Lord De Tabley was a classicist, numismatist, bibliophile, and botanist of distinction, whose poetry, though never widely read, was held in high regard by his fellow poets.

Born at Tabley House, near Knutsford, Cheshire, John Byrne Leicester Warren (his name till he succeeded to the peerage) was the eldest son to survive infancy of George Fleming Leicester (later Warren), the second Lord De Tabley. The first thirteen years of his life were spent mostly with his mother, Catharina Barbara (née de Salis-Soglio), Lady De Tabley, at home or abroad--in Germany and Italy--where an early interest in antiquities was cultivated in him by his godfather, Lord Zouche. His education was at his father's school and college, Eton, which he entered in 1848, and Christ Church, Oxford, where he matriculated on 20 October 1852. He graduated from Christ Church with a B.A., with a second-class in history and classics in...