George Wyndham

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George Wyndham (29 August 1863 – 8 June 1913) was an English political figure. He was also a man of letters, noted for his elegance, and one of The Souls.

His father was Percy Wyndham, younger son of George Wyndham, 1st Baron Leconfield, and he was a direct descendant of Sir John Wyndham - and a great-grandson of Irish revolutionary Lord Edward Fitzgerald, whom he greatly resembled physically.

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.

He married in 1887 Sibell, Countess Grosvenor (née Lumley), after the death of her first husband Victor Grosvenor, Earl Grosvenor (1853 - 1884), son of the 1st Duke of Westminster. The couple settled at Clouds in Wiltshire, designed for them by the Arts and Crafts movement architect, Philip Webb (1886).

[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.

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Alexander Dickson	Member of Parliament for Dover 1889–1913	Succeeded by Viscount Duncannon
Political offices
Preceded by St John Brodrick	Under-Secretary of State for War 1898–1900	Succeeded by The Lord Raglan
Preceded by Gerald Balfour	Chief Secretary for Ireland 1900–1905	Succeeded by Walter Long
Academic offices
Preceded by Earl of Rosebery	Rector of the University of Glasgow 1902–1905	Succeeded by H. H. Asquith
Preceded by Richard Haldane	Rector of the University of Edinburgh 1908–1911	Succeeded by Earl of Minto