The New International Encyclopædia/Wyndham, George

WYNDHAM, George (1863—). An English Cabinet Minister. He was born in London, and was educated at Eton College and at the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, where he graduated in 1882. In 1883 he entered the Coldstream Guards and served through the Suakim campaign and in Cyprus (1885), when he resigned from the army. From 1887 to 1892 he was private secretary to A. J. Balfour. In 1889 he entered Parliament as a Conservative member from Dover, and in 1898 became Under Secretary of State for War. In 1900 he was advanced to the position of Chief Secretary for Ireland, and in 1902 was made a member of the Cabinet. He first became a figure of international interest when, on March 25, 1903, he introduced an Irish land purchase bill more radical in its provisions than any measure heretofore proposed for the relief and pacification of Ireland. His tactful and conciliatory attitude rendered the passage of the bill possible. He published, with elaborate and scholarly introductions, North's Plutarch (1894), and Shakespeare's Poems (1898).