WYNDHAM, Hon. Percy Charles (1757-1833), of Aldeburgh, Suff.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1790-1820, ed. R. Thorne, 1986
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

11 Mar. 1782 - 1784
1790 - 1796

Family and Education

b. 23 Sept. 1757, 2nd s. of Charles Wyndham, 2nd Earl of Egremont, and bro. of Hon. Charles William Wyndham*. educ. Westminster 1765-74; Christ Church, Oxf. 1774 (did not matric.). unm.

Offices Held

Register in Chancery, Jamaica, and sec., clerk of cts. and prothonotary of c.p., Barbados May 1763-1820.

Biography

Wyndham’s attachment to Charles James Fox cost him his seat in 1784. In 1790 he was returned by his elder brother the 3rd Earl of Egremont for Midhurst, with their younger brother Charles as colleague. Unlike Charles he was not in the lists of Whig Club Members and, equally unlike him, remained a Foxite. Although both brothers appeared in Debrett’s correct list of the minority against Pitt on the Oczakov question, 12 Apr. 1791, only Charles was listed by the Morning Chronicle (15 Apr.). Both were listed favourable to repeal of the Test Act in Scotland in 1791, both as Portland Whigs in December 1792 and both thought of by William Windham as possible recruits for his ‘third party’ in 1793. But in his maiden speech, 13 Feb. 1793, Percy Wyndham, ‘whose speech’, reported Pitt, ‘was less distinct than is usual even for a new speaker’, supported Fox’s amendment to the war manifesto.1 Moreover, he voted with Fox against the war with France, 18 Feb., 17 June 1793; against the subsidy to Prussia, 2 May 1794; against the imperial loan, 5 Feb., 10 June, and for peace negotiations, 26 Jan., 6 Feb., 27 May, 29 Oct. 1795. He opposed the seditious meetings bill, 25 Nov. 1795, and it was probably he, rather than Henry Penruddocke Wyndham, who voted against the conduct of the war, 10 May 1796.

Wyndham did not seek re-election in 1796, his brother having the year before sold his interest at Midhurst. According to Farington’s diary, 1 Aug. 1809:

He has many good qualities, but many singularities. He never was married, but about 26 years ago formed a connexion with a very amiable woman and this attachment which is now become friendship, is supposed to have prevented him from marrying.

He sold the Aldeburgh estate given him by Egremont to gratify the intentions of its previous owner, his uncle the Earl of Thomond, for £42,000 and bought Ickleton in Cambridgeshire, where he died 5 Aug. 1833, being until then heir presumptive to the earldom.2

Ref Volumes: 1790-1820

Authors: Brian Murphy / R. G. Thorne

Notes

  • 1. Geo. III Corresp. ii. 836.
  • 2. Farington, v. 214; Gent. Mag. (1833), ii. 381.