George Wyndham PC (29 August 1863 – 8 June 1913) was a British politician, man of letters, noted for his elegance, and one of The Souls.

[edit] Background

Wyndham was the son of the Hon. Percy Wyndham, younger son of George Wyndham, 1st Baron Leconfield, and he was a direct descendant of Sir John Wyndham. His mother was Madline, daughter of Major-General Sir Guy Campbell, 1st Baronet, and Pamela, daughter of Irish revolutionary Lord Edward Fitzgerald, whom Wyndham greatly resembled physically.

[edit] Political career

Wyndham was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Dover in 1889, and held the seat until his death. In politics he was a Conservative, closely involved in Irish affairs at two points. He was private secretary to Arthur Balfour, during the years around 1890 when Balfour was Chief Secretary for Ireland; and was himself Chief Secretary 1900-1905. He brought forward a devolution scheme to deal with the Home Rule question. He also successfully saw the significant 1903 Irish Land Act into law. This change in the law ushered in the most radical change in history in Ireland's land ownership. Before it, Ireland's land was largely owned by landlords; within years of the Acts, most of the land was owned by their former tenants, who had been subvented in their purchases by government subsidies. This could without exaggeration be called the most radical change in Irish life in history.

Wyndham was the leader of the "die-hard" opponents in the House of Commons of the Parliament Bill that became Parliament Act 1911.

[edit] Family

Wyndham married Sibell, Countess Grosvenor, daughter of Richard Lumley, 9th Earl of Scarbrough, in 1887, after the death of her first husband Victor Grosvenor, Earl Grosvenor, son of the 1st Duke of Westminster. She was Wyndham's senior by eight years. The couple settled at Clouds in Wiltshire, designed for them by the Arts and Crafts movement architect, Philip Webb (1886). Wyndham died in June 1913, aged 49. Lady Sibell died in February 1929, aged 73.

There has been speculation over the years that Wyndham was the natural father of Anthony Eden, who was Prime Minister from 1955-7. Eden's mother, Sybil, Lady Eden, was evidently close to Wyndham, to whom Eden bore a striking resemblance^[1].

[edit] Works

• The Poems of Shakespeare (1898) editor
• Ronsard & La Pleiade, with Selections From Their Poetry and Some Translations in the Original Meters (1906)
• Sir Walter Scott (1908)
• The Springs of Romance in the Literature of Europe (1910) address, University of Edinburgh October, 1910
• Essays in Romantic Literature (1919) edited by Charles Whibley

[edit] References

• Letters of George Wyndham, 1877-1913 (1915) Guy Percy Wyndham
• Life and Letters of George Wyndham (1924) Guy Percy Wyndham and J. W. Mackail
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs
• In Dublin Castle 1899-1903 chapter from the 1928 memoirs of TM Healy.