pursuers all ran a yard or so too far, not suspecting the sudden pull up; thus he had a clear shot at the goal. Lyttelton played in the last days of the "dribbling game", the earliest form of the Association code and a style of play that valued individualism and close ball control over passing and teamwork. In his solitary international his England teammates were highly critical of his attempts to dribble through the entire Scotland defence by himself, and Billy Mosforth, the Sheffield player, ventured to draw his colleague's attention to this failing. He was silenced by an imperious put-down that has been cited as exemplifying the attitude of the earliest amateurs: "I play," the unabashed Lyttelton said back, "for my own pleasure." Professional and public career On coming down from Cambridge, Lyttelton took up the law, and served as legal private secretary to the Attorney General, Sir Henry James. He remained apolitical until his uncle's retirement, but in 1894 entered politics as a Liberal Unionist, and was elected to the House of Commons at the 1895 general election as Member of Parliament for Warwick and Leamington. In January 1900 he was appointed a Queen's Counsel, and later that year he was sent by Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain to South Africa as chairman of the committee planning reconstruction following the Boer War, a position in which he impressed South African High Commissioner Alfred Milner. Upon Chamberlain's resignation, Lyttelton succeeded him as Colonial Secretary, despite his relative political inexperience. His decision to allow Chinese indentured labour into South Africa proved highly controversial and became a major issue for the Liberals in the 1906 election. Lyttelton also attempted ambitious reforms of Britain's management of the colonies towards a more decentralised, imperial vision, but these ideas were abandoned by the Liberals who succeeded him. After the Conservatives' fall from power, Lyttelton remained active politically, opposing Welsh disestablishment and supporting women's suffrage. In the summer of 1913, he was struck in the belly during a cricket match in South Africa. Shortly after his return to Britain, he was taken ill at the Foreign Office and an operation revealed the presence of an abscess in his stomach. Surgery was unsuccessful and he died, in a nursing home, early in July. His funeral took place on the day of the annual Varsity cricket match, and play between Oxford and Cambridge was suspended for two minutes