Constance Lytton, the daughter of Robert, the first Earl of Lytton and Edith Villiers, was born in 1869. Lytton was the Viceroy of India and Constance spent the first eleven years of her life in India. Educated by a series of governesses she had a very lonely childhood.
In 1892 Constance fell in love with a man with lower social status than the Lytton family. Lord Lytton had died the previous year, but her mother refused to grant permission for her to marry this man. For several years she hoped her mother would change her mind, but this did not happen and Constance Lytton refused to contemplate marrying anyone else.
Constance Lytton's sister Betty married Gerald Balfour, a keen supporter of the women's suffrage movement. So also were two of his sisters, Frances Balfour and Emily Lutyens. Constance found their ideas on women's political rights interesting but her preoccupation with her unhappy love affair and poor health stopped her joining the suffrage movement.
In 1908 Constance Lytton met Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence and Annie Kenney. She was so impressed with their views that she agreed to join the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). At first Constance concentrated on trying to use her political contacts to persuade the British government to grant imprisoned members of the WSPU political status. These efforts ended in failure.
In 1909 Constance took part in a demonstration at the House of Commons. Constance was arrested and imprisoned but when the authorities found out that she was the daughter of Lord Lytton, the former Viceroy of India, they ordered her release. As well as her social position, the British government were also aware of Constance Lytton's health problems, and they feared that if she went on hunger strike she would die and then the WSPU would have a famous martyr.
Constance Lytton was angry that she should be given special treatment and decided to adopt a false identity. After another demonstration Constance was arrested but this time she gave her name as Jane Wharton, a London seamstress. Constance was sentenced to fourteen days and when she refused to eat, she was forced fed eight times. When the authorities discovered Jane Wharton's true identity she was immediately released.
In 1911 Constance Lytton was arrested for window-breaking but was released when it became clear that she was in danger of dying. Soon afterward Constance suffered a stroke which left her partly paralyzed. Now unable to take an active role in the suffragette struggle, Constance concentrated on writing articles and pamphlets on women's rights for the WSPU. Constance also wrote a book on her experiences in the suffragette movement called Prisons and Prisoners.
When the WSPU ended their militant campaign in 1914, Lytton gave her support to Marie Stopes and her campaign to establish birth-control clinics. Lady Lytton totally disapproved of her daughter's political activities. However, she gave Constance the assistance she needed to write her books and nursed Constance Lytton until her death in 1923.
Forum Debates
Votes for Women
Women and Football
Men's League for Women's Suffrage
Women's History
(1) At first Constance Lytton completely disagreed with the methods used by the suffragettes. On 10th September 1908 Constance Lytton wrote to Adela Smith.
I met some suffragettes down at the club in Littlehampton… They have come into personal first-hand contact with prison abuses. My hobby of prison reform has thereby taken on new vigour… I intend to interview the female inspector of Holloway prison, and will take part in the Suffragette breakfast with the next batch of released Suffrage prisoners on September 16. I had a long talk with Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence. She mostly talked Woman Suffrage, about which, though I sympathize with the cause, she left me unconverted as to my criticisms of some of their methods.
(2) On 14th October 1908, Constance Lytton met Mrs. Pethick Lawrence in London. That night Constance Lytton wrote a letter to her mother.
I went to the Suffragette Office to see Mrs. Lawrence and to congratulate her on the meeting of the day before, inquire the latest news, and finally say: "You know my reservations as to some of your methods, but my sympathies are much more with you than with any of your opponents… I want to be of use if I can. Is there anything I can possibly do to help you?" A good deal of talk ensued. She said, "Yes," I could help them. Could I see to it that Herbert Gladstone was asked to treat the Suffragettes as political offenders, which they are, and not as common criminals, which they are not?
(3) By November 1908, Constance Lytton began to change her mind about the WSPU. This was reflected in a letter she wrote to Theresa Earle.
I go deeper and deeper in my enthusiasm to the women, and even for their 'tactics' as I understand it more and more - not only what they do, but what has been done to them to drive them to these tactics.
(4) In her book Prison and Prisoners, Constance Lytton explained her decision to join the WSPU.
Women had tried repeatedly, and always in vain, every peaceable means open to them of influencing successive governments. Processions and petitions were absolutely useless. In January 1909 I decided to become a member of the Women's Social and Political Union.
(5) On 26th March 1909, Emily Lutyens, Constance Lytton's sister, wrote a letter to her aunt, Theresa Earle, when she discovered that Constance Lytton had joined the WSPU.
I must write you a line of deepest sympathy. I know how you must be suffering about Constance. We cannot disguise from ourselves that our old Constance has gone forever. I feel, whatever it may be in the future, for the moment she has passed out of the lives of her family. She has become an impersonal being, and no one will feel this so much as you
(6) On 8th October 1909, Constance Lytton committed her first violent act as a member of the WSPU.
On Friday, 8th October 1909, Christabel Pankhurst and I were on our way to Newcastle. I had made up my mind that I was going to throw a stone. We went to the Haymarket where the car with Mr. Lloyd George (a government minister) would probably pass. As the motor appeared I stepped out into the road, stood straight in front of the car, shouted out, "How can you, who say you back the women's cause, stay on in a government which refuses them the vote, and is persecuting them for asking it," and threw a stone at the car. I aimed low to avoid injuring the chauffeur or passengers.
(7) In January 1910, Constance Lytton visited WSPU members in prison.
Mary Gawthorpe was ill with an internal complaint. Mary said, with tears in her eyes, as she threw her arms round me: "Oh, and these are women quite unknown - nobody knows or cares about them except their own friends. They go to prison again and again to be treated like this, until it kills them!"
(8) Constance Lytton describing a WSPU demonstration in Downing Street. Letter to Theresa Earle on 6th December 1910.
I saw hundreds of women doing no violence, thrown about by the police till they were black and blue, their arms twisted, wrenched out of joint, women of over 60 or 70 thrown on to the ground and trampled on, systematically kicked and pinched in the most sensitive parts of their bodies… The police hold the woman's arms behind her, thus thrusting forward the sensitive glands of the breasts, so that it is here she receives all the pressure when pushed into a thick crowd.
(9) Constance Lytton was force-fed in October 1909. An account of her experiences was included in her book Prison and Prisoners.
Two of the wardresses took hold of my arms, one held my head and one my feet. The doctor leant on my knees as he stooped over my chest to get at my mouth. I shut my mouth and clenched my teeth… The doctor seemed annoyed at my resistance and he broke into a temper as he pried my teeth with the steel implement. The pain was intense and at last I must have given way, for he got the gap between my teeth, when he proceeded to turn it until my jaws were fastened wide apart. Then he put down my throat a tube, which seemed to me much too wide and something like four feet in length. I choked the moment it touched my throat. Then the food was poured in quickly; it made me sick a few seconds after it was down. I was sick all over the doctor and wardresses. As the doctor left he gave me a slap on the cheek. Presently the wardresses left me. Before long I heard the sounds of the forced feeding in the next cell to mine. It was almost more than I could bear, it was Elsie Howley. When the ghastly process was over and all quiet. I tapped on the wall and called out at the top of my voice. 'No Surrender', and then came the answer in Elsie's voice, 'No Surrender'.
(10) Constance Lytton, letter to Major Neville Lytton, January 13th, 1918.
The women who fought for it - some giving their lives, others mutilated for life, others coming through after much suffering, all greater than mine - have won the victory now for women in Great Britain, and very soon in the four corners of the earth - in America, Canada, South Africa, in the other countries of Europe, in India (though very slowly, I fear, there), in China."
(11) Now an invalid and seriously ill, Constance Lytton was told to expect death. She wrote a letter to her aunt, Theresa Earle, explaining her thoughts.
If it should happen… I am happy to die. If, as many people believe, we step into a higher life, but are again with loved companions who have died before, then it will be very good. Death to me is like a gentle lover…I am so tired of life, I should like to be taken in his sheltering arms and have an end… I have long hoped to die, and since I've seen this possible road, I have felt most wonderfully happy. Of late years I have seen and felt much of the sad side of death - the separation from those we love. Now I see the joyful side - the release from bodily ills - and it is restful beyond all words.
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