Youth Strachey was born on 1 March 1880 at Stowey House,
Clapham Common, London, the fifth son and 11th child of Lieutenant General Sir
Richard Strachey, an officer in the British colonial armed forces, and his second wife, the former
Jane Grant, who became a leading supporter of the
women's suffrage movement. He was named Giles Lytton after an early 16th-century Gyles Strachey and the
first Earl of Lytton, who had been a friend of Richard Strachey's when he was
Viceroy of India in the late 1870s. The Earl of Lytton was also Lytton Strachey's godfather. The Stracheys had thirteen children in total, ten of whom survived to adulthood, including Lytton's sister
Dorothy Strachey and youngest brother, the psychoanalyst
James Strachey. When Lytton was four years old the family moved from Stowey House to 69
Lancaster Gate, north of
Kensington Gardens. This was their home until Sir Richard retired 20 years later. Lady Strachey was an enthusiast for languages and literature, making her children perform their own plays and write verse from an early age. She thought that Lytton had the potential to become a great artist so she decided that he would receive the best education possible to be "enlightened." By 1887 he had begun the study of French, and he was to admire French culture throughout his life. Lady Strachey decided in 1893 that her son should start his more serious education and sent him to
Abbotsholme School in
Rocester, Derbyshire, where pupils were required to do manual work every day. Strachey, who always had a fragile physique, objected to this requirement and after a few months, he was transferred to
Leamington College, where he became a victim of savage bullying. Sir Richard, however, told his son to "grin and bear the petty bullying." Strachey did eventually adapt to the school and became one of its best pupils. In the 1960s one of the four 'houses' at the school was named after him. His health also seems to have improved during the three years he spent at Leamington, although various illnesses continued to plague him. and Lady Strachey. Left to right: Marjorie,
Dorothy, Lytton, Joan Pernel,
Oliver, Dick, Ralph,
Philippa, Elinor,
James When Strachey turned 17 in 1897, Lady Strachey decided that he was ready to leave school and go to university, but because she thought he was too young for
Oxford she decided that he should first attend a smaller institution, the
University of Liverpool. There Strachey befriended the professor of modern literature,
Walter Raleigh, who, besides being his favourite teacher, also became the most influential figure in his life before he went up to
Cambridge. In 1899 Strachey took the
Christ Church scholarship examination, wanting to get into
Balliol College, Oxford, but the examiners determined that Strachey's academic achievements were not remarkable and were struck by his "shyness and nervousness." They recommended
Lincoln College as a more suitable institution, advice that Lady Strachey took as an insult, deciding then that he would attend
Trinity College, Cambridge, instead.
Cambridge Strachey was admitted as a
Pensioner at
Trinity College, Cambridge, on 30 September 1899. He became an
Exhibitioner in 1900 and a
Scholar in 1902. He won the Chancellor's Medal for English Verse in 1902 and was given a BA degree after he had won a second class in the History Tripos in June 1903. He did not however take leave of Trinity but remained until October 1905 to work on a thesis that he hoped would gain him a fellowship. Strachey's years at Cambridge were happy and productive. Among the
freshers at Trinity, there were three with whom Strachey soon became closely associated:
Clive Bell,
Leonard Woolf and
Saxon Sydney-Turner. With another undergraduate, A. J. Robertson, these students formed a group called the Midnight Society, which, in the opinion of Bell, was the source of the
Bloomsbury Group. Other close friends at Cambridge were
Thoby Stephen and his sisters
Vanessa and
Virginia Stephen (later Bell and Woolf respectively). Strachey also belonged to the Conversazione Society, the
Cambridge Apostles to which
Tennyson,
Hallam,
Maurice, and
Sterling had once belonged. The Apostles formulated an elitist doctrine of "Higher Sodomy" which differentiated the homosexual acts of the intelligent from those of "ordinary" men. In these years Strachey was highly prolific in writing verse, much of which has been preserved and some of which was published at the time. Strachey also became acquainted with other men who greatly influenced him, including
G. Lowes Dickinson,
John Maynard Keynes, Walter Lamb (brother of the painter
Henry Lamb),
George Mallory,
Bertrand Russell and
G. E. Moore. Moore's philosophy, with its assumption that the
summum bonum lies in achieving a high quality of humanity, in experiencing delectable states of mind, and in intensifying experience by contemplating great works of art, was a particularly important influence. In the summer of 1903, Strachey applied for a position in the education department of the Civil Service. Even though the letters of recommendation written for him by those under whom he had studied showed that he was held in high esteem at Cambridge, he failed to get the appointment and decided to try for a fellowship at Trinity College. From 1903 through 1905 he wrote a 400-page dissertation on
Warren Hastings, the 18th-century Indian imperialist, but the work failed to secure Strachey the fellowship and led to his return to London. ==Career==