George William Lyttelton
Encyclopedia
The Honourable
The prefix The Honourable or The Honorable is a style used before the names of certain classes of persons. It is considered an honorific styling.-International diplomacy:...
George William Lyttelton (6 January 1883 – 1 May 1962) was a British teacher and littérateur. Known in his lifetime as an inspiring teacher of classics and English literature at Eton
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
, and an avid sportsman and sports writer, he became known to a wider audience with the posthumous publication of his letters, which became a literary success in the 1970s and 80s, and eventually ran to six volumes.
Early life
Lyttelton was born at Hagley HallHagley Hall
Hagley Hall is an 18th century house in Hagley, Worcestershire. It was the creation of George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton , secretary to Frederick, Prince of Wales, poet and man of letters and briefly Chancellor of the Exchequer...
in Worcestershire
Worcestershire
Worcestershire is a non-metropolitan county, established in antiquity, located in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire" NUTS 2 region...
, the second son of Charles Lyttelton
Charles Lyttelton, 8th Viscount Cobham
Charles George Lyttelton, 8th Viscount Cobham , known as The Lord Lyttelton from 1876 to 1889, was a British peer and Liberal Member of Parliament.-Biography:...
, 5th Baron Lyttelton and later 8th Viscount Cobham, and Mary Susan Caroline Cavendish (second daughter of the 2nd Baron Chesham
William Cavendish, 2nd Baron Chesham
William George Cavendish, 2nd Baron Chesham was a British Liberal politician.A member of the Cavendish family headed by the Duke of Devonshire, Chesham was the son of Charles Compton Cavendish, 1st Baron Chesham and Lady Catherine Susan Gordon, daughter of George Gordon, 9th Marquess of Huntly...
). He was educated at Eton
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
and Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...
. He was a sporting young man, distinguishing himself at Eton's version of football
Eton Field Game
The Field Game is one of two codes of football devised and played at Eton College. The other is the Eton Wall Game. The game is like football in some ways — the ball is round, but one size smaller than a standard football, and may not be handled — but the off-side rules — known as 'sneaking' — are...
, and at cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
, in which he shared a second wicket partnership of 476 for A. C. Benson
A. C. Benson
Arthur Christopher Benson was an English essayist, poet, and author and the 28th Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge....
's XI v H. V. Macnaghten's XI (Eton, 1901), and played at Lord's
Lord's Cricket Ground
Lord's Cricket Ground is a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and Wales Cricket Board , the European Cricket Council and, until August 2005, the...
in the Eton v Harrow
Eton v Harrow
The Eton v Harrow cricket match is an annual cricket match between Eton College and Harrow School. It one of the longest-running annual cricket fixtures in the world. It is the last annual school cricket match played at Lord's Cricket Ground...
matches of 1900 and 1901.
At Trinity, Lyttelton was a distinguished shot put
Shot put
The shot put is a track and field event involving "putting" a heavy metal ball—the shot—as far as possible. It is common to use the term "shot put" to refer to both the shot itself and to the putting action....
competitor, winning the event for Cambridge v Oxford three years in a row (1904, 37'7"; 1905, 37'11" and 1906, 38'3¾"). He was a less distinguished amateur musician: according to a contemporary university magazine, "When George Lyttelton practises the cello, all the cats in the district converge upon his rooms in the belief that one of their members is in distress."
Adult life
After graduation he returned as a master to Eton, where his uncle Edward LytteltonEdward Lyttelton
Rev. Hon. Edward Lyttelton was an English sportsman, schoolmaster and clergyman. He played first-class cricket for Cambridge University and Middlesex as well as representing the England national football team.-Life:...
was headmaster from 1905 to 1916. He married Pamela Marie Adeane, daughter of Charles Robert Whorwood Adeane
Charles Adeane
Charles Robert Whorwood Adeane CB, JP was a British army officer.-Background:Adeane was the only son of the politician Henry John Adeane and his wife Lady Elizabeth Philippa Yorke, eldest daughter Charles Yorke, 4th Earl of Hardwicke. Adeane was educated at Eton College and at Christ Church, Oxford...
and Madeline Pamela Constance Blanche Wyndham, on 3 April 1919. They had four daughters and one son – the latter being the celebrated jazz trumpeter and radio presenter Humphrey Lyttelton
Humphrey Lyttelton
Humphrey Richard Adeane Lyttelton , also known as Humph, was an English jazz musician and broadcaster, and chairman of the BBC radio comedy programme I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue...
.
Lyttelton retired in 1945, having taught at Eton for his entire career. He taught, among others, Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. Best known for his novels including Brave New World and a wide-ranging output of essays, Huxley also edited the magazine Oxford Poetry, and published short stories, poetry, travel...
, George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
, Cyril Connolly
Cyril Connolly
Cyril Vernon Connolly was an English intellectual, literary critic and writer. He was the editor of the influential literary magazine Horizon and wrote Enemies of Promise , which combined literary criticism with an autobiographical exploration of why he failed to become the successful author of...
, J. B. S. Haldane
J. B. S. Haldane
John Burdon Sanderson Haldane FRS , known as Jack , was a British-born geneticist and evolutionary biologist. A staunch Marxist, he was critical of Britain's role in the Suez Crisis, and chose to leave Oxford and moved to India and became an Indian citizen...
, and John Bayley. Lyttelton taught mostly classics in the fifth form, but became known for his optional course of English as "extra studies" for senior specialists. The biographer Philip Ziegler
Philip Ziegler
-Background:Born in Ringwood, Ziegler was educated at St Cyprian's School, Eastbourne, and went with the school when it merged with Summer Fields School, Oxford. He was afterwards at Eton College and New College, Oxford...
said of him:
- George Lyttelton was one of the greatest of English schoolmasters. He was wise and tolerant; his massive presence ensured a dignity which his fine sense of the ridiculous alleviated without diminishing; he cared passionately about good writing and communicated that passion to his pupils.
Another former pupil wrote:
- From that study we staggered with our arms full of books, WellsH. G. WellsHerbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...
and HemingwayErnest HemingwayErnest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
, MiltonJohn MiltonJohn Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
and Dr JohnsonSamuel JohnsonSamuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
, Henry JamesHenry JamesHenry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
and George MooreGeorge Moore (novelist)George Augustus Moore was an Irish novelist, short-story writer, poet, art critic, memoirist and dramatist. Moore came from a Roman Catholic landed family who lived at Moore Hall in Carra, County Mayo. He originally wanted to be a painter, and studied art in Paris during the 1870s...
, our minds fired by his enthusiasm and wise advice, our shoulders tingling from the squeeze of his mighty hand as he guided us through the bookshelves. We think of him... majestically immobile as he umpired in the FieldEton Field GameThe Field Game is one of two codes of football devised and played at Eton College. The other is the Eton Wall Game. The game is like football in some ways — the ball is round, but one size smaller than a standard football, and may not be handled — but the off-side rules — known as 'sneaking' — are...
, and he was the best of them all in ruling the game and in writing about it afterwards; or... those brilliant expositions of the reading or writing of English where he achieved the perfect artistry of teaching; or at his Old Boy dinners, enveloped in a vast and aging dinner-jacket, delivering with commendable timing a string of improbable stories about his large family or the more obscure annals of SuffolkSuffolkSuffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
agricultural life.
Lyttelton was a member of the Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
Club and The Literary Society
The Literary Society
The Literary Society is a London dining club, founded by William Wordsworth and others in 1807. Its members are generally either prominent figures in English literature or eminent people in other fields with a strong interest in literature. No papers are delivered at its meetings. It meets monthly...
in London, and of the Marylebone Cricket Club
Marylebone Cricket Club
Marylebone Cricket Club is a cricket club in London founded in 1787. Its influence and longevity now witness it as a private members' club dedicated to the development of cricket. It owns, and is based at, Lord's Cricket Ground in St John's Wood, London NW8. MCC was formerly the governing body of...
. Between the wars, he contributed The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
s reports on the Eton and Harrow matches, usually anonymously, but in 1929 on the occasion of the hundredth match his tour d'horizon of the series appeared under his name. His reports were later described in The Times as the best prose of their time.
In 1945 Lyttelton retired from Eton and moved to Grundisburgh
Grundisburgh
Grundisburgh is a village of more than 1,530 residents situated in the English county of Suffolk. It is in the Suffolk Coastal district, six miles north-east from Ipswich and four miles north-west of Woodbridge located on the B1079. Flowing through the village are the rivers Lark and Gull...
, Suffolk, where he died at age 79.
Legacy
Lyttelton co-edited an anthology, An Eton Poetry BookAn Eton Poetry Book
An Eton Poetry Book is an anthology edited by Cyril Alington and George Lyttelton, with an introduction by A. C. Benson. The editors' intentions were "to provide poems which boys might reasonably be expected to like" and "to awaken their metrical sense." The book was published in 1925, with a...
, in 1925, which was well-received, but his life would not have come to the notice of the wider world were it not for his weekly correspondence with a former pupil, Rupert Hart-Davis
Rupert Hart-Davis
Sir Rupert Charles Hart-Davis was an English publisher, editor and man of letters. He founded the publishing company Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd...
, which lasted from 1955 until Lyttelton's death in 1962. This correspondence, published after Lyttelton's death as The Lyttelton/Hart-Davis Letters
Lyttelton/Hart-Davis Letters
The Lyttelton/Hart-Davis Letters are a correspondence between two literary Englishmen, written in the 1950s and 1960s and published in the late 1970s and early 1980s.-History:...
, was an immediate literary success and eventually ran to six volumes. Reviewers contrasted Hart-Davis's weekly accounts of a busy urban life with Lyttelton's detached, and often humorous, observations from his retirement in Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
. The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
said of them "In a hundred years' time, I suspect, the letters will be read with as much pleasure as they are today.... This is a book one could go on quoting forever."
In 2002 Lyttelton's commonplace book was edited and published, confirming how broad his literary interests were, ranging from Greek and Latin classics to quirky advertisements and press cuttings – not all of them fit for publication, as his son Humphrey makes clear in the foreword to the commonplace book.