Author: Lyttelton, Thomas
Biography:
LYTTELTON, Thomas (1744-1779: ODNB)
Born at Hagley, Worcester, on 30 Jan. 1744, Lyttelton was the only son of politician and poet George Lyttelton (q.v.), Alexander Pope’s correspondent, and his wife, Lucy (1717-1746), the daughter of MP Hugh Fortesque (1665-1719). He succeeded his father as second baron. He was educated at Marylebone School (1756), at Eton (1758-61), and at Christ Church College, Oxford, where he matriculated in 1761 (no degree). In 1763-65 and again in 1770-71 he toured Europe. On 26 June 1772 at Halesowen, Worcester, he married Apphia, the daughter of Broome Witts of Chipping Norton, Oxford. She was the widow of a governor of Calcutta, Joseph Peach. There were no children by the marriage. Lyttelton was admitted to the Privy Council in 1775 and in the same year was appointed chief justice in eyre North of Trent. For much of his life he deservedly had the “reputation of a rake and bounder.” His several adventures included an imprisonment in Paris. Briefly MP for Bewdley (1768-69), upon the death of his father he took his seat in the House of Lords. The attribution to him of An Agreeable Companion is conjectural, but doubt cast upon his authorship of Poems by a Young Nobleman (see ODNB) is unjustified. His authorship is obvious from the book’s preface and from the title of one of the poems, “An Extempore by Lord Lyttelton, in Italy, anno 1770.” He died at his home, Pitt Place, Epsom, on 27 Nov. 1779 and was buried at Hagley. (ODNB 2 June 2023; R. Blunt, Thomas, Lord Lyttelton [1936]) JC
Other Names:
- Lord Lyttelton
- Lord Lyttleton
- Thomas, Lord Lyttelton