Noel Anthony Scawen Lytton, 4th Earl of Lytton (7 April 1900 – 18 January 1985) was a British Army officer, Arabian horse fancier and writer.
He had an intriguing ancestry. He was a descendant of the poet and adventurer Lord Byron (born 1788), via his daughter Ada Lovelace (born 1815), arguably the world's first computer programmer. Her daughter Anne (born 1837) married the poet Wilfrid Scawen Blunt; their daughter Judith Blunt-Lytton was Noel's mother.
He was raised just east of the Sussex town of Crawley, in the mansion built by his maternal grandparents on the grounds of their renowned horse breeding establishment, the Crabbet Arabian Stud. He was educated at Sandhurst and was commissioned in the Rifle Brigade. He later taught economics there in the 1930s. In the time between the World Wars, he served "as an administrator and keeper of the peace in the area around Lake Rudolph in Kenya." [1] When the British entered World War II, he was posted by the military to North Africa, but due to an automotive accident, was invalided out to desk duty, which his son describes as extremely frustrating for someone who was used to being athletic and active.
As part of government administration, he eventually went to Italy to work with Josip Broz Tito's Partisans. There, he also met his wife, Clarissa Palmer, daughter of Brigadier General Cyril Eustace Palmer R.A. They married in 1946 and had five children: John Peter Michael, eventual 5th Earl of Lytton and 18th Baron Wentworth; the Hon. (Thomas) Roland Cyril Lawrence Lytton, Lady Caroline Mary Noel Lytton, Lady Lucy Mary Frances Lytton and Lady Sarah Teresa Mary Lytton. On moving to Exmoor to farm, he dropped the '-Milbanke' from the family name and kept merely the 'Lytton'.[1]
He went on to write several books [2], including a biography about his grandfather, Wilfred Blunt, and a military autobiography The Desert and the Green. Due to his family's continued interest in the Arabian horse breed, he contributed from his private collection to the W.K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library at Cal Poly Pomona.
Noel Lytton succeeded his father as the 4th Earl of Lytton in 1951, and his mother as 17th Baron Wentworth in 1957. Both titles passed to his son, John, upon his death in 1985.
| Peerage of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Neville Bulwer-Lytton |
Earl of Lytton 1951–1985 |
Succeeded by John Lytton |
| Peerage of England | ||
| Preceded by Judith Blunt-Lytton |
Baron Wentworth 1957–1985 |
Succeeded by John Lytton |
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