Neville Bulwer-Lytton, 3rd Earl of Lytton

Neville Stephen Bulwer-Lytton, 3rd Earl of Lytton, OBE (6 February 1879 – 9 February 1951) was a British military officer, Olympian and artist.

Life

He was a son of Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton and Edith Villiers. He was the grandson of the famous novelists, Edward Bulwer-Lytton and Rosina Doyle Wheeler. Neville Lytton was born in India while his father served as viceroy. His siblings included the suffragette Constance Lytton, Betty Balfour, Countess of Balfour and sister in law of the Prime Minister, and Emily Lutyens, wife of the architect Edwin Lutyens.

He was educated at Eton College and at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. During World War I, Neville Lytton served as an officer on the Western Front and saw active duty at both the Somme and Amiens. According to the accounts of a contemporary [1], he was seen as "a gentleman of the old school" and served "with gallantry and distinction". For his service the French Government decorated him with the Chevalier of the Legion of Honour.

Shortly after the end of the war both Britain's Imperial War Museum, and France's Musée de Guerre acquired examples of his art, some of which had apparently travelled with him on his postings [2]. It is possible to see Lytton's frescos reflecting his experiences in the war on display in Balcombe village's Victory Hall [3].

From approximately 1900 to 1940 Lytton exhibited his art at such major venues as Alpine Club Gallery, Beaux Arts Gallery, the Dowdeswell Galleries, the Walker Art Gallery (Liverpool), the New English Art Club, the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and at the Royal Academy, London. Neville Lytton was also elected an Associate of the Societe Nationale des Beaux Arts, Paris, and exhibited his art there. [4] In 1911, 1912 and 1913 he was international amateur tennis champion. [5]

He married Judith Blunt, later Baroness Wentworth in her own right, in Cairo in 1899. The couple moved to the Blunts' Crabbet Park Stud in England in 1904, and divorced in 1923. They had three children, Noel Anthony (eventually 4th Earl of Lytton and 17th Baron Wentworth), Lady Anne Lytton (who adopted the surname of Lytton-Milbanke in 1925) and Lady Winifred (Lytton) Tyron. The children inherited an intellectual and artistic heritage from their maternal grandparents, poet Wilfrid Scawen Blunt and his wife Lady Anne Blunt, daughter of the Honourable Ada Lovelace, and granddaughter of Lord Byron. A second marriage to Alexandra Fortel produced a fourth child, Lady Madeleine Elizabeth Lytton; the Earl and his second family resided in France [6].

Neville Lytton succeeded his brother as the 3rd Earl of Lytton in 1947 and was himself succeeded by his son in 1951.

He competed in the 1908 Summer Olympics and won the bronze medal in the real tennis competition.

A profile sketch of the Earl may be viewed at the National Portrait Gallery.