George Gordon Noel Byron, 6th Baron Byron was an English poet and the most iconic figure of European Philhellenism. His Romantic spirit brought him to Greece and Missolonghi during the Greek War for Independence, in 1823. He met some of the leading figures and readily embraced the Greek cause. He played an important role as a mediator with the British government for giving out loans to the Greeks. The conditions that prevailed in Missolonghi proved too harsh for him; he fell ill and died in 1824.