Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton

Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton

Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton as Viceroy of India

Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton GCB GCSI GCIE PC (born November 8, 1831 in London , † November 24, 1891 in Paris ) was a British diplomat and writer. He published poems under the stage name "Owen Meredith".

Life

Bulwer-Lytton was the son of the parliamentarian and novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton and his wife, the writer Rosina Bulwer-Lytton . He attended the Harrow School and the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn .

At the age of 18, Bulwer-Lytton went to the United States as the private secretary of his uncle Sir Henry Bulwer , where his uncle served as British ambassador for three years .

In 1864 Bulwer-Lytton married Edith Villiers, a granddaughter of Baron Ravensworth, with whom he had at least seven children. One of his daughters married the British architect Sir Edwin Lutyens , another Gerald Balfour, 2nd Earl of Balfour .

From 1876 to 1880 Bulwer-Lytton was Governor General and Viceroy of India . The Great Famine from 1876 to 1878 , the Second Anglo-Afghan War and the Treaty of Gandamak fell during his term of office .

He was later sent to various European royal courts, such as Portugal and France (1887–1891), as the embassy secretary or ambassador of the British crown.

Political role during the Great Famine (1876–1878)

The policies of Bulwer-Lytton during the Great Famine in India , which began the year Bulwer-Lytton took office as Viceroy of British India and which killed between 6.1 million and 10.3 million people in southern India, is the subject of international controversy between historians. While some researchers argue that the famine and its victims were due to natural factors such as crop failures , others argue that the deaths of millions of Indians were due to the laissez-faire policies of the British colonial government under Bulwer-Lytton, which deliberately failed to take effective countermeasures . The allegation of genocide is also raised.

writer

At the age of 25, Bulwer-Lytton published a volume of poems under the stage name "Owen Meredith", followed by short stories and other poems under the same pseudonym. His best-known work is Lucile from 1860, which became known to the general public also because the author was accused of plagiarizing George Sands Lavinia .

Publications

• Pausanias, the Spartan , Tauchnitz, Leipzig 1876.

Title and medal

After his father's death in 1871, Bulwer-Lytton inherited the latter's title of Baron Lytton and Lytton Baronet . When he returned from India, he was given the titles of Earl of Lytton and Viscount Knebworth .

In his capacity as viceroy, Bulwer-Lytton was by virtue of his office Grand Master of the two Indian orders of the United Kingdom, the Order of the Star of India and the Order of the Indian Empire . He wore the highest level of these medals as well as that of the Bath Order .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kathakali Chatterjee, The British Created an Indian Holocaust, University of Wisconsin July 17, 2007
2. ↑ Mike Davis, 2001. Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World. Verso, London
3. ↑ http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/lucile/

Web links

• Works by and about Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton at Open Library (contains full text by Lucille )

predecessor	Office	successor
Thomas George Baring	Governor General and Viceroy of India 1876–1880	George Robinson
New title created	Earl of Lytton 1880-1891	Victor Bulwer-Lytton
Edward Bulwer-Lytton	Baron Lytton 1873-1891	Victor Bulwer-Lytton