LYTTELTON, ALFRED (1857-1913), British politician, was born Feb. 7, 1857, the youngest child and eighth son of the 4th Lord Lyttelton. His mother, daughter of Sir Stephen Glynne and sister of Mrs. W. E. Gladstone, died six months after his birth. All the eight boys were brought up to be keen cricketers, the cricket ground at Hagley, Worcs., their home, being close to the house; all went to Eton, and six were in the Eton eleven.
Alfred was the most famous cricketer of them all. Indeed for nearly all ball games he had an extraordinary aptitude. He ex celled in football of three kinds, and in fives, racquets and especially tennis—holding the amateur championship for tennis from 1882 to 1896. At cricket he was equally good as a bat and as a wicket keeper. He went to Trinity college, Cambridge, and was called to the bar in 1881. In 1895 he became M.P. for War wick and Leamington as a Liberal Unionist, retaining the seat till 1906, when he was defeated. After a few months' interval,
he was returned for a London constituency, St. George's, Hanover Square.
He was appointed, in 5900, chairman of a commission to en quire into the various concessions which President Kruger and the Volksraad had granted in the Transvaal. In pursuance of the investigation he spent the autumn of i9oo in South Africa, and Lord Milner hoped to secure him as his successor. But it was as Colonial Secretary, in the Conservative Government of Bal four in 1903, that his South African experience was utilised. He incurred much odium by sanctioning the scheme for import ing Chinese coolies into South Africa in order to remedy the shortage of native labour and to restart the mines and thereby the whole economic machinery of South Africa.
He died on July 5, 1913, after an injury in a local cricket match.
See E. S. Lyttelton, Alfred Lyttelton (1923).