Members of the Lytton family have stood for Parliament in every century since the 16th – excluding this one… so far. I’m sure there’ll be another member of my family throwing themselves into national politics before the 21st Century is out. It’s in our blood. Consider William Lytton (1586-1660) – he was a staunch Parliamentarian, which led to his imprisonment during the English Civil War. The Lytton family has been on all sides of the political debate. In the 19th Century Edward Bulwer Lytton (1803-1873) began his political life as a radical Whig and ended it as a Tory Cabinet minister. In the last Century, Constance Lytton (1869-1923) never stood for Parliament, but her militant politics led four times to her imprisonment. Her nephew, Antony Knebworth (1903-1933), became Conservative MP for Hitchin at the young age of 27, on the National Coalition ticket, which led to the splintering of the Liberal Party and the loss of its previous dominance. His nephew, my father David Lytton Cobbold (b.1937), on the other hand – and at the other end of the century – fought hard for the Liberal Party in both General and European Elections. Whatever their party allegiance, they all stood for the interests of our local community, and therefore I am very pleased that in this month’s General Election – at time of writing – there is at least one Knebworth resident standing to be our next MP. As the Lytton Family motto goes – ‘hoc virtutis opus’ – ‘there is virtue in this work’.
Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH