for the Australasian author, see Edith Joan Lyttleton

Edith Joan Lyttleton

Edith Joan Lyttelton was an Australasian author, who wrote as G.B. Lancaster. She was born in Tasmania, and bought up on a sheep station in Canterbury, New Zealand. She produced 11 novels, a collection of stories, two serialised novels and over 250 stories.She was New Zealand's most widely read...

Dame Edith Lyttelton, GBE

Order of the British Empire

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

(born 1865, St. Petersburg, Russia – died September 1948, UK) was a British novelist, World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

-era activist and spiritualist.

Family

Edith Sophy Balfour (daughter of Archibald Balfour, a London businessman and merchant in Russia) was educated privately and moved in the aristocratic circle of friends known as the "Souls", which included A. J. Balfour

Arthur Balfour

Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, KG, OM, PC, DL was a British Conservative politician and statesman...

, George Curzon

George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston

George Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, KG, GCSI, GCIE, PC , known as The Lord Curzon of Kedleston between 1898 and 1911 and as The Earl Curzon of Kedleston between 1911 and 1921, was a British Conservative statesman who was Viceroy of India and Foreign Secretary...

, Margot Tennant (later Asquith), and Alfred Lyttelton

Alfred Lyttelton

Alfred Lyttelton QC was a British politician and sportsman who excelled at both football and cricket. During his time at university he participated in Varsity Matches in five sports: cricket , football , athletics , rackets and real tennis , displaying an ability that made him...

, whom she married at Bordighera on the Italian Riviera in April 1892 after the death of his first wife. Together they had two surviving children, including Oliver Lyttelton (later 1st Viscount Chandos).

Activism

During their visit to South Africa in 1900 she developed a high regard for 1st Viscount (Alfred) Milner, and helped establish the Victorian League in 1901 with Violet Markham

Violet Markham

Violet Rosa Markham CH was a writer, social reformer and administrator. She grew up near Chesterfield, the daughter of Charles Markham, part owner of the profitable Markham Collieries and Markham & Co. Engineering of Chesterfield...

 and Violet Cecil to promote the imperial vision advocated by Milner. The League brought together high-ranking women from different sides of the political divide on the common ground of the empire. She served as its Honorary Secretary and also supported the Women's Tariff Reform Association.

She served on the Executive of the National Union of Women Workers (founded in 1895) and as Chairwoman of the Personal Service Association (founded in 1908, to alleviate distress caused by unemployment in London). At the outbreak of World War One she was a founder of the War Refugees Committee.

She was later made Deputy Director of the Women's Branch of the Ministry of Agriculture in 1917, served on the Central Committee of Women's Employment from 1916–1925, and as Vice-Chairman of the Waste Reclamation Trade Board from 1924–1931. She was also the British substitute delegate in Geneva

Geneva

Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...

 to the League of Nations

League of Nations

The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...

 in 1923, 1926–1928, and 1931.

Spiritualism

After the death of her husband she became interested in spiritualism and was a member, and President from 1933 to 1934, of the council of the Society for Psychical Research. Spiritualism

Spiritualism

Spiritualism is a belief system or religion, postulating the belief that spirits of the dead residing in the spirit world have both the ability and the inclination to communicate with the living...

 heavily influenced her works, The Faculty of Communion (1925), Our Superconscious Mind (1931), and Some Cases of Prediction (1937), as well her biography of Florence Upton (1926).

Writings

She wrote a novel, The Sinclair Family (1926), an account of her travels in the Far East and India, Travelling Days (1933), and published a biography of her former husband in March 1917. Among her seven plays, two were inspired by her campaign against 'sweated' labour, Warp and Woof and The Thumbscrew.

She also translated Edmond Rostand

Edmond Rostand

Edmond Eugène Alexis Rostand was a French poet and dramatist. He is associated with neo-romanticism, and is best known for his play Cyrano de Bergerac. Rostand's romantic plays provided an alternative to the naturalistic theatre popular during the late nineteenth century...

's Les deux pierrots. She was encouraged by her close friendship with George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...

 and Mrs. Patrick Campbell. After 1918 she also lobbied for the foundation of a national theatre in London and was a member of the Executive Committee of the Shakespeare Memorial National Theatre.

Honours

She was made a DBE in 1917 and a GBE

Order of the British Empire

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

in 1929.

External links

• Biography from Cambridge University archive site