Judith Anne Dorothea Blunt-Lytton, 16th Baroness Wentworth, (6 February 1873 – 8 August 1957) also known as Lady Wentworth, was a British
peer,
Arabian horse breeder and
real tennis player. As the owner of the
Crabbet Arabian Stud
The Crabbet Arabian Stud, also known as the Crabbet Park Stud, was an English horse breeding farm that ran from 1878 to 1972. Its founder owners, husband and wife team Wilfrid Scawen Blunt and Lady Anne Blunt, decided while travelling in the Mi ...
from 1917 to 1957, her influence on Arabian
horse breeding was profound, with over 90 percent of all Arabian horses in the world today carrying lines to Crabbet bloodstock in their pedigrees.
Early life and family
Judith was the only surviving child of the poet
Wilfrid Blunt
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (17 August 1840 – 10 September 1922), sometimes spelt Wilfred, was an English poet and writer. He and his wife Lady Anne Blunt travelled in the Middle East and were instrumental in preserving the Arabian horse bloodline ...
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
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and has been regarded as among the ...
. Judith spent most of her childhood in
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
and other parts of the
Middle East
The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...
while her parents travelled to purchase
Arabian horses for their
Crabbet Arabian Stud
The Crabbet Arabian Stud, also known as the Crabbet Park Stud, was an English horse breeding farm that ran from 1878 to 1972. Its founder owners, husband and wife team Wilfrid Scawen Blunt and Lady Anne Blunt, decided while travelling in the Mi ...
back in England and their
Sheykh Obeyd
Sheikh (pronounced or ; ar, شيخ ' , mostly pronounced , plural ' )—also transliterated sheekh, sheyikh, shaykh, shayk, shekh, shaik and Shaikh, shak—is an honorific title in the Arabic language. It commonly designates a chief of a ...
stud in Cairo. Thus, the family was familiar with middle eastern culture and spoke fluent
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
and
Turkish.
Adult life
On 2 February 1899, Judith married
Neville Stephen Lytton, the youngest son of the
Earl of Lytton
Earl of Lytton, in the County of Derby, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1880 for the diplomat and poet Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd Baron Lytton. He was Viceroy of India from 1876 to 1880 and British Ambassad ...
. The marriage took place in Cairo; when they returned to England, they 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
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and has been regarded as among the ...
. The couple 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). The couple became estranged, and 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; she
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, managing the
Sheykh Obeyd
Sheikh (pronounced or ; ar, شيخ ' , mostly pronounced , plural ' )—also transliterated sheekh, sheyikh, shaykh, shayk, shekh, shaik and Shaikh, shak—is an honorific title in the Arabic language. It commonly designates a chief of a ...
Stud as a breeding centre for
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.
One of Britain's other important collections of Arab horses was
Hanstead Stud
The Hanstead Stud was a breeding farm in England for Arabian horses. It was active from 1928 to 1957, and its animals had a significant impact in many countries, "second only in importance to" Crabbet Arabian Stud. It was based at Hanstead Park, ...
, also run by a mother and daughter,
Annie Henrietta Yule
Annie Henrietta Yule, Lady Yule (1 August 1874 – 14 July 1950) was a British film financier and a breeder of Arabian horses. She co-founded the British National Films Company and Hanstead Stud, and commissioned the superyachts of her day.
Earl ...
and Gladys Meryl Yule. The former died in 1950 and the latter within a few weeks of Lady Wentworth in 1957. The deaths of these two only children, at a time of
high post-war inheritance tax, meant that in 1957 a substantial number of British-bred Arabian horses left the country, improving the breed's bloodlines elsewhere. About a dozen from each stud went to
Bazy Tankersley
Ruth Elizabeth "Bazy" Tankersley (, formerly Miller; March 7, 1921 – February 5, 2013) was an American breeder of Arabian horses and a newspaper publisher. She was a daughter of U.S. Senator Joseph Medill McCormick. Her mother was progressive ...
’s Al-Marah Arabians in the United States.
Lady Wentworth's will stipulated that Crabbet be left to her stud manager and real tennis marker
Fred Covey
Geoffrey Frederick Covey (1881-1957) was world champion from 1912 to 1914 and from 1916 until 1928 at real tennis, the original racquet sport from which the modern game of lawn tennis (which has usurped the name "tennis"), is descended.
He was ...
, 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
The M23 is a motorway in the United Kingdom, running from the south of Hooley in Surrey, where it splits from the A23, to Pease Pottage, south of Crawley in West Sussex where it rejoins the A23. The northern end of the motorway starts on what ...
bisected the property in 1971, Covey, himself not a young man, had little choice but to sell the property and disperse the horses.
Publications
*''Toy Dogs and their Ancestors'' (1911)
*''Love in a Mist'' (Arden Press, 1913)
*''Thoroughbred Racing Stock and its Ancestors: the authentic origin of pure blood'' (G. Allen & Unwin, 1938)
*''War Nonsense'' (poems, 1943)
*''British Horses and Ponies'' (Hon-no-Tomosha, 1944)
*''Arab horse nonsense'' (1950)
*''Drift of the Storm'' (G. Ronald, 1951)
*''Horses in the Making'' (Allen & Unwin, 1951)
*''The poems of Lady Wentworth: Volume 1'' (1951)
*''Passing Hours: Volume II in the series of Lady Wentworth's poetry'' (1952)
*''The English country gentleman'' (Hurst & Blackett)
*''Ponies past, present and future'' (1955)
*''The Swift Runner: racing speed through the ages'' (G. Allen & Unwin, 1957)
*''The Crabbet Arabian stud'' (1957)
*''The World's Best Horse'' (1958)
*''Arabian type and standard''
*''The authentic Arabian Horse and his Descendants: three voices concerning the horses of Arabia'' (Crown Publishers, 1963
References
Sources
*Wentworth, Judith Anne Dorothea Blunt-Lytton. ''The Authentic Arabian Horse,'' 3rd ed. George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1979.
"Lady Wentworth in The Times," includes obituary of Lady Wentworth. R.J.CADRANELL from ''Arabian Visions'' Mar/Apr 1993Burke's Peerage & GentryArabian Bloodlines - Crabbet
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blunt-Lytton, Judith
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Wentworth, Judith Blunt-Lytton, 16th Baroness
Wentworth, Judith Blunt-Lytton, 16th Baroness
Coast (Tokyo DisneySea)
Wentworth, Judith Blunt-Lytton, 16th Baroness
Judith