WYNNE, John Arthur (1801-1865), of Hazelwood, co. Sligo

In August 1828 Wynne and his younger brother William attended a Sligo Protestant dinner at which toasts were drunk to the former Tory lord chancellor Eldon and their father, patron of the pocket borough and its Member, who they declared had ‘never deserted the Protestant cause’ and ‘never will’. Sligo Jnl. 30 Aug. 1828. At the 1830 general election Wynne replaced his father at Sligo, probably on account of his mother’s declining health, and was returned unopposed. Ibid. 6 Aug. 1830. He was listed by the Wellington ministry as one of their ‘friends’, but was absent from the crucial division on the civil list, 15 Nov. He presented petitions for the abolition of slavery, 23 Nov., 2, 6, 23 Dec. 1830, and one to increase the grant to the Kildare Place Society, 14 Apr. 1831. He divided against the second reading of the Grey ministry’s reform bill, 22 Mar., and insisted that the Protestants of Sligo were ‘decidedly hostile’ to it, 18 Apr., when he objected to allusions to his family’s boroughmongering and the ‘fact of my being the representative of this particular borough’ having subjected him to ‘personal attack’. He divided for Gascoyne’s wrecking amendment, 19 Apr. At the ensuing general election he stood as an opponent of reform and was returned unopposed. Ibid. 13 May 1831. He voted against the second reading of the reintroduced reform bill, 6 July, at least three times to adjourn the debates, 12 July, for use of the 1831 census to determine the disfranchisement schedules, 19 July, to postpone consideration of the inclusion of Chippenham in B, 27 July, and against the bill’s passage, 21 Sept. 1831. On 5 Aug. he presented a petition for the continuance of the grant to the Kildare Place Society. He divided against ministers on the Dublin election controversy, 23 Aug. He was in the minority of 47 to end the Maynooth grant, 26 Sept. On 12 Oct. 1831 he presented a Sligo petition against Protestants holding civil and military positions abroad being compelled to attend local Catholic services. He voted against the second reading of the revised reform bill, 17 Dec. 1831, the enfranchisement of Tower Hamlets, 28 Feb., and the third reading, 22 Mar. 1832. He divided against ministers on the Russian-Dutch loan, 26 Jan., 12 July. On 9 Apr. he called for legislation to enable ‘all to read the entire word of God’, for which petitions would be presented ‘from all parts’ of Ireland ‘if the influence of the Catholic hierarchy could be withdrawn for a few months’. He presented a Protestant petition against the new plan of Irish education, 16 Apr. He was absent from the division on the second reading of the Irish reform bill, 25 May 1832.

At the 1832 general election he stood unsuccessfully as a Conservative for Sligo, where the Reform Act had weakened his family’s control. In 1843 he was appointed a member of the commission of inquiry into Irish land tenure, in which he took an ‘active and prominent’ part. He served as under-secretary to the Irish viceroy Lord Eglington in the first Derby administration of 1852 and sat again for Sligo as a Conservative, 1856-60. Wynne, who was ‘well versed in Irish antiquarian knowledge’ and an ‘indefatigable field botanist’, died at the palace of the archbishop of Tuam, where he had gone on a visit, in June 1865. He was succeeded by his eldest son Owen (1843-1910). Gent. Mag. (1865), ii. 245-6; Dod’s Parl. Companion (1859), 314.