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Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of LyttonFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Edward Robert Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton GCB GCSI GCIE PC (8 November 1831 – 24 November 1891) was an English statesman and poet. He served as Viceroy of India during the Great Famine of 1876–78. His uncompromising implementation of Britain's trading policy is blamed for the severity of the famine, which killed up to 10 million people.[1] He worked as a poet under the pen name of Owen Meredith.
Background and educationHe was a son of novelists Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton and Rosina Doyle Wheeler. He was educated at Harrow School and at the University of Bonn. Diplomatic careerIn 1849 he entered the Diplomatic Service, aged 18, when he was appointed as attaché (private secretary) to his uncle, Sir Henry Bulwer, who was Minister at Washington, DC.[2] It was at this time he met Henry Clay and Daniel Webster.[2] He began his salaried diplomatic career in 1852 as an attaché to Florence, followed by Paris in 1854 and the Hague in 1856 .[2] In 1858 he was transferred to St Petersburg, Constantinople and Vienna.[2] In 1860 he was appointed British Consul General at Belgrade.[2] In 1862 Lytton was promoted to 'Second Secretary' in Vienna, but his success in Belgrade led to Lord Russell appointing him 'Secretary of the Legation' at Copenhagen in 1863. During this time he twice acted as Chargé d'Affaires in the Schleswig-Holstein conflict.[2] In 1864 he was transferred to the Greek court to advise the young Danish Prince. In 1865 he advanced to Lisbon where he conclude a major commercial treaty with Portugal.[2] After an appointment to Madrid he became Secretary to the Embassy at Vienna and, in 1872, Paris.[2] By 1874 he was appointed British Minister Plenipotentiary at Lisbon where he remained until being appointed Governor General and Viceroy of India in 1876.[2] Viceroy of India
Indian FamineMain article: Great Famine of 1876–78
Lord Lytton arrived as Viceroy of India in 1876. In the same year, a famine broke out in south India which claimed between 6.1 million and 10.3 million people. [1] While some Historians claim the famine was due to natural causes and thus the British Government bore no responsibility, some British and American historians recently argued the famine was man-made due to Lytton's policies.[3][4] Second Anglo-Afghan War, 1878–1880Main article: European influence in Afghanistan
In September 1878, Lytton sent an emissary to Afghanistan who was refused entry. A month later in October 1878, he ordered an invasion which not only failed in its objective, but whose costs (and brutality) became a major issue in the defeat of Disraeli's Conservative government by Gladstone's Liberals in 1880 [5]. Lytton resigned with Disraeli.
In 1877, Lord Lytton convened a durbar (imperial assembly) in Delhi which was attended by around 84,000 people including princes and title holders. In 1878, he promulgated the Vernacular Press Act, which empowered him to confiscate the press and paper of a local language newspaper publishing 'seditious material'. The resulted in public outcry in Calcutta led by the Indian Associationand surendranath banerjee. Politics and return to diplomatic careerIn 1880 he resigned his Viceroyality simultaneously with the Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, and was created Earl of Lytton, in the County of Derby, and Viscount Knebworth, of Knebworth in the County of Hertford.[2] On 10 January 1881, Lytton made his maiden speech in the House of Lords, in which he joined others in attacking Gladstone's Afghan policy. In the summer session of 1881, he joined others in opposing Gladstone's second "Irish Land Bill".[6] As soon as the summer session was over, he undertook "a solitary ramble about the country. He visited Oxford for the first time, went for a trip on the Thames, and then revisited the hydropathic establishment at Malvern, where he had been with his father as a boy".[7] He saw this as an antidote to the otherwise indulgent lifestyle that came with his career, and used his sojourn there to undertake a critique of a new volume of poetry by his old friend Wilfrid Blunt.[8] In 1887 he was appointed Ambassador to Paris,[2] after the post was made vacant by the resignation of Lord Lyon. Having previously expressed an interest in the post, Lytton accepted, finding himself "once more back in his old profession".[9] Owen Meredith
When Lytton was twenty-five years old, he published in London a volume of poems under the name of Owen Meredith. He went on to publish several other volumes under the same name. The most popular one is "Lucile", a story in verse published in 1860. His publicatiuons included:[2]
Marriage and children
On 4 October 1864 Lytton married Edith Villiers. She was a daughter of Edward Ernest Villiers (1806–1843) and Elizabeth Charlotte Liddell. Her paternal grandparents were George Villiers and Theresa Parker. Her maternal grandparents were Thomas Liddell, 1st Baron Ravensworth and his wife Maria Susannah Simpson. George Villiers was a son of Thomas Villiers, 1st Earl of Clarendon and Charlotte Capell. Theresa Parker was a daughter of John Parker, 1st Baron Boringdon and his second wife Theresa Robinson. Maria Susannah Simpson was a daughter of John Simpson and Anne Lyon. Charlotte Capell was a daughter of William Capell, 3rd Earl of Essex and Lady Jane Hyde. Theresa Robinson was a daughter of Thomas Robinson, 1st Baron Grantham and Frances Worsley. Anne Lyon was a daughter of Thomas Lyon, 8th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne and Jean Nicholsen. Lady Jane Hyde was a daughter of Henry Hyde, 4th Earl of Clarendon and Jane Leveson-Gower. They had at least seven children:
See alsoReferences
External links
Categories: 1831 births | 1891 deaths | Old Harrovians | Diplomatic peers | Earls of Lytton | Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath | Knights Grand Commander of the Order of the Star of India | Knights Grand Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire | Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom | Viceroys of India | University of Bonn alumni | Rectors of the University of Glasgow |
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