Constance Bulwer-Lytton

Lady Constance Georgina Bulwer-Lytton (12 February 1869

She was subsequently imprisoned four times, including once in Walton gaol in Liverpool

While imprisoned in Holloway during March 1909, Lytton used a piece of broken enamel from a hairpin to cut the letter "V" into the flesh of her breast, placed exactly over the heart. (The "V" came from "Votes for Women", as she had planned to scratch the whole phrase "beginning over the heart and ending it on [her] face".)

Lytton remained unmarried, because her mother refused her permission to marry a man from a "lower social order", while she refused to contemplate marrying anyone else.

Her heart attack, stroke, and early death at the age of 54 have been attributed in part to the trauma of her hunger strike and force feeding by the prison authorities. Her siblings were: Edward Rowland John Bulwer-Lytton (1865–1871) Lady Elizabeth Edith "Betty" Bulwer-Lytton (12 June 1867 – 28 March 1942). Married Gerald Balfour, 2nd Earl of Balfour, brother of the future Prime Minister Arthur Balfour. Henry Meredith Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1872–1874) Lady Emily Bulwer-Lytton (1874–1964). Married the architect Edwin Lutyens. Associate and confidante of Jiddu Krishnamurti. Victor Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd Earl of Lytton (1876–1947), married Pamela Chichele-Plowden, an early flame of Sir Winston Churchill, who had met her while playing polo at Secunderabad. Neville Bulwer-Lytton, 3rd Earl of Lytton (6 February 1879 – 9 February 1951)

In the early years in India, Lytton was educated by a series of governesses and reportedly had a lonely childhood. She played the piano and wished to be a pianist. Although she grew up in England surrounded by many of the great artistic, political and literary names of the day, she rejected the aristocratic way of life. After her father died, she retired from public view to care for her mother, rejecting attempts to interest her in the outside world. The book sold quickly and well and in one of the later editions Lytton added a section on Japanese flower arranging.

Lytton became a vegetarian in 1902 and was an advocate of animal rights.

Women's suffrage The reclusive phase of Lytton's life started to change in 1905 when she was left £1,000 in the estate of her great-aunt/godmother, Lady Bloomfield. She donated this to the revival of Morris dancing ] 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 16 September. I had a long talk with Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence. She mostly talked Woman Suffrage, about which, though I sympathise with the cause, she left me unconverted as to my criticisms of some of their methods.

She subsequently met other suffragettes, including Annie Kenney and Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, at the Green Lady Hostel and on a tour of Holloway prison. She had thrown a stone wrapped in paper bearing the message "To Lloyd George – Rebellion against tyranny is obedience to God – Deeds, not words". Her message was in response to the government's new policy of force-feeding imprisoned suffragettes who were on hunger strike. She was sentenced to one month in Newcastle Gaol.

(1910) Jane Warton in Liverpool, Walton gaol

In January 1910, convinced that poorer prisoners were treated badly, Lytton travelled to Liverpool disguised as a working-class London seamstress named Jane Warton.

Lytton wrote of the Jane Warton episode in Prisons and Prisoners: I joined the W.S.P.U. again, filling up the membership card as Miss Jane Warton. The choice of a name had been easy. When I came out of Holloway Prison, a distant relative, by name Mr. F. Warburton, wrote me an appreciative letter...but Warburton was too distinguished a name; that would at once attract attention. I must leave out the "bur" and make it "Warton." "Jane" was the name of Joan of Arc (for Jeanne is more often translated into "Jane" than "Joan") and would bring me comfort in distress.

1911 onwards In June 1911, Lytton's brother had a letter from Ellen Avery, the local school headmistress, and forty-one other "Suffrage women of Knebworth and Woolmer Green", thanking the Lyttons for having "laboured for our Cause" and "for faith in us as Women": seventeen were WSPU signatories, including Constance's own cook Ethel Smith, Dora Spong, and nine who were in the non-militant suffragist NUWSS.

In November 1911 Lytton was imprisoned in Holloway for the fourth time, after breaking windows in the Houses of Parliament, or of a post office in Victoria Street, London. At her funeral, the purple, white and green Suffragette colours were laid on her coffin. Her ashes lie in the family mausoleum in Knebworth Park.

In popular culture Lytton appears as a character in the 1974 BBC television drama Shoulder to Shoulder. She is played by Judy Parfitt.

Timeline Edited extract from the Knebworth House memorial