth (left), a descendant of William Wordsworth (right), runs female-led theatre company Damsel Productions
Kitty Wordsworth runs female-led theatre company Damsel Productions. She loves her great-great-great-great uncle’s work, which often invokes the beauty and healing power of nature in poems such as I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud.
She admits he was not ‘the biggest feminist’ but jokes that Wordsworth would ‘be with Extinction Rebellion’ if he was alive in 2020.
She is adamant, however, that it would be his sister Dorothy – a writer who acted as the poet’s scribe – ‘carrying the banners’.
Charles Byron (left), who runs a furniture business with his wife, jokes that following in the footsteps of his brilliant but scandalous ancestor Lord Byron (right) was not an option
Jayna Cavendish (left), 31, is descended from Percy Shelley (right) and his wife Mary, the daughter of pioneering women’s rights campaigner Mary Wollstonecraft
Jayna Cavendish, 31, is descended from Shelley and his wife Mary, the daughter of pioneering women’s rights campaigner Mary Wollstonecraft.
Read the full feature in the June issue of Tatler, available via digital download and on news stands tomorrow
Miss Cavendish teaches yoga and plays, with her sister Bess, in a feminist band, AYA.
She said of her relatives: ‘They’re just so cool. They had a huge impact on early feminist philosophies, which is such an amazing thing to feel connected to.’
She said Shelley, whose best-known poems include Ozymandias, was a ‘bit of a tyrant’ but conveyed emotion and connection to nature.
And wife Mary will be forever remembered for her remarkable novel, Frankenstein.
Charles Byron, who runs a furniture business with his wife, jokes that following in the footsteps of his brilliant but scandalous ancestor Lord Byron was not an option.
‘I am no poet,’ he said. ‘I am, in fact, dyslexic.’
- Read the full feature in the June issue of Tatler, available via digital download and on news stands tomorrow.