Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Lyttelton, Arthur Temple
LYTTELTON, ARTHUR TEMPLE (1852–1903), suffragan bishop of Southampton, born in London on 7 Jan. 1852, was fifth son of George William Lyttelton, fourth Baron Lyttelton [q. v.], by his first wife Mary, daughter of Sir Stephen Richard Glynne (eighth baronet). Educated at Eton and at Trinity College, Cambridge, he was placed in the first class of the moral science tripos in 1873, graduated B. A. in 1874, proceeding M.A. in 1877 and D.D. in 1898. After a year at Cuddesdon Theological College he was ordained deacon in 1876 and priest in 1877. From 1876 to 1879 he served the curacy of St. Mary's, Reading; and from 1879 to 1882 was tutor of Keble College, Oxford, receiving the Oxford M.A. degree in 1879. His work at Keble was designed to prepare him for becoming the first Master of Selwyn College, a similar fomidation at Cambridge. In 1882 he was appointed Master of Selwyn at the age of thirty, but its rapid growth was largely due to the confidence he inspired. A pronounced liberal in politics, he helped to draw up in December 1885 a declaration on disestablishment signed by liberal members of the Cambridge senate. He acted as examining chaplain to the bishop of Ripon, Dr. Boyd Carpenter (1884-8), and to Bishop Creighton both at Peterborough (1891-6) and at London (1896-8). In 1891 he was Hulsean lecturer at Cambridge.
Desiring pastoral work, Lyttelton in 1893 left Selwyn College to become vicar of Eccles, Lancashire; he was made cural dean, was elected in 1895 proctor for the clergy in York convocation, and in 1898 was appointed to an honorary canonry of Manchester. He put into practice in his parish some of his liberal views on Church reform. In his youth Lyttelton had been a page at the court of Queen Victoria. In 1895 she made him an hon. chaplain, and in 1896 a chaplain in ordinary. In 1898 the bishop of Winchester, Dr. Randall Davidson, invited him to become his suffragan, and he was consecrated bishop of Southampton in St. Paul's Cathedral on 30 Nov. 1898. In the same year he was made provost of St. Nicholas's College, Lancing, which gave him authority over the southern group of the Woodard schools, and in 1900 he was appointed archdeacon of Winchester. Lyttelton seemed marked out for the highest office in the church, but in 1902 he fell ill of cancer, died at Castle House, Petersfield, on 19 Feb. 1903, and was buried at Hagley, Worcestershire. He married in 1880 Mary Kathleen, daughter of George Clive of Perrystone Court, Herefordshire; she died on 13 Jan. 1907, leaving two sons and a daughter.
Lyttelton gave everywhere the impression of a noble character, strong in a faith held rigidly though without intolerance. In politics a liberal, ecclesiastically a high churchman, he was distinguished by broad general culture but attempted no specialised study. For many years a contributor to periodical literature, and the author of an essay on the Atonement in 'Lux Mundi' (1889), he also pubhshed : 'College and University Sermons' (1894) and 'The Place of Miracles in Religion' (1899), being the Hulsean lectures for 1891. After his death there appeared 'Modern Poets of Faith, Doubt and Unbelief, and other Essays' (1904), with portrait.
[Memoir by E. S. Talbot, bishop of Winchester, prefixed to 'Modern Poets of Faith,' &c., 1904; The Times, 21 Feb. 1903; Guardian, 25 Feb. 1903; Church Times, 27 Feb. 1903; Louise Creighton, Life and Letters of Mandell Creighton, 1904, i. 349; Debrett's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, ed. 1911.]