Lucy Cavendish

Lady Lucy Caroline Cavendish (née Lyttelton; 5 September 1841 – 22 April 1925) was a pioneer of women's education.

A daughter of George Lord Lyttelton, she married into another aristocratic family, the Cavendishes, in 1864. Eighteen years later her husband, Lord Frederick Cavendish, was murdered in Dublin by Irish nationalists. After his death she devoted much of her time to the cause of girls' and women's education, for which she was honoured in her lifetime with an honorary degree, and posthumously when, in 1965, Cambridge University named its first post-graduate college for women after her.

Lucy Lyttelton was born at Hagley Hall in Worcestershire, the second daughter of George Lord Lyttelton and his wife Mary Glynne, whose sister married William Ewart Gladstone. In 1863 she was appointed a Maid of Honour to Queen Victoria, whom she attended until marrying the following year.

On 7 June 1864 she married Lord Frederick Cavendish, the second son of the Duke of Devonshire. They had no children. Cavendish was elected to Parliament in 1865 and was murdered by Irish republicans in the Phoenix Park Murders on 6 May 1882, the same day he took the oath of office of Chief Secretary for Ireland. Although devastated by the assassination, on the day before the ringleader was hanged she sent him the small gold crucifix she had long worn, as a token of her forgiveness. Gladstone was greatly moved when she told him that she could bear the loss of her beloved husband "if his death were to work good to his fellow-men, which indeed was the whole object of his life." She remained a firm supporter of Irish Home Rule. A window to Lord Cavendish's memory was placed in St Margaret's Church, Westminster, at the cost of the members of the House of Commons.

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