Альфред Литтелтон: Саясаткер және Көпсалалы Спортшы

English politician and sportsman (1857–1913)

Alfred Lyttelton KC (7 February 1857 – 5 July 1913) was a British politician and sportsman from the Lyttelton family who excelled at both football and cricket. During his time at university he participated in Varsity Matches in five sports: cricket (1876–79), football (1876–78), athletics (1876; selected to throw the hammer), rackets (1877–79) and real tennis (1877–79), displaying an ability that made him arguably the pre eminent sportsman of his generation; his only rival in terms of versatility was Oxford's Cuthbert Ottaway. He was, among numerous other achievements, the first man to represent England at both football and cricket. Lyttelton was also a successful politician and served as Secretary of State for the Colonies between 1903 and 1905.

Lyttelton was the twelfth and youngest child of George Lyttelton, 4th Baron Lyttelton, by his first wife Mary, daughter of Sir Stephen Glynne, 8th Baronet. Charles Lyttelton, 8th Viscount Cobham, Sir Neville Lyttelton and the Right Reverend Arthur Lyttelton were his elder brothers and Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone an uncle by marriage. Another relative was his great nephew, the jazz trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton. Lyttelton was educated at Eton – where he was President of Pop – and Trinity College, Cambridge. At Cambridge, he was a member of the University Pitt Club and played for Cambridge against Oxford in the Real Tennis Varsity Match.

Lyttelton played first class cricket for Cambridge University, captaining the side in 1879. After going down from university he represented Middlesex, where he was a noted wicket keeper. In the course of his cricketing career, Lyttelton accumulated a total of 4,429 first class runs at an average of 27.85, scoring seven centuries. As a wicket keeper, he held 134 catches and stumped 70. He ranked third in the national first class averages in 1879 with 688 runs at 28.66. While turning out for Middlesex he also represented Worcestershire (1874–85), which was not then a first class county. In the early 1880s Lyttelton played four Test matches against Australia, the most notable of which was that contested at The Oval in 1884. In the course of this game, Australia reached a total – all but unheard of at the time – of 500 for six and the England captain, Lord Harris, grew so desperate for a breakthrough that he asked his wicket keeper, Lyttelton, to bowl. W. G. Grace kept wicket while Lyttelton sent down a succession of underarm lobs, succeeding, remarkably, in taking the last four Australian wickets for only 19 runs in the course of a dozen four ball overs. He was President of Marylebone Cricket Club in 1898.

On coming down from Cambridge, Lyttelton took up the law, and served as legal private secretary to the Attorney General, Sir Henry James. He remained apolitical until his uncle's retirement, but in 1894 entered politics as a Liberal Unionist, and was elected to the House of Commons at an 1895 by election as Member of Parliament for Warwick and Leamington. In January 1900 he was appointed a Queen's Counsel, and later that year he was sent by Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain to South Africa as chairman of the committee planning reconstruction following the Boer War, a position in which he impressed South African High Commissioner Alfred Milner. Upon Chamberlain's resignation, Lyttelton succeeded him as Colonial Secretary, despite his relative political inexperience. His decision to allow Chinese indentured labour into South Africa proved highly controversial and became a major issue for the Liberals in the 1906 election. Lyttelton also attempted ambitious reforms of Britain's management of the colonies towards a more decentralised, imperial vision, but these ideas were abandoned by the Liberals who succeeded him. After the Conservatives' fall from power, Lyttelton remained active politically, opposing Welsh disestablishment and supporting women's suffrage. In the summer of 1913, he was struck in the belly during a cricket match in South Africa. Shortly after his return to Britain, he was taken ill at the Foreign Office and an operation revealed the presence of an abscess in his stomach. Surgery was unsuccessful and he died, in a nursing home, early in July. His funeral took place on the day of the annual Varsity cricket match, and play between Oxford and Cambridge was suspended for two minutes as a mark of respect.

Lyttelton and both his wives were members of the intellectual group known as The Souls. In 1885 he married Octavia Laura, daughter of Sir Charles Tennant, 1st Baronet. The couple lived at 4 Upper Brook Street, Mayfair. Laura, as she was usually known, was born in 1862 and died in 1886, within days of giving birth to their only child, a son, who died in 1888. Edward Burne Jones designed her memorial in St Andrew's Church, Mells and, also in her memory, used her features for the mermaid in his 1886 painting The Depths of the Sea. Lyttelton married secondly Edith Sophy, daughter of Archibald Balfour, in 1892. They had two sons (one of whom died as an infant) and one daughter. His elder son Oliver became a prominent politician and businessman, being created Viscount Chandos in 1954. Lyttelton died in July 1913, aged 56. His second wife survived him by over thirty years and died in September 1948.