The Earl of Lytton | |
|---|---|
 | |
| 6thViceroy and Governor-General of India | |
| In office 12 April 1876 – 8 June 1880 | |
| Monarch | Queen Victoria |
| Preceded by | The Earl of Northbrook |
| Succeeded by | The Marquess of Ripon |
| British Ambassador to France | |
| In office 1887–1891 | |
| Monarch | Queen Victoria |
| Preceded by | The Viscount Lyons |
| Succeeded by | The Marquess of Dufferin and Ava |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 8 November 1831 (1831-11-08) London, England |
| Died | 24 November 1891(1891-11-24) (aged 60) Paris, France |
| Political party | Conservative |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 7, includingVictor andConstance |
| Parent(s) | Edward Bulwer-Lytton Rosina Doyle Wheeler |
| Education | Harrow School |
| Alma mater | University of Bonn |
Edward Robert Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton,GCB, GCSI, GCIE, PC (8 November 1831 – 24 November 1891), was a British statesman,Conservative politician and poet who used the pseudonymOwen Meredith. During his tenure asViceroy of India between 1876 and 1880, Queen Victoria was proclaimedEmpress of India. He served asBritish Ambassador to France from 1887 to 1891.
His tenure as Viceroy was controversial for its ruthlessness in both domestic and foreign affairs, especially for his handling of theGreat Famine of 1876–1878 and theSecond Anglo-Afghan War. His sonVictor Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd Earl of Lytton, who was born in India, later served asGovernor of Bengal and briefly as acting Viceroy. The senior earl was also the father-in-law of the architectSir Edwin Lutyens, who designedNew Delhi.
Lytton was a protégé ofBenjamin Disraeli in domestic affairs, and ofRichard Lyons, 1st Viscount Lyons, who was his predecessor as Ambassador to France, in foreign affairs. His tenure as Ambassador to Paris was successful, and Lytton was afforded the rare tribute – especially for an Englishman – of a Frenchstate funeral inParis.
Lytton was the son of the novelistsEdward Bulwer-Lytton andRosina Doyle Wheeler (who was the daughter of the earlywomen's rights advocateAnna Wheeler). His uncle wasSir Henry Bulwer. His childhood was spoiled by the altercations of his parents,[1] who separated acrimoniously when he was a boy. However, Lytton received the patronage ofJohn Forster – an influential friend ofLeigh Hunt,Charles Lamb,Walter Savage Landor, andCharles Dickens – who was generally considered to be the first professional biographer of 19th century England.[2]
Lytton's mother, who lost access to her children, satirised his father in her 1839 novelCheveley, or the Man of Honour. His father subsequently had his mother placed under restraint, as a consequence of an assertion of her insanity, which provoked public outcry and her liberation a few weeks later. His mother chronicled this episode in her memoirs.[3][4]
After being taught at home for a while, he was educated in schools inTwickenham andBrighton and thenceHarrow,[5] and at theUniversity of Bonn.[1]
Lytton entered the Diplomatic Service in 1849, when aged 18, when he was appointed as attaché to his uncle,Sir Henry Bulwer, who was Minister atWashington, DC.[6] It was at this time he metHenry Clay andDaniel Webster.[6] He began his salaried diplomatic career in 1852 as an attaché toFlorence, and subsequently served in Paris, in 1854, and inThe Hague, in 1856 .[6] In 1858, he served inSt Petersburg,Constantinople, andVienna.[6] In 1860, he was appointed Britishconsul-general atBelgrade.[6]
In 1862, Lytton was promoted to Second Secretary in Vienna, but his success in Belgrade madeLord Russell appoint him, in 1863, as Secretary of the Legation atCopenhagen, during his tenure as which he twice acted asChargé d'Affaires in theSchleswig-Holstein conflict.[6] In 1864, Lytton was transferred to the Greek court to advise the young Danish Prince. In 1865, he served inLisbon, where he concluded a major commercial treaty withPortugal,[6] and subsequently inMadrid. He subsequently became Secretary to the Embassy at Vienna and, in 1872, toRichard Lyons, 1st Viscount Lyons, who was Ambassador to Paris.[6] By 1874, Lytton was appointed British MinisterPlenipotentiary at Lisbon where he remained until being appointedGovernor General and Viceroy of India in 1876.[6]
After turning down an appointment as governor of Madras,[5] Lytton's appointment asViceroy of India was announced in 1876.[7] As he was a man of letters instead of a politician, the appointment caused "general astonishment", but the appointment owed something toDisraeli's appreciation of Lytton's literary sensibilities.[7]
On his journey to India, he met up in Egypt with thePrince of Wales, who was returning from his own Indian tour, by prior arrangement.[6] He arrived in India and on 12 April 1876 was installed as viceroy.[7]
The first great occasion of Lytton's viceroyalty was theDelhi Durbar on 1 January 1877, known as the "Proclamation Durbar", to markQueen Victoria's acceptance of the title ofEmpress of India. The durbar was attended 68,000 people and 15,000 British and Indian troops: it marked symbolically the beginnings of Britain's alliance with the Indian princes, who pledged their alliance to the new Empress.
Lord Lytton presided over the proceedings in the robes of the Grand Master of theOrder of the Star of India. He read a speech, in which he announced the creation of theOrder of the Indian Empire.
The Durbar was out of touch to the Indians. Lakhs of rupees were spent on the event but nothing was done for Indians who were in the grip of afamine.
He was created a GCB in late 1877, at the end of his first year in office.
The most important domestic event of Lytton's tenure was the famine which broke out shortly after he assumed office. Lytton's handling of the famine was controversial, and it was attacked by the British journalistWilliam Digby and the businessmanDadabhai Naoroji.
Lytton's decision to allocate resources towards the grand ceremony ofDelhi Durbar of 1877, which was perceived as a display of British power and wealth, further exacerbated the famine's severity, ultimately leading to substantial human suffering and loss of life.
After the famine, Lytton appointed a commission, headed bySir Richard Strachey, to study ways to deal with future occurrences. The commission resulted in the enactment of famine codes in every province as well as the establishment of a fund to deal with famine relief, which were effective in dealing with the phenomenon.[7] They have been described as "the most significant—and perhaps the only—achievement of Lytton's viceroyalty."[7]
In 1878, he implemented theVernacular Press Act, which enabled the Viceroy to confiscate the press and paper of any Indian Vernacular newspaper that published content that the Government deemed to be "seditious", in response to which there was a public protest in Calcutta that was led by theIndian Association andSurendranath Banerjee.
One of the key reasons for passing this act, apart from the onset of theSecond Anglo-Afghan War (1878–80), was the reception of the Durbar in the local atmosphere. Durbars held different meanings for Britons, Anglo-Indians, and Indians. While European and Anglo-Indian media, along with agencies like Reuters, praised the Durbars, the Indian press was openly critical. To suppress this dissent, the Vernacular Press Act (VPA) was unanimously passed by the Viceroy's Council on 14 March 1878.[8]
Britain was deeply concerned throughout the 1870s about Russian attempts to increase its influence in Afghanistan, which provided a Central Asianbuffer state between theRussian Empire andBritish India. Lytton had been given express instructions to recover the friendship of theAmir of Afghanistan,Sher Ali Khan, who was perceived at this point to have sided with Russia against Britain, and made every effort to do so for eighteen months.[5] In September 1878, Lytton sent GeneralSir Neville Bowles Chamberlain as an emissary to Afghanistan, but he was refused entry. Considering himself left with no real alternative, in November 1878, Lytton ordered an invasion which sparked theSecond Anglo-Afghan War.
The British won virtually all the major battles of this war, and in the final settlement, theTreaty of Gandamak, saw a government installed under a new amir which was both by personality and law receptive to British demands; however, the human and material costs of the conflict provoked extensive controversy, particularly among the nascentIndian press, which questioned why Lytton spent so much money prosecuting the conflict with Afghanistan instead of focusing onfamine relief.[1] This, along withthe massacre of British diplomatSir Louis Cavagnari and his staff by mutinying Afghan soldiers,[5] contributed to the defeat ofDisraeli's Conservative government byGladstone's Liberals in 1880.[7]
The war was seen at the time as an ignominious but barely acceptable end to the "Great Game", closing a long chapter of conflict with the Russian Empire without even a proxy engagement. Thepyrrhic victory of British arms in India was a quiet embarrassment which played a small but critical role in the nascentscramble for Africa; in this way, Lytton and his war helped shape the contours of the 20th century in dramatic and unexpected ways. Lytton resigned at the same time as theConservative government. He was the last Viceroy of India to govern an open frontier.
In December 1879, Lytton was the target of an assassination attempt while on tour in Calcutta, but escaped unharmed. The would-be assassin was George Edward Dessa, who suffered from delusions; he was deemed unfit to stand trial and died in an asylum.
A permanent exhibition inKnebworth House, Hertfordshire, is dedicated to his diplomatic service in India. There is a monument dedicated in his name atNahan, Himachal Pradesh, India, domestically called Delhi Gate.[9]
In 1880, Lytton resigned his Viceroyalty at the same time thatBenjamin Disraeli resigned the premiership. Lytton was createdEarl of Lytton, in the County of Derby, andViscount Knebworth, of Knebworth in the County of Hertford.[6] On 10 January 1881, Lytton made his maiden speech in theHouse of Lords, in which he censured in Gladstone's devolutionist Afghan policy. In the summer session of 1881, Lytton joined others in opposing Gladstone'ssecond Irish Land Bill.[10] As soon as the summer session was over, he undertook "a solitary ramble about the country". He visitedOxford for the first time, went for a trip on the Thames, and then revisited thehydropathic establishment atMalvern, where he had been with his father as a boy".[11] 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 friendWilfrid Blunt.[12]
Lytton was Ambassador to France from 1887 to 1891. During the second half of the 1880s, before his appointment as Ambassador in 1887, Lytton served as Secretary to the Ambassador to Paris,Lord Lyons.[13] He succeeded Lyons, as Ambassador, subsequent to the resignation of Lyons in 1887.[13][6] Lytton had previously expressed an interest in the post and enjoyed himself "once more back in his old profession".[14]
Lord Lytton died in Paris on 24 November 1891, where he was given the rare honour of astate funeral. His body was then brought back for interment in the private family mausoleum in Knebworth Park.
There is also a memorial to him inSt Paul's Cathedral, London.[15]
When Lytton was twenty-five years old, he published in London a volume of poems under the name ofOwen Meredith.[1] He went on to publish several other volumes under the same name. The most popular isLucile, a story in verse published in 1860. His poetry was extremely popular and critically commended in his own day. He was a great experimenter with form. His best work is beautiful, and much of it is of a melancholy nature, as this short extract from a poem called "A Soul's Loss" shows, where the poet bids farewell to a lover who has betrayed him:
Child, I have no lips to chide thee.
Take the blessing of a heart
(Never more to beat beside thee!)
Which in blessing breaks. Depart.
Farewell! I that deified thee
Dare not question what thou art.
Lytton underesteemed his poetic ability: in hisChronicles and Characters (1868), the poor response to which distressed him, Lytton states, 'Talk not of genius baffled. Genius is master of man./Genius does what it must, and Talent does what it can'.[1] However, Lytton's poetic ability was highly esteemed by other literary personalities of the day, andOscar Wilde dedicated his playLady Windermere's Fan to him.
Lytton's publications included:[6]
Based on the French translation, in 1868 he published a drama titledOrval, or the Fool of Time which has been inspired by Krasiński'sThe Undivine Comedy to the point it has been discussed in scholarly literature as an example of a "rough translation",[20]paraphrase[21] or evenplagiarism.[22]
On 4 October 1864 Lytton marriedEdith Villiers. She was the daughter of Edward Ernest Villiers (1806–1843) and Elizabeth Charlotte Liddell and the granddaughter ofGeorge Villiers.[23]
They had at least seven children:
| Government offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Viceroy of India 1876–1880 | Succeeded by |
| Diplomatic posts | ||
| Preceded by | British Ambassador to France 1887–1891 | Succeeded by |
| Academic offices | ||
| Preceded by | Rector of the University of Glasgow 1887–1890 | Succeeded by |
| Peerage of the United Kingdom | ||
| New creation | Earl of Lytton 1880–1891 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Baron Lytton 1873–1891 | |
| Baronetage of the United Kingdom | ||
| Preceded by | Baronet of Knebworth 1873–1891 | Succeeded by |
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