Richard Lyttelton

Lieutenant-General Sir Richard Lyttelton KB (1718 – 1 October 1770) was a British soldier and politician who served in the British Army.

Obelisk erected to the memory of Sir Richard Lyttelton at Boconnoc in 1771 by his nephew Thomas Pitt, 1st Baron Camelford. Inscribed:In gratitude and affection to the memory of Sir Richard Lyttelton and to perpetuate that peculiar character of benevolence which rendered him the delight of his own age and worthy of the veneration of posterity MDCCLXXI

He was the fourth son of Sir Thomas Lyttelton, 4th Baronet. He served as Governor of Menorca from 1763 until 1766 after its restoration to British rule following the fall of Menorca to the French in 1756 – later returning to Britain where he died in 1770. He was also Governor of Guernsey.

He was the younger brother of George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton, a leading MP and a friend of William Pitt, and the uncle of Thomas Lyttelton, 2nd Baron Lyttelton and Thomas Pitt, 1st Baron Camelford, MP.

Lyttelton married Rachel, Duchess of Bridgewater (widow of Scroop Egerton, 1st Duke of Bridgewater) on 14 December 1745. He was an employer of John Burrows, a physician who served as his secretary in Menorca, and later made groundbreaking research into venereal disease.

His nephew Thomas Pitt, 1st Baron Camelford, son of his sister Christian, erected an obelisk to his memory in 1771 at the family seat at Boconnoc.

See also

• List of governors of Menorca

Bibliography

• Black, Jeremy. Pitt the Elder. Cambridge University Press, 1992.
• Linda E. Merians (ed). The Secret Malady. Medical, 1996