LADY EMILY LUTYENS WAS LIKE A SECOND MOTHER TO KRISHNAMURTI

Lady Emily Lutyens (née Bulwer-Lytton) was born on December 26, 1874, in Paris, the daughter of Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton, and Edith Villiers, Countess of Lytton.

She was brought up in Lisbon, India (where her father was Viceroy from 1876 to 1880) and Knebworth House, where she was educated by governesses.

From 1887 to 1891 she lived in Paris, where her father was British ambassador. She returned to England after her father's death.

In 1897 she married the architect Edwin Landseer Lutyens with whom she had five children:

·        Barbara Lutyens (1898–1981), second wife of Euan Wallace (1892–1941), Minister of Transport.

·        Robert Lutyens (1901–1971), interior designer. Designed the façade used for over 40 Marks & Spencer stores.

·        Ursula Lutyens (1904–1967), wife of the 3rd Viscount Ridley. They were the parents of the 4th Viscount Ridley (1925–2012), and of the Cabinet Minister Nicholas Ridley (1929–1993). Nicholas Ridley was the father of Edwin Lutyens' biographer, Jane Ridley.

·        (Agnes) Elisabeth Lutyens (1906–1983), a well-known composer. Second marriage to the conductor Edward Clark.

·        (Edith Penelope) Mary Lutyens (1908–1999), a writer known for her books about the philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti.

In 1910 she joined the Theosophical Society and became close friend with Annie Besant.

In 1911, Besant asked her to take care of Krishnamurti and his brother Nitya, and she became a kind of surrogate mother to the two boys, who had been sent to England for a Western education, and who became friends with the children of Lady Lutyens.

A short time later she became the National Representative of the Order of the Star in the East, which was the organization promoting Krishnamurti as the next messiah, so she toured the country giving lectures, and she also edited the theosophical journal Herald of the Star, and attracted rich people to the Adyar project, such as Mabel Dodge.

And she also became a strict vegetarian.

In 1916, at the same time as her husband was busy designing an imperial capital at New Delhi, she held meetings for an all-India home rule movement in her drawing-room in London. She continued to protect and care for Krishnamurti, to whom she was devoted. As a young adult Krishnamurti wrote to her daily from France.

In the 1920s she toured the world with him, convinced that he was the Messiah.

In 1925 she founded the League of Motherhood, but by this time Krishnamurti began to reveal himself more and more of the messiah role that Leadbeater and Besant had assigned him.

Until finally in 1929, Krishnamurti dissolved the Order of the Eastern Star that worshiped him, and in 1930 he also resigned from the Theosophical Society.

Emily Lutyens remained faithful to Krishnamurti and finally she died in London, on January 3, 1964.

Literary works

She wrote several books.

• “The Faith Catholic: Some Thoughts on the Athanasian Creed” (1918)
• “Theosophy as the Basic Unity of National Life. Being the Four Convention Lectures Delivered in Bombay at the Forty-“Ninth Anniversary of the Theosophical Society, December, 1924” (1925)
• “The Call of the Mother” (1926)
• “A Blessed Girl: Memoirs of a Victorian Girlhood Chronicled in an Exchange of Letters, 1887-1896” (1953)
• “The Birth of Rowland: an Exchange of Letters in 1865 between Robert Lytton and His Wife” (1956)
• “Candles in the Sun” (1957) with her daughter Mary Lutyens.

In this latest book, she recounts the events she experienced with Krishnamurti from the time he arrived in the UK at the age of 15 until he was very old, and also details the doubts she had and the examination of conscience that she had to confront after Krishnamurti dissolved the Order of the Eastern Star.

The book includes an appendix entitled "Short Biographies of Prominent Theosophists" and has ten black and white photographs of her, Annie Besant, Charles Leadbeater, Krishnamurti, her brother Nitya, and others.

On page 95, she mentions the first public speech that Krishnamurti gave in 1921, which was later published by Annie Besant in her book "Theosophy and World Problems" (1922).

Lady Emily Lutyens’ autobiographical study provides a valuable personal account of Theosophical Society, including the role of Leadbeater and Besant, up until Krishnamurti’s dissolution of the Order of the Star in the East. And that is why her book was widely and savagely criticized in Theosophical circles when it was first published for “disclosing too much”.