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says: ‘Pope's praise does not apply to his private life, since it appears that, though twice married, he resembled his friends Bolingbroke and Bathurst as a man of pleasure.’ His manner was excellent; his oratory was impressive although he had a stutter in his speech, and he attended very closely to politics. His speeches owe something in polish and intellect to Bolingbroke, but his leadership was rendered ineffectual by his complete surrender to his friend. He died at Wells on 17 June 1740.

He was twice married: first, 21 July 1708, to Catherine, second daughter of Charles Seymour, sixth duke of Somerset, by whom he had four children—Charles Wyndham [q. v.], who became the Earl of Egremont; and Percy, who, adopting the surname O'Brien, became the Earl of Thomond; Catherine; and Elizabeth, who married George Grenville [q. v.] Wyndham married, secondly, Maria Catherina, daughter of Peter d'Jong of Utrecht, and widow of the Marquis of Blandford, by whom he had no issue.

A three-quarter length portrait of Wyndham in his chancellor's robes by Kneller is dated 1713. There are two engraved portraits—a mezzotint by Faber, executed in 1740, and a line engraving by Houbraken for Birch's ‘Lives,’ after Richardson; the latter was reduced by Ravenet for Smollett's ‘History.’

[Authorities quoted; Gent. Mag. 1740, pp. 229, 317; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Wyon's and Boyer's Histories of the Reign of Queen Anne; Lecky's Hist. of the Eighteenth Century, vol. i.; Jesse's Court of England, 1688–1760, 1843; Murray's Somerset; Collinson's Somerset, 1791, iii. 490; Wentworth Papers, 1883, pp. 109, 269, 274, 383; Macknight's Bolingbroke; Parl. Hist.; Swift's Journal to Stella.]

J. R. M.


WYNDHAM-QUIN, EDWIN RICHARD WINDHAM, third Earl of Dunraven (1813–1871). [See Quin.]

WYNFORD, first Baron. [See Best, William Draper, 1767–1845.]

WYNN. [See also Wynne.]


WYNN, CHARLES WATKIN WILLIAMS (1775–1850), politician, born on 9 Oct. 1775, was the second son of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, fourth baronet of Wynnstay, Denbighshire (d. July 1789), who married, on 21 Dec. 1771, as his second wife, Charlotte, daughter of George Grenville, sister of the first Marquis of Buckingham and aunt of the first Duke of Buckingham; she died at Richmond, Surrey, on 29 Sept. 1832. His grandfather, Sir Watkin Williams Wynn [q. v.], and his younger brother, Sir Henry Watkin Williams Wynn [q. v.], are separately noticed.

From 1779 to 1783 Robert Nares [q. v.] was tutor to Wynn and his elder brother, living with them at Wynnstay and in London. On 23 March 1784 Wynn was admitted at Westminster school, and in 1786 Nares, then an usher at the school, resumed his tutorship of the brothers. Wynn retained in after years his connection with Westminster. He was a steward at their anniversaries of 1799 and 1823, and was elected a Busby trustee in 1829. In 1826 and 1829 he gave for competition among the Westminster boys a writership in India.

Wynn matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, on 24 Dec. 1791, graduated B.A. in 1795, and M.A. in 1798. On 5 July 1810, the first year of office of his uncle, Lord Grenville, as chancellor of the university, he was created D.C.L. His rooms as an undergraduate were in ‘Skeleton Corner,’ where Southey, who had made his friendship at Westminster in 1788 and kept it through life, used often to visit him. Wynn, though not a rich man, made Southey an allowance of 160l. per annum, beginning with the last quarter of 1796 and ending in 1807, when, through the same friendly influence, a net pension of 144l. a year was bestowed on him by the government. In 1801 Wynn hoped to obtain for his friend the post of secretary to some Italian legation, but was disappointed. Southey in 1805 dedicated to him the poem of ‘Madoc.’

On 21 April 1795 Wynn was admitted student at Lincoln's Inn (Admission Reg. i. 554), and was called to the bar on 27 Nov. 1798. He attended the Oxford and North Wales circuit, but his parliamentary duties prevented him from pursuing his profession with success. In 1835 he was elected a bencher of his inn. Through the influence of his connection, Lord Camelford, he was returned to parliament at a by-election on 29 July 1797 for the pocket-borough of Old Sarum. Before the parliament was out he resigned his seat to stand for a vacancy in Montgomeryshire, where his family had great interest, and was returned on 19 March 1799. There was a contest for its representation in 1831, but he was easily returned, and he held the seat continuously until his death in 1850, when he was the ‘father’ of the House of Commons.

Wynn supported Pitt on the increase of the assessed taxes in 1798, and joined with him in acting adversely to Addington's administration, but voted on 12 June 1805 for the impeachment of Lord Melville. From its formation in 1803 until he resigned in