Lady Emily Lutyens (1874–1964)

by F. A. Swaine, 1913

© Mary Evans Picture Library

Lutyens [née Bulwer-Lytton], Lady Emily (1874–1964), theosophist, was born on 26 December 1874 in Paris, the third surviving child among the five children of (Edward) Robert Bulwer-Lytton, first earl of Lytton (1831–1891), a diplomatist and poet, and his wife, Edith Bulwer-Lytton (1841–1936) [see under Lytton, (Edward) Robert Bulwer-], daughter of Edward Villiers and his wife, Elizabeth Liddell, and a lady-in-waiting to Queen Victoria. Emily Lytton was brought up in Lisbon, where her father was British minister, and then in India (1876–80), where her father was viceroy. After leaving India the family returned to Knebworth, where she was educated by governesses, whom she despised. A voracious reader, she devoured her father's library of Walter Scott and Bulwer Lytton; reading aloud was a lifelong passion.

In December 1887 Lord Lytton was appointed ambassador in Paris, and the thirteen-year-old Emily went to live in the embassy. She began an intimate correspondence with a 71-year-old clergyman, the Revd Whitwell Elwin. Throughout her life she wrote letters almost daily; her letters to various correspondents, especially her husband, form an extraordinarily complete record of her life. She published the correspondence with Elwin as A Blessed Girl (1953). Robert Lytton died in November 1891, and Emily returned to England with her family. She did not formally ‘come out’, but her sister Betty, who was married to Gerald Balfour, introduced her to the circle of ‘Souls’. Disapproving and priggish but also a rebel, Emily became infatuated with the 53-year-old Wilfrid Blunt, a friend of her father. This flirtation is candidly described in A Blessed Girl.

Soon after she broke with Blunt, the 21-year-old Emily, who by now considered herself ‘on the shelf’, met the architect Edwin Landseer Lutyens (1869–1944), who, though a coming man, was very much outside her social class. They were married in August 1897 and lived at 29 Bloomsbury Square, London. The house was also Lutyens's office and the centre of his successful country-house practice. Emily and Edwin Lutyens had five children, born between 1898 and 1908: Barbara, Robert, Ursula, Mary, and Elisabeth. Mary Lutyens (1908–1999) became a writer of some note and Elisabeth Lutyens (1906–1983) became a distinguished composer. Emily, who disliked entertaining, was unfulfilled by her role as architect's wife. She was drawn to the women's movement, joining first the Moral Education League, which campaigned for prostitutes suffering from venereal disease, and then the Women's Social and Political Union. She introduced to the movement her sister Lady Constance Georgina Bulwer-Lytton (1869–1923), who became a prominent suffragette and hunger-striker, but Emily disliked militancy and resigned from the union in 1909.

Emily Lutyens discovered the new religion of theosophy through the Mallets, French clients of her husband who lived at Le Bois des Moutiers, Varengeville. Theosophy is an eclectic mix of Hinduism and Christianity, and Emily was converted by Annie Besant, the charismatic leader of the movement. In 1911 Mrs Besant brought to England a sixteen-year-old Indian boy, Krishnamurti, the future world teacher whose remarkable aura the clairvoyant theosophist C. W. Leadbeater had noticed on the beach at Adyar, near Madras. Waiting with the crowd of theosophists at Charing Cross station, Emily wrote, 'I had eyes for none but Krishna', an odd figure with long black hair wearing a Norfolk jacket (Lutyens, Candles in the Sun, 30). Emily was promoted by Mrs Besant to the esoteric section of the Theosophical Society and appointed English representative of the Order of the Star in the East. She travelled the country lecturing, acted as editor of the theosophist journal Herald of the Star, and introduced wealthy converts, including the American heiress Miss Mabel Dodge, whose generosity financed the society.

Emily became a strict vegetarian, and relations with her husband grew strained. She later admitted that only her overwhelming personal love for Krishnamurti bound her to theosophy. Some questioned her emotional involvement, but her support helped to protect Krishna and his brother Nitya, who were smuggled to England in 1912 pending a lawsuit brought against Mrs Besant by their father, who alleged immoral acts by C. W. Leadbeater. In 1916 Emily established an all-India home rule movement, holding meetings in her London drawing-room. This was perhaps tactless, as her husband was then designing an imperial capital at New Delhi, but Emily was annoyed to receive a letter from Edward Hudson, editor of Country Life, telling her that she had a genius in her care and that looking after him should be her sole concern.

Theosophy was very fashionable in the 1920s. Krishna, with his film-star looks, mesmerized audiences in India, California, Australia, and the Netherlands. Emily travelled the world with him, becoming convinced that he was indeed the Messiah. In 1925 Emily formed the League of Motherhood, but by now the Theosophical Society was swept by hysteria and divided over Krishna's claims to be the world teacher. Emily supported Krishna when he tried to dissolve the society, and in 1930 she followed him in resigning from theosophy.

Emily Lutyens was in many ways ahead of her time. A fearless and outspoken critic of the casual racism of the British in India, she was a feminist, a vegetarian, and a socialist. She was twice asked to stand as a Labour candidate. Her unconventional marriage is prolifically documented in the letters she wrote to her husband, 5000 of which survive. She played little part in actively promoting his work, but in times of crisis her advice was good. Sir Edwin Lutyens died in 1944. In 1953 Lady Emily published A Blessed Girl, a vivid and sharply observed account of an upper-class girl growing up in late Victorian England. In 1957 followed Candles in the Sun, the absorbing story of her theosophical years. Written with the collaboration of her daughter Mary, this is still the best account of the movement. She also published The Birth of Rowland (1956), a collection of her parents' letters. Lady Emily died at her home, 2 Hyde Park Street, Paddington, London, on 3 January 1964.