George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton, (17 January 1709 – 22 August 1773), known between 1751 and 1756 as Sir George Lyttelton, 5th Baronet, was a British statesman. As an author himself, he was also a supporter of other writers and as a patron of the arts made an important contribution to the development of 18th-century landscape design. Life Lord Lyttelton was the eldest son of Sir Thomas Lyttelton, 4th Baronet, of Frankley, in the County of Worcester, by his wife Christian, daughter of Sir Richard Temple, 3rd Baronet. Educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, he afterwards went on grand tour, visiting Europe with his tutor. It was during this time that he started publishing his early works in both poetry and prose. Even after he was elected to Parliament in 1735, he continued to publish from time to time. In 1742 he married Lucy, daughter of Hugh Fortescue, and following her death in 1747 he later married Elizabeth, daughter of Field Marshal Sir Robert Rich, 4th Baronet, in 1749. He died in August 1773, aged 64, and was succeeded as baron by his eldest son, Thomas. Though Samuel Johnson's biographical notice of Lyttelton is characterised by a conspicuous show of dislike, it diverges at the end into a long description of his exemplary death and the plain inscription he asked to have added to his first wife's monument in St John the Baptist Church, Hagley. Political career Lyttelton was Member of Parliament (MP) for Okehampton from 1735 to 1756 and, as one of Cobham's Cubs during the 1730s, opposed the Prime Minister Robert Walpole. He served as secretary to Frederick, Prince of Wales from 1737, and then, after Walpole's fall, as a Commissioner of the Treasury in 1744. That year too he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Lyttelton was made a Privy Councillor in 1754 and in the following year became briefly Chancellor of the Exchequer, but performed poorly in that role. In 1756 he was raised to the peerage as Lord Lyttelton, Baron of Frankley in the County of Worcester, and continued to speak in the House of Lords until the year before he died. Lyttelton was later described as "an amiable, absent-minded man, of unimpeachable integrity and benevolent character, with strong religious convictions and respectable talents", but ultimately as "a poor practical politician". His political opponent Lord Hervey spitefully characterised his performance as a