1341 Alfred Lytttelton

Constituency : Warwick  and  Leamington  1895-1906,  St  George, Hanover  Square  1906-12  ( Liberal  Unionist ), 1912-3  ( Conservative )

Charles  took  over  at  Warwick  on  the  retirement  of  the  Speaker  Arthur  Peel  and  his  elevation  to  the  peerage.

Alfred  was  the  youngest  child  of  Baron  Lyttelton  and  a  nephew  of  Gladstone  by  marriage. He  was  educated  at  Eton  and  Cambridge  and  started  playing  first  class  cricket  for  the  latter. He  went  on  to  play  for  Middlesex  and  played  four  Test  matches  against  Australia. He  also  played  football  for  Old  Etonians  including  the 1876  FA  Cup  Final  and  won  a  solitary  cap  for  England  against  Scotland  in  which  he  was  much  criticised  for  his  selfish  play. He  was  also  national  real  tennis  champion  for  a  decade.  He  became  a  barrister  and  acted  as  legal  private  secretary  to  Henry  James  when  Attorney-General. He  followed  him  into  the  Liberal  Unionists.

In  1900  Chamberlain  sent  him  to  South  Africa  to oversee  reconstruction  after  the  Boer  War. The  High  Commissioner  Alfred  Milner  was  favourably  impressed  with  him. When  Chamberlain  resigned  his  office   as  Colonial  Secretary  to  promote  Tariff  Reform  Alfred  was  appointed  his  replacement. It  was  his  decision  to  use  Chinese  coolie  labourers  which  became  a  major  election  issue  in  1906. Alfred  favoured  decentralised  government  but  was  not  in  office  long  enough  to  pursue  his  ideas.

Alfred  was  defeated  in  1906.

Alfred  opposed  Welsh  disestablishment  but  supported  women's  suffrage.

In  May  1913 Alfred  fanned  the  flames  of  the  Ulster  rebellion  by  declaring  that  "Many officers  and  many  men  would  decline  to  lift  a  hand"  against  the  Protestant  militias.

In  1913  Alfred  took  a ball  in  the  stomach  playing  cricket .  Not  realising  he'd  been  seriously injured,  he  returned  to  his  work   but  soon  needed  surgery  on  a  stomach  abscess. This  was   not  successful  and  he  died  aged  56.

Alfred  was  a  member  of  the  the  Souls  a  social  grouping  for  generally  moderate  politicians. He  was  a  son-in-law  of  Sir  Charles  Tennant  but  never  Asquith's  brother-in-law  as  his  wife had  died  before  her  sister  Margot  married  Asquith. He  became  Balfour's  brother-in-law   instead.

That  concludes  our  look  at  the  by-election  victors  of  the  1892-5  Parliament. We  now  turn  to  the  Liberal  victors  in  1895.