became manager of that theatre, which he made his London stage till 1899. His earliest successes here were in farce especially in Pink Dominoes, by James Albery; and he maintained his fame as a light comedian of grace and gaiety and a skilful producer of plays. Always anxious to increase the range of his acting, he appeared in 1886 in the title-part of David Garrick, by T. W. Robertson, and this became his best-known character: in January 1888 he gave the play in German (his own translation) before royal audiences in Germany and Russia. As Charles Surface and in other parts in the old comedy he was much admired. In the last decade of the nineteenth century, the comedies of Henry Arthur Jones (The Bauble Shop, The Case of Rebellious Susan, The Liars) showed Wyndham's varied powers at their ripest.
In November 1899 Wyndham opened a new theatre, which he had built and which took his name, in Charing Cross Road. Here he played the title-part in Cyrano de Bergerac; but his excursions into romance were not appreciated by the public. At Wyndham's Theatre, too, he produced Mrs. Gorringe's Necklace, the first of four comedies by Hubert Henry Davies, which gave him the best parts of his later years. In 1903 he opened another theatre, the New Theatre, which he had built in St. Martin's Lane. Till his failing memory led to his retirement he continued to act well in revivals of his former successes. In 1902 he was knighted on the occasion of the coronation of King Edward VII. He died in London 12 January 1919.
Wyndham married twice: first, in 1860 Emma Silberrad (died 1916), granddaughter of Baron Silberrad, of Hesse-Darmstadt; by her he had four children of whom one son and one daughter survived him; secondly, in 1916 Mary, youngest daughter of Charles Moore, parliamentary agent, and widow of the dramatist, James Albery; she had first acted in Wyndham's company in 1881, and was its leading lady from 1885 to the end of his career; she was also his partner in the management and building of his theatres.
[The Times, 13 January 1919; T. E. Pemberton, Sir Charles Wyndham, 1904; private information. Portrait, Royal Academy Pictures, 1917.]
WYNDHAM, GEORGE (1863–1913), statesman and man of letters, was born in London 29 August 1863, the elder son of the Hon. Percy Scawen Wyndham, third son of the first Baron Leconfield; his mother, Madeleine, sixth daughter of Sir Guy Campbell, first baronet [q.v.], and a granddaughter of Lord Edward Fitzgerald [q.v.], the Irish rebel, was a woman of remarkable talents and character, and had much influence upon him. He was educated at a private school, at Eton, and at Sandhurst, and joined the Coldstream Guards in March 1883; he served through the Suakin campaign of 1885. In 1887 he married Sibell Mary, daughter of the ninth Earl of Scarbrough and widow of Earl Grosvenor. In the same year George Wyndham became private secretary to Mr. Arthur (afterwards Earl of) Balfour. In 1889 he was elected to the House of Commons, unopposed, as conservative member for Dover, and he held the seat till his death.
In 1892 the conservatives went into opposition, and for the next four or five years Wyndham devoted himself mainly to literature; he made the acquaintance of William Ernest Henley [q.v.] in 1892 and became in a sense his disciple, writing for his weekly papers, the National Observer and the New Review. He also wrote an introduction to North's Plutarch (1895–1896) in Henley's Tudor Classics. An edition of Shakespeare's Poems (1898) prefaced by an essay on the conditions of Shakespeare's literary life, and a short essay, Ronsard and La Pléiade (1906), with a few selections and verse translations, are the chief of Wyndham's other literary works. His writings are eloquent and interesting, and show a characteristic determination to understand the subject and see it in the concrete; they have much merit, but more promise, a promise which was not fulfilled, as in 1898 Wyndham was appointed parliamentary under-secretary in the War Office, and thereafter never had the leisure for a serious literary undertaking.
In the autumn of 1899 came the South African War. The first British defeats caused intense dissatisfaction with the government. Wyndham defended its policy in a remarkably fine speech in the House of Commons (1 February 1900), perhaps the most effective which he ever made there. His administrative work during the first part of the War was very hard, and as successful as the conditions permitted. In 1900 he was made chief secretary for Ireland. His Irish administration (November 1900 to March 1905) was his chief political achievement, and is noteworthy as the last attempt (successful while it lasted) to govern that country on the lines laid down by Mr. Arthur Balfour, that is, the maintenance
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