Judith Blunt Lytton, 16th Baroness Wentworth

Early life and family

Judith was the only surviving child of the poet Wilfrid Scawen Blunt and his wife, Lady Anne, a daughter of William King-Noel, 1st Earl of Lovelace and his wife, the renowned mathematician Ada Lovelace. Therefore, she was also the great-granddaughter of Lord Byron. Judith spent most of her childhood in Egypt and other parts of the Middle East while her parents travelled to purchase Arabian horses for their Crabbet Arabian Stud back in England and their Sheykh Obeyd stud in Cairo. Thus, the family was familiar with middle eastern culture and fluently spoke both Arabic and Turkish.

Adult life

On 2 February 1899, Judith married Neville Stephen Lytton, the youngest son of the Earl of Lytton. The marriage took place in Cairo, and they later returned to England and moved into a house in the grounds of her parents' estate, Crabbet Park, near Crawley, filled with relics of Judith's great-grandfather, Lord Byron. The couple later had three children: Noel Anthony Scawen (1900–1985), Anne (later known as Lady Anne Lytton) (1901–1979) and Winifred (later known as Lady Winifrid Tryon) (1904–1985). She later became estranged from her husband, and the couple divorced in 1923. Neville soon remarried, but Lady Wentworth never did, focusing on managing Crabbet Park until her death.

In 1904, Judith's father turned over the Crabbet property to her and she also changed her surname to Blunt-Lytton that year. Two years later, her estranged parents divided the estate, Wilfrid living close by at Newbuildings Place, while Lady Anne remained in Egypt and maintained an estate near Cairo, the Sheykh Obeyd Stud, where she also continued to raise Arabian horses.

In 1917, Judith inherited her mother's barony of Wentworth. Due primarily to the maneuvering of Wilfred in an attempt to disinherit Judith and obtain the entire Crabbet property, Judith and her mother were estranged at the time and thus Lady Anne's share of the Crabbet Stud passed to Judith's daughters, under the oversight of an independent trustee. This angered Wilfrid and a lawsuit soon followed. Ownership of the Arabian horses went back and forth between the estates of father and daughter in the following years. Wilfred sold a number of horses in his control, mostly to pay off debts. Some animals were later repurchased by Judith, though she was unable to recover others, especially those exported to the United States. The lawsuit was eventually settled in favour of the granddaughters and Judith. Between her own pre-existing ownership and the shares of the estate she purchased from the trustee for her daughters, Judith retained control of the Stud, though she had to overcome considerable financial difficulties.

Judith was also a well known and respected breeder of English Toy Spaniels (or King Charles Spaniels as they were known in England), and a dog judge. In 1911 her authoritative work on the ancestors of several of the toy breeds was published.

Death and legacy

Lady Wentworth's former husband had inherited his childless brother's earldom of Lytton in 1947, and on his own death in 1951, it passed to their only son, Noel. Lady Wentworth had become estranged from her children since the divorce and saw Noel for the first time in 30 years on her deathbed in 1957. At the time of her death, the Wentworth title also passed to him. Her daughter, Lady Anne Lytton, later provided valuable historical recollections of the horses and practices of the Crabbet Stud.

Lady Wentworth's will stipulated that Crabbet be left to her stud manager and real tennis marker Fred Covey, but he had died a few days earlier than Lady Wentworth, thus the Stud passed to his son, Cecil. The house remains to this day, but when the new M23 motorway bisected the property in 1971, Covey, himself not a young man, had little choice but to sell the property and disperse the horses.

Publications