Victor Alexander George Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd Earl of Lytton KG GCSI GCIE PC DL , styled Viscount Knebworth from 1880 to 1891, was a British politician and colonial administrator.
Background
Erroll was the first son of Charles Hay, 20th Earl of Erroll (1852–1927) and his wife Mary, daughter of Edmund and Lady Harriett L'Estrange. He succeeded his father in the earldom in 1927. In 1900, he married Mary Lucy Victoria, only daughter of Sir Allan Mackenzie, 2nd Baronet, of Glen Muick, Aberdeenshire, and they had two sons and one daughter.
Education
He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was secretary of the University Pitt Club.
Career
He served as Governor of Bengal between 1922 and 1927 and was briefly Acting Viceroy of India in 1926. In 1905 he was President of the Edinburgh Sir Walter Scott Club and gave the Toast to Sir Walter at the club's annual dinner. Victor Bulwer-Lytton's six siblings were :
Edward Rowland John Bulwer-Lytton (1865–1871)
Lady Elizabeth Edith "Betty" Bulwer-Lytton (12 June 1867 – 28 March 1942).
Married Gerald Balfour, 2nd Earl of Balfour, brother of the future Prime Minister Arthur Balfour. Lady Constance Bulwer-Lytton (1869-1923) Prominent suffragette
Henry Meredith Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1872–1874)
Lady Emily Bulwer-Lytton (1874–1964). Married the architect Edwin Lutyens.
Associate and confidante of Jiddu Krishnamurti. Neville Bulwer-Lytton, 3rd Earl of Lytton (6 February 1879 – 9 February 1951)
Lytton started off his official career by filling up various posts in the Admiralty between 1916 and 1920, before being appointed Under-Secretary of State for India, a post which he held between 1920 and 1922. He was also made a Privy Counsellor in 1919.
In 1922 he was posted as Governor of Bengal, remaining there until 1927. For a short while, when there was a vacancy caused by change in incumbents in 1926, he also functioned as Viceroy, his father's old post. After this he filled miscellaneous positions in various capacities, when matters concerning India came up.
He was made a Knight of the Garter in 1933. Lytton may be best known for his chairmanship of the Lytton Commission, which was sent by the League of Nations on a fact-finding mission to determine who was to blame in the 1931 war between Japan and China. The commission's Lytton Report, officially issued on 1 October 1932, caused Japan to withdraw from the League of Nations.
1876-1880: Mr Victor Alexander George Robert Bulwer-Lytton
1880-1891: Viscount Knebworth
1891-1919: The Rt Hon The Second Earl of Lytton
1919-1922: The Rt Hon The Second Earl of Lytton PC
1922-1925: The Rt Hon The Second Earl of Lytton GCIE PC
1925-1933: The Rt Hon The Second Earl of Lytton GCSI GCIE PC
1933-1947: The Rt Hon The Second Earl of Lytton KG GCSI GCIE PC
Lord Lytton married at St Margaret's, Westminster, on 3 April 1902, Pamela Chichele-Plowden, daughter of Sir Trevor Chichele Plowden. She had been an early flame of Winston Churchill, but that relationship was amicably broken off when she decided to marry Lytton instead. The couple had two sons, both of whom predeceased Lytton.
The elder son, Antony Bulwer-Lytton, Viscount Knebworth, MP, died aged 30 in an air crash while serving with the Auxiliary Air Force. The younger son, Alexander Edward John Bulwer-Lytton, Viscount Knebworth, MBE, was killed in the Second Battle of El Alamein during World War II. Victor Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd Earl of Lytton died in October 1947, aged 71.