Noel Lytton, 4th Earl of Lytton

The Right Honourable Lt-Col The Earl of Lytton OBE
Lytton in 1924
Personal details
Born	Noel Anthony Scawen Bulwer-Lytton[1] 7 April 1900 Chelsea, London
Died	18 January 1985 (aged 84) Crawley, Sussex
Alma mater	Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
Awards	Officer of the Order of the British Empire
Military service
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	British Army
Years of service	1939-1945
Rank	Lieutenant-Colonel
Unit	Rifle Brigade
Battles/wars	World War II

Lieutenant-Colonel Noel Anthony Scawen Lytton, 4th Earl of Lytton OBE (7 April 1900 – 18 January 1985) was a British Army officer, Arabian horse fancier and writer.^[2]

Biography

Lytton was born in 1900, the son of Neville Stephen Bulwer-Lytton, 3rd Earl of Lytton and his wife, Judith Blunt-Lytton, who later divorced. He was a descendant of the poet and adventurer Lord Byron (born 1788), via his daughter Ada Lovelace (born 1815), arguably the world's first computer programmer. Her daughter Anne Blunt (born 1837) was Noel's maternal grandmother. He is also a great-grandson of the author and politician Edward Bulwer-Lytton.

In 1925, Lytton and his sister Anne changed their surname to Lytton-Milbanke by deed poll,^[3] in honour of Noel's mother's succession to the Barony of Wentworth, which could pass to either of them. (They both later went back to Lytton and not Bulwer-Lytton.)^[4][5]

Lytton was raised just east of the Sussex town of Crawley, in the mansion built by his maternal grandparents on the grounds of their renowned horse breeding establishment, the Crabbet Arabian Stud. He was educated at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and was commissioned in the Rifle Brigade. He later taught economics there in the 1930s. In the time between the World Wars, he served "as an administrator and keeper of the peace in the area around Lake Rudolph in Kenya." ^[6]

When the British entered the Second World War, he was posted by the military to North Africa and Italy, but due to an automobile accident was invalided out to desk duty, which his son describes as extremely frustrating for someone who was used to being athletic and active. He served as administrator of the Patras District from 1944 to 1945. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for his service in 1945.^[2][7]

As part of government administration, Lytton eventually went to Yugoslavia to work with Josip Broz Tito's Partisans. There, he also met his wife, Clarissa Palmer, daughter of Brigadier-General Cyril Eustace Palmer.^[6]

They married in 1946 and had five children:

• John Peter Michael, 5th Earl of Lytton and 18th Baron Wentworth
• Hon. (Thomas) Roland Cyril Lawrence Lytton
• Lady Caroline Mary Noel Lytton
• Lady Lucy Mary Frances Lytton
• Lady Sarah Teresa Mary Lytton

He farmed and wrote books, including a biography about his maternal grandfather and a military autobiography The Desert and the Green.^[2] Due to his family's continued interest in the Arabian horse breed, he contributed from his private collection to the W.K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library at Cal Poly Pomona.

Noel Lytton succeeded his father as the 4th Earl of Lytton in 1951, and his mother as 17th Baron Wentworth in 1957. Both titles passed to his eldest son upon his death in 1985.^[2]

Bibliography

• The Desert and the Green (1957)
• Wilfrid Scawen Blunt: A Memoir (1961)
• Mickla Bendore (1962)
• Lucia in Taormina (1963)
• The Stolen Desert (1966)

References

1. The House of Gordon. New Spalding Club. p. 146. Retrieved 4 February 2016.
2. "The Earl of Lytton". The Times (The Times Digital Archive). 23 January 1985. p. 16.
3. The London Gazette: no. 33026. p. 1572. 3 March 1925.
4. "Lady Anne Lytton". The Times (The Times Digital Archive). 28 June 1979. p. 16.
5. The London Gazette: no. 39225. p. 2669. 11 May 1951.
6. Archived 11 May 2006 at the Wayback Machine.
7. The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 37386. p. 6058. 11 December 1945.