Lady Constance Bulwer-Lytton

Lytton was the third of seven children of Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton and Edith Villiers. She spent some of her early years in India, where her father was the Governor-General; it was he who made the proclamation that Queen Victoria was the Empress of India. Her siblings were: • Edward Rowland John Bulwer-Lytton (1865–1871) • Lady Elizabeth Edith "Betty" Bulwer-Lytton (12 June 1867 – 28 March 1942). Married Gerald Balfour, 2nd Earl of Balfour, brother of the future Prime Minister Arthur Balfour. • Henry Meredith Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1872–1874) • Lady Emily Bulwer-Lytton (1874–1964). Married the architect Edwin Lutyens. Associate and confidante of Jiddu Krishnamurti. • Victor Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd Earl of Lytton (1876–1947), married Pamela Chichele-Plowden, an early flame of Sir Winston Churchill, who had met her while playing polo at Secunderabad. • Neville Bulwer-Lytton, 3rd Earl of Lytton (6 February 1879 – 9 February 1951) In the early years in India, Lytton was educated by a series of governesses and reportedly had a lonely childhood. She played the piano and wished to be a pianist. Although she grew up in England surrounded by many of the great artistic, political and literary names of the day, she rejected the aristocratic way of life. After her father died, she retired from public view to care for her mother, rejecting attempts to interest her in the outside world. The book sold quickly and well and in one of the later editions Lytton added a section on Japanese flower arranging. Lytton became a vegetarian in 1902 and was an advocate of animal rights. ==Women's suffrage==

The reclusive phase of Lytton's life started to change in 1905 when she was left £1,000 in the estate of her great-aunt/godmother, Lady Bloomfield. She donated this to the revival of Morris dancing She had thrown a stone wrapped in paper bearing the message "To Lloyd George – Rebellion against tyranny is obedience to God – Deeds, not words". Her message was in response to the government's new policy of force-feeding imprisoned suffragettes who were on hunger strike. She was sentenced to one month in Newcastle Gaol. (1910) Jane Warton in Liverpool, Walton gaol In January 1910, convinced that poorer prisoners were treated badly, Lytton travelled to Liverpool disguised as a working-class London seamstress named Jane Warton. Lytton wrote of the Jane Warton episode in Prisons and Prisoners: , the local school headmistress, and forty-one other "Suffrage women of Knebworth and Woolmer Green", thanking the Lyttons for having "laboured for our Cause" and "for faith in us as Women": seventeen were WSPU signatories, including Constance's own cook Ethel Smith, Dora Spong, and nine who were in the non-militant suffragist NUWSS. In November 1911 Lytton was imprisoned in Holloway for the fourth time, after breaking windows in the Houses of Parliament, or of a post office in Victoria Street, London. However, conditions had improved, "all was civility; it was unrecognisable from the first time I had been there", and suffragettes were treated as political prisoners. After the WSPU ended its militant campaign at the outbreak of war in 1914, Lytton gave her support to Marie Stopes' campaign to establish birth control clinics. In January 1918 parliament passed a bill giving women over 30 the vote if they were married to a property owner or were one themselves. ==Death and commemoration==

Constance Lytton never fully recovered from her prison treatment, heart attack and strokes, and was nursed at Knebworth by her mother. They lived at Homewood, a house designed by Constance's brother-in-law, Edwin Lutyens. She died in 1923, aged 54, At her funeral, the purple, white and green Suffragette colours were laid on her coffin. Her ashes lie in the family mausoleum in Knebworth Park. ==In popular culture==

Lytton appears as a character in the 1974 BBC television drama Shoulder to Shoulder. She is played by Judy Parfitt. ==Timeline ==

Edited extract from the Knebworth House memorial • 1869 – Lady Constance Georgina Lytton born. • 1880 – Family leaves India. • 1887 – Sister Betty marries Gerald Balfour (Arthur's brother). • 1897 – Sister Emily marries Edwin Lutyens, the architect. • 1908 – Godmother Lady Bloomfield dies, leaving her £1000. Lytton subsequently meets Annie Kenny and Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence. • 1909 – Becomes an official member of the WSPU. • 1909 – Imprisoned for the first time in February 1909. • 1909 – Her pamphlet "No Votes for Women: A Reply to Some Recent Anti-Suffrage Publications" is published. • 1909 – Imprisoned for 2nd time in Holloway in October 1909. • 1910 – Disguises herself as Jane Warton and imprisoned for 3rd time in Walton Gaol, Liverpool, in terrible conditions. Force fed several times. • 1910 – Writes about her experiences in The Times. • 1911 – Imprisoned for the 4th time, in Holloway in November 1911 • 1912 – Suffers a stroke from which she never fully recovers, but continues to write Prisons and Prisoners, an account of her time in custody. • 1914 – Prisons and Prisoners is published. • 1918 – Representation of the People Act 1918 gives the vote to all men, and to women over the age of 30. • 1923 – Lytton dies aged 54. • 1928 – Representation of the People Act 1928 gives the vote to women on the same grounds as men. == See also ==

A collection of "Letters of Constance Lytton" is held at The Women's Library at The London School of Economics and Political Science, ref 9/21. The historian Brian Harrison interviewed people with memories of Lytton in the 1970s as part of the Suffrage Interviews project, titled Oral evidence on the suffragette and suffragist movements: the Brian Harrison interviews. These interviewees included: • Anne Lytton, born 1901 (daughter of Lytton’s brother Neville). Interview 110 • Elisabeth Lutyens, born 1906 (daughter of Lytton's sister Emily). Interview 49 • Mary Lutyens, born 1908 (daughter of Lytton's sister Emily). Interview 85 They describe their aunt’s appearance and personality as well as her relationships with other members of the family. ==Notes==