Following his defeat in the 1817 Speakership election, Williams Wynn, ‘never strictly a Whig or a Conservative’, but a committed advocate of humane reforms, had assumed the leadership in the Commons of the oligarchic third party of his uncle Lord Grenville.
of middle size, rather, if anything, inclined to corpulency. He has a round face, is of dark complexion and slightly pitted with the smallpox ... He often takes the common sense view of questions, not immediately bearing on party objects: but at other times he is quite unintelligible.
[J. Grant], Random Recollections of Lords and Commons, ii (1838), 139-40.
His return in 1820 for Montgomeryshire, which he had represented since 1799 on the Wynnstay interest of his elder brother Sir Watkin, was unopposed, and he belatedly negotiated support at Wenlock for their kinsman by marriage Paul Beilby Lawley (Thompson)*.
Unsure about the stance and tactics their party should adopt during pre-session negotiations, he stayed at Llangedwyn to entertain his friend Robert Southey* and corresponded with Joseph Phillimore*, Buckingham and their uncles, Grenville and Thomas Grenville†. To Phillimore, 25 Mar. 1820, he observed that ‘opposition have gained on the whole six, but there may be many among the new Members some whose names and probable votes I do not know. I am very sorry for Lambton’s triumph and also for Morpeth’s defeat’.
Expounding on precedents and procedures enabled ‘Squeaker’ Williams Wynn, who chaired the select committee on privileges, 1820-5, to demonstrate his knowledge and avoid taking sides in debate. He declared against proceeding with Alderman Wood’s motion on the case of George Edwards, implicated in the Cato Street conspiracy, 9 May, but wished he had ‘said many things which I had intended and which escaped me’.
The 1817 select committee on the administration of justice in Wales had been Grenvillite in conception, and following its chairman George Ponsonby’s death Williams Wynn had compiled and submitted their evidence. He welcomed and was appointed to the committees conceded to John Frederick Campbell (afterwards 2nd earl of Cawdor) in 1820 and 1821, but warned that measures barring judges from sitting in Parliament and practising as barristers, and for abolishing the Welsh courts of great sessions, ‘could not all at once be effected, or effected with immediate advantage’, 1 June 1820. Responding on 22 Mar. 1822 to a question from Sir Robert Williams, the erstwhile Grenvillite and patron of Beaumaris, whose assize town status was at risk, he explained that although he wanted the Welsh courts assimilated and their judicature abolished, he had no plans to legislate. He asked Cawdor’s Member John Hensleigh Allen to withdraw resolutions to this effect, 23 May, and raised no objection to the rival remedial measure brought in with government’s acquiescence by John Jones, whom he had refused to recommend for a puisne judgeship on the Chester circuit, and supported it until it became law, 24 June 1824.
He had anticipated the financial and constitutional problems which bedevilled the Queen Caroline affair, on which ‘all parties are got into an embarrassment’.
It is certainly true that the dearth of talent which has prevailed in the ... Commons for several years past and the weakness of the conduct of those who ought to have guided it have released it from all control and that there is no longer any means of ascertaining how the majority ... may vote upon any given question. I do not ... think it improbable that Lord Lansdowne might be willing to co-operate for this purpose with Lord Buckingham and the duke of Wellington, since he must be aware that the old opposition is incapable of making up an administration, particularly in the ... Commons, which could command any degree of confidence or support.
Ibid. 581.
When James Stuart Wortley and William Wilberforce sought his support for an address to the queen, 20 June, he refused to sanction anything stronger than a resolution, deeming it ‘a step too degrading for us to take, much as [I] wish this abominable investigation at an end’. He did ‘not at all like’ that drafted by Wilberforce, 22 June, ‘though perhaps one must at least swallow it’ as ‘an address in the form of a resolution’, favourable to the queen ‘in effect, though not in words’.
You offer as a bribe to reconcile me to this course that through a bill of pains and penalties the Commons exercise those judicial functions which the general practice of the constitution vests exclusively in the Peers. Now this really is among my strongest objections, for under existing circumstances I feel even more dread of our encroaching upon functions and privileges which do not belong to us, than of our losing those which do. The judicial character is that of all others which from our number and from the limitation of our powers we can exercise with least advantage, and which therefore when not absolutely forced upon us, we ought to avoid, and it is on this account, among others, that I dread, as a Member of the ... Commons, seeing myself obliged to act as a final judge instead of sending up a case for the decision of a tribunal with higher powers and less biased by popular clamour.
Coedymaen mss bdle. 29, Williams Wynn to Phillimore [9 Oct. 1820].
In fact, he expected it to fail, sparing him ‘the necessity of declaring my difference from my uncles and most of my political connection’, and he was preparing for the ‘prorogation and censure motions’ he was sure would follow.
I really do not see what prospect a junction with the present ministers or any large proportion of them could afford us but degradation to our own character, distrust, and desertion. Much as I object to the conduct of the opposite party, I feel at least a greater confidence in their sincerity and integrity, though I am aware that in all probability there is such a difference of opinion with respect to the internal policy of this country as must raise an insurmountable barrier between us. Altogether, I am best satisfied with the hope that it is most probable that no such proposition will be made to us. If the Whigs come into undivided possession of power they must bring in so large a proportion of radicals that I fear nothing could check the progress of revolution, and if the present ministers continue, their weakness and disunion will still combine to make the same result more certain and probably less distant.
Ibid. i. 102; Coedymaen mss 594, 595.
The clamour for Grenville persisted, but he turned down the king’s invitation to form a ministry, as Williams Wynn had anticipated.
On the Grampound disfranchisement bill, 12 Feb. 1821, he reaffirmed the Grenvillites’ opposition to sweeping parliamentary reform and suggested transferring the seats to Yorkshire, divided so that the West Riding returned two and the North and East Ridings one Member each, instead of two to Leeds. He failed to secure alterations in the Lords’ amendments, 30 May, but obtained leave for a bill to divide the Yorkshire constituency, 3 July 1821. (It was considered, 2, 3 Apr., 2 May and killed by adjournment, 7 June 1822.) He voted against reform, 9 May 1821, 20 Feb., 2, June 1823, 26 Feb. 1824. He failed to stall an opposition inquiry motion into the Holy Alliance’s treatment of Naples, 21 Feb., but he carried new standing orders governing the business of the House, 22 Feb., 14 Mar. 1821. He judged several petitions inadmissible, including those against legal judgements in the cases of Thomas Davison, 23 Feb., 7 Mar., and Nathan Broadhurst, 7 Mar., and for naval half-pay, 2 July. Despite the Speaker’s reservations, he had a petition from Lower Canada rejected because it was in French, 16 Mar. He helped to delay and destroy the contentious Stoke Newington select vestry bill on procedural points, 16 Feb., 21 Mar., 6 Apr. Preferring withdrawal to defeat, 19 Feb., he raised several points of order before voting to consider Catholic relief, 28 Feb. Liaising with William Plunket* and Buckingham, he worked with Lord Londonderry* and Thomas Spring Rice* on the measure, which they failed to amend to include provision for Catholic clergy and oath-taking, 2, 27, 29 Mar., 2 Apr. They co-operated again on the case of the absentee Irish chief baron O’Grady and reform of the Irish judicial system, 5 Mar., 2, 6 Apr., 9 May, 22 June, 3 July 1821, and resolved to instigate future Catholic legislation in the Lords.
He ‘showed by the proceeding of the House on the Westminster case in 1745’ that the use of military force at the Carlisle election had been irregular, 15 Mar., and testified to the impartiality of the committee which found it ‘impossible not to disapprove’ of the use of regular troops there despite the inadequate civil force, 3 Apr. 1821.
Acting through the duke of Wellington and Fremantle, on 10 June 1821 Liverpool had authorized a formal approach to the Grenvilles and suggested offering Williams Wynn, who had little knowledge of Asia, the presidency of the India board with a seat in the cabinet.
Everything that is told him passes immediately through the sieve of every possible uncle and aunt, and not only gets all over London, but is submitted to the question of their individual imprimatur, the consequence of which is that I am thwarted in all my views.
Fremantle mss 46/12/29, 30; Buckingham, i. 166-7, 175-9, 197-9.
Williams Wynn saw little prospect of success without ousting Lord Harrowby as president of the council, removing Vansittart and securing ‘the assistance of Canning or Peel, if not both’, and predicted correctly, 12 June, that the reshuffle would be delayed ‘till after the session, then till after the coronation, then till the return [of the king] from Ireland’. Buckingham quipped to Fremantle that ‘Charles the sulky is now changed into Charles the impatient ... he wants to make his arrangement and get out of town’.
In my opinion the step you have taken will not add one title to the probability of the Catholic concessions being carried; and ... the system of compromise and balance with regard to this most important subject to which you have lent yourself, is of the most mischievous and unconstitutional character.
Coedymaen mss 501.
Southey, who understood Williams Wynn’s disappointment at failing to get Ireland or the home office, observed that ‘the voluminous documents with which you must become acquainted will not be so appalling or irksome to you as they would be to most persons’.
Grenville hinted, 5 Feb. 1822, that Williams Wynn should resign over the nature and paucity of the government’s relief package to alleviate agricultural distress, but he did not do so, and he divided with his colleagues against Althorp’s critical resolutions, 21 Feb.
He conferred and corresponded regularly with Grant, Grenville, Sir John Newport*, Sir Henry Parnell*, Phillimore, Plunket, Tierney, Wellesley and Buckingham (with whom relations were now strained) on the best strategy to adopt to secure Catholic relief, and despite his regrets at its introduction ‘without consultation’, he spoke for Canning’s bill to emancipate Catholic peers, 10 May 1822, and praised Phillimore’s speech.
Assisting government colleagues, he argued against treating interference with Members’ mail as a breach of privilege, 25 Feb., 15 Mar., opposed an appeal to the royal prerogative to secure Henry Hunt’s* early release from Ilchester gaol, 4 Mar., the receipt of pro-Hunt petitions from Leeds, 14 Mar., and Newcastle, 22 Mar., and remission of his sentence, 24 Apr. 1822. He upheld the crown’s sole right to grant military rewards and distinctions, 22 Mar., and denied that there was any understanding that government would take up the Masseh Lopes case, 24 Apr. He advocated adjournment to hear Abercromby’s testimony before summoning the Courier’s printers for breach of privilege, but was overruled, 9, 12 July, and when the printers were examined, 17 July, he accepted that the case against them was proven. The rapid growth in petitioning alarmed him, and he commented on Maidenhead’s petition for licensing individual beer sellers instead of their premises, 17 Apr., objected to receiving those for remission of the Bowditches’ sentences, as an underhand attack on Justice Best, 24 May, and spoke against receiving the radical Greenhoe petition linking distress and parliamentary reform, ‘a menace and an insult to the House’, 3 June. Even so he insisted that he would never recommend rejecting a petition merely because of particular expressions or words. He spoke against receiving the 4,000-signature petition in favour of the Middlesex county court bill, which was backed by Huskisson and accepted, 19 June, and commented on those from Wood, 26 June, William Murray Borthwick, 28 June, and against packing juries, 22 July. He was in favour of authorizing a complete printed edition of ‘the ancient histories of this realm, without any splendour’, 24 July. Londonderry’s suicide in August 1822 deprived Williams Wynn of his ‘best support in cabinet’ at a time when plotting to oust the Grenvillites was rife.
Wynn is a man of good sense and fair character; but he is extremely unpopular and his parliamentary oratory is almost ludicrous from his voice and manner. He will do very well for a short speech, but, even when at the head of a floating party the House never bore him for a long one such as a minister must occasionally make on what poor Londonderry used to call his field days ... I cannot better explain to you the estimation in which his weight and talents as a minister in the House ... are held than by this fact, that, except in Huskisson’s hint, I have never heard his name mentioned as one to whom the future leader was to look for support.
Add. 40319, f. 57.
Williams Wynn consulted Buckingham, Frederick Robinson* and Wellington, and readily accepted the need to have Canning as leader of the Commons. He was considered for the Indian governorship, a lucrative post which, with a family of seven and annual income, out of office, of no more than £1,500, Buckingham and Fremantle thought he should accept ‘if it were offered him’.
It is said ... that both ... Liverpool and ... Canning were most anxious to induce Wynn to vacate his seat in the cabinet for the Speaker’s chair, but that he steadily refused giving up the certain place, for the uncertain honour. Perhaps he was right, but the Speaker thinks that his prospects should not have been allowed to depend upon Wynn’s choice.
Add. 40352, ff. 27-28.
Similar rumours circulated when Vansittart was removed from the exchequer in January 1823, but Williams Wynn kept his cabinet post despite his reputed unpopularity.
Despite his uncles’ reassurances, he disapproved of the decision to send Henry to Stuttgart instead of Stockholm, as originally proposed, and remained convinced that Canning sought his removal.
the policy of opposition to endeavour to provoke Wynn to state again his differences with the government on questions relating to Ireland. I am quite of opinion that he ought not to suffer himself to be goaded by our enemies and his own, and if he falls into the trap he will only provoke a reply from Peel which must have the very worst effects. I am led, however, particularly to notice this at the present moment, as I heard he had expressed some intention of reading the letter he addressed to me upon the occasion of his taking office, and I am persuaded that if he does this it will lead to a dissolution of the government ... It is a step to which he ought not to resort, but in the last extremity, and certainly not because he is attacked by the opposition ... give him a hint as to his proceeding. He might take it better from you than from me.
Wellington mss WP1/7623/13.
Having remained silent hitherto, he was drawn by Sir Abraham Bradley King’s testimony on the Dublin prosecutions to disagree with his colleagues, who on the advice of Canning, Goulburn and Peel had excluded him from their deliberations, and he urged Bradley King to disclose information, notwithstanding his oath as an Orangeman, 23 May, certain that the House was empowered to compel him to do so though he now doubted its expediency, 26 May. Annoyed at the ‘unmerited and uncalled for reserve and disinclination manifested toward Charles Wynn and myself by Mr. Canning since his return to office’, Buckingham asked Wellington to discuss Williams Wynn’s treatment with Liverpool, 28 May.
His correspondence with Buckingham, whom he defended against accusations of unfair prosecution under the game laws, 23 Apr. 1823, was chiefly devoted to the likely conflict between France and Spain, and although Buckingham did not share Grenville’s admiration for Canning’s foreign policy, they agreed to adhere to the government line.
the very injudicious encouragement of the licence of the press [and] the hazard to which he has brought the security and tranquillity of India in order to gratify a foolish vanity and acquire an ephemeral popularity among the newspaper writers, but there is also a more serious charge which may possibly affect even his personal character, which arises out of the loans from the House of Palmer and Company to the nizam, illegally sanctioned by him. These have excited such general attention and suspicion that I should not be at all surprised if they became the subject of parliamentary investigation.
Wellington mss WP1/760/2, 8; 762/18; 769/8; 770/8.
He abhorred Hindu immolation and infanticide and had no qualms about releasing copies of relevant departmental correspondence, but he opposed legislative interference, preferring to delegate the matter to local authorities lest force should prove ineffective, 18 June 1823, 6 June 1825.
Before Parliament reassembled, Williams Wynn discussed draft legislation to increase the number of Catholic office-holders with Plunket and Buckingham and was delegated by the cabinet to enlist Plunket’s assistance to ensure that Newport’s contentious Catholic burials bill failed.
and Squeaker Wynn seems disposed to compromise with them and find out a person who may not be objectionable either to the Court of Directors or government. If he does so, all the patronage of this government in India will infallibly be lost, and having gained this point they will certainly attempt to nominate the next governor-general.
TNA 30/29/6/7/53.
Acting with discretion throughout,
Parliament’s recall brought the expected pleas for information on Amherst and the war, and Williams Wynn, whose work was now shadowed by Buckingham and Wellington, promised to comment as soon as practicable, 4 Feb. 1825.
Liverpool had sought his opinion on the ‘explosive’ state of Ireland, where he feared a union of radicals and emancipationists and considered the organization of the Catholic Association formidable, ‘not from the amount of its funds ... but from its correspondence with a regular rent collector in every part’.
Amid speculation that Amherst would be recalled, Williams Wynn wrote to Liverpool, 7 Aug. 1825:
Should a vacancy arise, I am by no means blind to the strong objections which may oppose themselves to the nomination of the duke of Buckingham, but I should very much prefer not being called upon to form a decision where I have so natural and obvious a bias and would therefore, if possible, wish to leave the question wholly to the determination of Canning and yourself.
Add. 38412, ff. 14-17; Buckingham, ii. 272, 274-5.
Newspaper reports that Buckingham was preparing to leave ensured that the king raised the matter with Canning and Williams Wynn at their audiences in September, and afterwards Williams Wynn informed Buckingham, whom he had briefed on India throughout, despite suspicions that he was intriguing against Amherst, that he would be proposed. He denied this directly he realized that Buckingham was prepared to withdraw his support from government over the issue.
You know I never had any confidence in Lord Amherst as a public man, and the experience we have had of him in India more than ever convinces me that we require a much more able governor-general.
Add. 38412, ff. 74-81; Fremantle mss 46/12/47.
Confirming his preference for ‘a new governor-general’, in a detailed report to Wellington, 27 Oct., he suggested Lord William Cavendish Bentinck* or Munro. He told his wife that he would propose Buckingham, certain that he would be rejected and, not anticipating the East India Company’s continued insistence on Amherst’s recall, he informed Buckingham, 3 Nov., that there was now no vacancy. Difficult secret meetings with the Court of Directors, with which Wellington assisted, followed, 16, 24 Nov.
Charged with ‘indifference’ during the debate on the address, 3 Feb. 1826, Williams Wynn defended the principle and conduct of the Burmese war, but refused to make private correspondence available and left the defence of Amherst to others. Securing leave on 22 Feb. for his Indian juries bill (enacted on 5 May after a difficult passage, 6, 20 Mar., 7 Apr.), he pointed out that although jury service would be widened to include half-castes, Christians would always be tried by Christians. He insisted, 16 Mar., that his East India Company writers bill, which received royal assent, 26 May, was a reaction to a shortage and implied no dissatisfaction with the training offered by Haileybury College. He had already sponsored a writership competition at Westminster.
I am happy to say that although in this part of the world 99 out of 100 are anti-Catholic in their inclinations, poor Sir R. Williams [who, facing defeat in Caernarvonshire, came in for Beaumaris] is the only candidate whose election has been affected by it. There were new candidates who started at Bridgnorth and at Shrewsbury on the cry of ‘No Popery’, but failed in both instances. We lose, however, two by the change, one at Denbigh, the other in the borough of Caernarvon ... To the crowd I would still hold confident language, but as far as I can judge of the returns I certainly expect that we shall lose sufficient to turn the majority against us, at least in the first session, on the Catholic question. I think, however, that the result of a dissolution in the autumn would have been still more unsatisfactory.
NLW ms 10804 D, letterbk. 2, Williams Wynn to Buckingham, 24 June 1826.
He discussed this with Spring Rice before Parliament met, and corresponded with Huskisson, Peel and Wellington on controverted elections and Indian affairs, including equalization of the three Indian armies, which Williams Wynn advocated and Wellington opposed. He passed September in Spa with his wife.
Williams Wynn congratulated Manners Sutton on his re-election as Speaker and proposed the customary adjournment, 14 Nov. 1826. His objections to readopting Russell’s bribery resolutions, 22 Nov., were assumed to be government’s. He made many useful procedural points and appeals to precedent when the returns for Athlone, Denbigh Boroughs, Dundalk, Galway, Leicester, Leominster, Penryn, Reading and Tregony were considered that session. Arguing that existing legislation was adequate, he successfully opposed Althorp’s motion for a standing committee on election petitions, 26 Feb. 1827. Lord Howick* wrote:
The debate ... was very interesting though it ended in a most unsatisfactory manner ... I was very much provoked at Hobhouse and a few more being so completely taken in by the resolution proposed by Wynn and preventing Ld. Milton from dividing on the original one. Wynn’s as one might expect is likely to do a great deal more harm than good as without making the corporations of small boroughs at all more honest, it will prevent money being brought into competition with places and favours from government ... merely exchang[ing] one kind of corrupt influence for another.
Grey mss, Howick to Grey, 2 Mar. 1827.
Williams Wynn (who was included on the select committees, 15 Mar., 5 Apr.) found Althorp’s inquiry motion on county polls difficult to counter, 15 Mar., and merely regretted its timing and referred to his dislike of staggered polls and making land tax returns serve as electoral registers. His arguments against treating petitions against the Arigna Iron and Coal Company, in which Sir William Congreve* was implicated, as parliamentary matters prevailed, 28 Nov., 5, 7 Dec., and he spoke effectively against Littleton’s resolutions on committees on private bills, 28 Nov., and foiled an attempt by Waithman to introduce general legislation on joint-stock companies, 30 Nov. 1826. However, he failed to prevent the receipt of a petition against the Devon and Cornwall Mining Company, which had many Members on its board, 9 Apr. 1827. He divided for Catholic relief, 6 Mar., and to consider the Clarence annuity, 16 Mar., and spring guns bills, 23 Mar., to which he gave his ‘most cordial support, 26 Mar. 1827.
Amherst’s decision to return rekindled Buckingham’s false optimism and renewed the pressure on Williams Wynn, who had successfully moved the vote of thanks to the victorious troops in India, 27 Nov. 1826, corresponded regularly with Wellington, Canning, Combermere and Malcolm, and supplied Peel with information to counter Hume’s East India House motion on Barrackpoor, 13 Feb. 1827.
I owe it to myself to state distinctly that Mr. Williams Wynn, from circumstances which it is not necessary for me to detail, is no longer considered by me as my representative in the cabinet now to be formed, and I am authorized to say that no part of the support of my friends will attach itself to him in that situation or through him to government.
Wellington mss WP1/888/1.
Wellington replied, 4 Apr.:
I may have used the term your representative in the cabinet as applied to Mr. Wynn. I knew that he was in the cabinet for the two reasons because he was one of your family and because he possessed the qualifications to entitle him to look to high office in this country. You have the full right to withdraw your confidence from him and to announce to the minister that you have done so, but I beg you to decline to charge myself with the delicacy of the message.
Ibid. WP1/888/2.
Williams Wynn monitored Robinson and Lansdowne’s reactions, corresponded closely with his uncles while Canning formed his ministry and probably benefited from their friendship with him.
I am inclined to think that I am better where I am, as besides all the disadvantages of comparison with Peel, I should have to encounter that of my going beyond most of my colleagues in my impression of the urgency of the Catholic question, and besides, I conceive myself to be personally more unacceptable to the king.
Coedymaen mss 191.
He had declined Canning’s offer of the Indian governorship, which ‘would indeed be, in my opinion, for myself and my children, "to sell for gold what gold can never buy"’.
We have personally every reason to be satisfied with the situation in which it all leaves Charles, who, without having been mixed up in any intrigue or cabal, stands more on his own ground, steadily adhering to the support of those measures to which he has repeatedly pledged himself.
His period in office under Canning was reputedly his happiest.
Seconded by Hume, he proposed the promised vote of thanks to the troops in India, 8 May 1827, endorsed the decisions made by officers and apologized for the ‘accidental’ omission of the naval commander in the original address. He also now announced the deferral of his bill to consolidate election law until next session and expressed support for Althorp’s election expenses regulation bill, which was enacted, 21 June.
Following Canning’s death in August 1827, when Robinson, as Lord Goderich, formed his administration, Williams Wynn was ‘decidedly against remaining if the Whigs are forced out’ and unnerved by the appointment of the anti-Catholic John Herries* as chancellor of the exchequer. Heeding his uncles’ pleas for caution, he stayed on in London, where he consulted Althorp, Sturges Bourne, Huskisson, Frankland Lewis and Tierney, and accepted the India board with an assured pension of £3,600 a year.
Nothing can be more satisfactory than the footing on which I find myself with my colleagues, reste à voir how it may last, but at present my situation is far more comfortable than it has been.
Coedymaen mss 970.
His brother Henry welcomed the new arrangement.
I cannot help being struck by the general tone which he has taken on this occasion, and the want of attention in writing letters as being so decidedly contrary to the course he has adopted with respect to all former communications from me.
Add. 38752, f. 169.
Sturges Bourne tried to keep him abreast of developments, but even so his situation deteriorated, and when Wellington became prime minister in January 1828 he was ousted.
I must fairly say that from the way in which things have been going on ever since Canning’s death I have seen such frequent reasons to expect it, that it does not prove any disappointment to me; and that I only rejoice that I have for so long been able to retain my office honourably, indeed far longer than I originally thought there was any chance of.
Coedymaen mss 973.
Southey, with whom he was editing Bishop Heber’s letters, had warned him in September 1827 to ‘look to another plank in the State-vessel start ere long’, as ‘men in office’ found him ‘one of the most impracticable persons to deal with, taking crotchets in his head and holding to them with invincible pertinacity’.
According to Palmerston, Williams Wynn, who saw parallels between Wellington’s coalition ministry and that of the earl of Chatham, 1766-8, thought that the Canningites in and out of office should likewise be seated together and conduct themselves as a distinct group in the Commons, and seek out contentious policy issues to exploit to their own advantage.
The one object with them all is to be able to afford to keep a home in London ... some place he must find a permanent deposit for his books and papers which he really could not stow at Llangedwyn and if he could he would be miserable to be separated from them for so long as he continues a regular attender on the House of Commons. Great are the political storms at this moment and never was there a union so widely disunited as that of the present administration, but nothing I fear can arise to our advantage out of the jars and squabbles ... Our late premier has certainly proved himself not equal even to be dernier, and has with the best intentions towards Charles, done him a mischief which I fear will be long irreparable.
NLW ms 2796 D, Lady Williams Wynn to H. Williams Wynn, 19 Feb. 1828.
From Naples, Buckingham, who had given Goderich his proxy, expressed sorrow at Williams Wynn’s plight, and regret ‘that prudence did not remind him that having kicked away the ladder upon which he had mounted, he was not likely to find another support to maintain him in his position or break his fall’.
He presented petitions, 25 Feb., voted, 26 Feb., and spoke, 28 Feb. 1828, for repeal of the Test Acts, believing that Dissenters would accept nothing less and would petition until it was granted. He saw no need for securities, nor did he oppose the declaration proposed by Peel, 18 Mar., but on 5 May he said he feared that by permitting Quakers and Moravians to affirm rather than swear an oath, the law of evidence bill (which received royal assent, 27 June) would establish an unworkable precedent. Drawing on the work of his 1827 select committee, he steered the pauper lunatic regulation bills successfully through the Commons, 17 Mar. On 5 May he criticized the failure of the government’s offences against the person bill to provide for Britons fighting duels abroad, ‘intent to murder’, trying lesser offences with a capital charge to facilitate conviction, and for divorce following conviction for bigamy. He divided for Catholic relief, 12 May, and after the Lords had rejected it, expressed regret, praised Peel and called for moderation, 12 June. The House took his advice that the Kilkenny petition against charity abuse was a private rather than a parliamentary matter, 20 June. He had the third reading of the archbishop of Canterbury’s bill deferred pending the production of papers on the office of his registrar, 5 June, but apart from Sir Watkin and Phillimore, he could find little support for a compromise clause, and he voted with the minority against giving the archbishop control over the appointment, 16 June. He divided with government against reductions in ordnance salaries, 4 July 1828.
On East Retford, the attorney general Wetherell remarked that ‘all the store of knowledge of [Williams Wynn]... will not enable him to produce a precedent like the present case’, 3 Mar. 1828. His hopes of securing a postponement that day were dashed, but he successfully countered Littleton’s assertion that witnesses’ testimony before Commons select committees could be cited in a court of law without the House’s consent, 4 Mar., and intervened effectively when witnesses were examined, 7 Mar. He was against summoning the entrepreneur Samuel Crompton to testify, 10 Mar., but acknowledged that his objections were not those commonly held and cited Colonel Wardle’s case in 1782 to substantiate his claim that there were not ‘sufficient grounds for the delay which would result from Crompton’s examination’. He also committed himself to opposing ‘any motion which has the effect of placing any person in a situation to criminate him unless it is absolutely unavoidable for the ends of justice’. He explained that he was against sluicing the franchise at East Retford, 21 Mar., but at the same time affirmed his retrospective support for the adoption of this course at Aylesbury, Cricklade and New Shoreham. On 19 May, replying to Peel, he suggested allocating the East Retford franchise ‘alternately to a borough and to a great town’, sending up both bills and letting the Lords decide; and, protesting that the case had not been fairly tried, he voted with Smith Stanley and the Whigs to transfer the seats to Birmingham (which was rejected by 146-128).
Williams Wynn had renewed contact with Lords Holland and Lansdowne and was not considered for office during the May and August 1828 reshuffles, when his only recorded meeting with Wellington was on Asiatic Society business.
Citing precedents, he confirmed that a by-election at Canterbury was necessary following Lushington’s appointment as governor of Madras, 19 Mar., and raised the issue again, 22 May 1829, when he was named to the select committee. He defended the India board’s handling of the Bencoolen compensation claims, 6 Apr., and was added to the select committee on the registrar at Madras, 7 May. He had to concede that he was no longer on the investigative committee when Whitmore’s East India Company resolutions were considered, 14 May, and privately expected government to concede committees, but postpone the charter question ‘for a year or two longer’. On 16 June he wrote to Sir John Malcolm:
Of news of this country it is scarcely sending any as it consists solely of reports which vary from day to day. The internal political situation is totally unlike anything which I can recollect as the whole pack of cards has been so comprehensively shuffled that no one can tell what will be played next. There seems to be a strong expectation of the introduction of Edward Stanley into the cabinet, of which I shall be glad as I think he is facillime primus among the rising generation in the ... Commons, but I am not disposed to give now credit to that more than the other reports. At the same time it does appear almost impossible that the persons I have mentioned should meet Parliament without some acquisition of strength and I know not where the duke is to get this but from the Whigs. He would prefer the old Tories, but they can supply him with no parliamentary talent, and his unabated hostility to Huskisson and the rest of Canning’s friends render it highly improbable that he will ask their assistance. The next session must at all events be a peculiarly busy and interesting one as all the business of this year has been deferred.
NLW ms 10804 D, letterbk, iii, Williams Wynn to Malcolm, 16 June 1829.
Presenting Calcutta’s petition requesting that Muslims and Hindus be permitted to hold office and serve as jurors under the 1826 Act, 5 July 1829, he said he did so knowing that Cavendish Bentinck, Munro, Elphinstone and Heber had advocated it.
His assertion that the circumstances of the Dover election petition were covered by the Grenville Act was ruled incorrect, 26 Mar., and he arranged next day for it to be heard on 28 Apr. 1829. On East Retford, ‘a judicial question which should not have been mixed up with political considerations’, 5 May, he said he had formerly thought corruption proven and favoured ‘absolute disfranchisement’; but in view of the problem of reconciling the rival claims of the landed interest in Bassetlaw and the commercial interest in Birmingham, he would now vote to transfer the franchise to the latter. He presented Oswestry’s petition for a change in the law on small debts, 22 May. He opposed additional expenditure on the marble arch sculpture, 27 May. As agreed by Welsh Members and peers at Sir Watkin’s house, 16 May, he headed a delegation to Peel, 19 May, to protest against the proposed partitioning of counties to form new assize districts when the Welsh courts of great sessions were abolished.
He now believed that he had gained more by leaving office in January 1828 than ‘the other remains of Canning’s cabinet’ ousted in May, and expected and obtained nothing from Wellington’s reshuffle in January 1830, when he ‘lingered’ in Wales, ‘not sorry’ to miss the debate on the omission of distress from the king’s speech.
Believing, as I do, the general distress to arise from causes which Parliament could not remedy or control, I should not have wished to excite fallacious hopes and strengthen the anti-currency, anti-free traders by supporting an amendment, the adoption of which I was not prepared to follow up by forcing any measure upon government. The only real object in amendment to an address is either to drive ministers out or to compel them to do something they are not inclined to. My objection to the present administration is, I must fairly avow, rather to men than to measures.
Coedymaen mss bdle. 29, Williams Wynn to Phillimore, 6 Feb. 1830.
Over the following months, he repeatedly expressed his reluctance ‘to see the management of affairs taken out of the hands of the duke and of Peel’, preferring to see their administration broadened to remove the ‘ever present danger of a government in minority’. In June 1830 Wellington included him on his list of party leaders ‘more anxious to and ready to support and join the government than any other party acting in opposition’.
I think it much safer when a borough shall be convicted of corruption that the franchise shall be given to a great town than to a hundred, which has no recommendation but that of its vicinity to the disfranchised borough. If the amendment ... shall be pressed to a division, I will certainly vote for it. I oppose the [present] motion ... because the principle which it would establish would inevitably lead to an indefinite increase of the number of Members in this House and would totally change the character of its representation and would render it most tumultuous and less adapted for business than it is at present.
He opposed Littleton’s parliamentary agency bill, 26 Feb., and confined his observations on the Rye election petition to procedural points, 25 Mar. He was against treating Galway’s Catholic and Protestant traders equally because it took rights away from Protestants instead of conferring them on Catholics, 4 Mar., but was for proceeding with the Galway franchise bill, 26 Apr. He spoke and voted for inquiry into the Bombay judicature, 8 Mar., stressing at the same time that he did not consider the dispute between Sir John Peter Grant* and Malcolm one on which the House should rule: both men had acted conscientiously and from the best motives. Lord Ellenborough as president of the India board vainly hoped that the Calcutta petition for better status for half-castes would not be presented by Williams Wynn,
One of the cases which interested him that session was that of Sir Jonah Barrington, the Irish admiralty judge accused of peculation. He failed to prevent its deferral, 4, 6, 10 May, but he succeeded in having Barrington’s petition printed, 13 May, and his testimony heard by counsel, 18 May. When the resolutions against Barrington were passed, 22 May, he suggested and cited precedents for proceeding otherwise, but to no avail. He objected to the Commons being ‘made a sort of court of appeal for the reconsideration of cases which have been already decided by those who had competent jurisdiction’ in the case of the dismissed Irish excise officer James Kelly, 18 May, and spoke to little effect the same day on the Dean Forest bill and Birmingham-London Junction Canal bill. When the latter was considered, 20 May, he accused its solicitor Eyre Lee of a breach of privilege. He also took up the case of Dumbarton corporation, represented by its provost Jacob Dixon, against the Clyde navigation bill, 26 May. He had Dixon’s petition referred to a committee of appeal, 28 May, reported their finding against the bill, 7 June, and prevented its recommittal and speedy passage, 10 June. Speaking for Phillimore’s abortive motion for a commission of inquiry into the divorce laws, 3 June, he tried to counter Dr. Lushington’s objections that it was a matter for the ecclesiastical courts and cited the increase in bigamy as proof that civil legislation was necessary. Not wishing to act as a ‘factious opponent’ of administration or to align with the revived Whig opposition, he informed Phillimore and announced in debate, 29 Mar., that as in 1823 and 1828, he would vote against combining the offices of lieutenant and master-general of the ordnance.
When the administration of justice bill that abolished the Welsh judicature and great sessions was introduced, 9 Mar. 1830, he lauded the advantages of assimilation, but predicted incorrectly that despite recent hostile petitions the measure would become popular in Wales, now the proposed division of counties was largely abandoned (this was not confirmed until 27 May). He had its second reading deferred so that opinion could be sounded at the assizes and quarter sessions, and duly commended it to the House, 27 Apr., but privately he considered the measure
incorrectly and loosely drawn ... The outline of the proposed plan of circuits ought to be detailed subject to the subsequent modification of the privy council. My own wish is that the Oxford circuit should be divided combining the Chester and North Wales circuits with Worcester, Stafford and Shrewsbury and the South West circuits with the remainder of Oxford. One judge only on each of the former Welsh circuits, so that the Montgomeryshire and Merioneth assizes would be contemporaneous. Denbigh and Flint, Caernarvon and Anglesey to be respectively united ... Or Oxfordshire might be added to the first of the two if it were thought preferable.
Glansevern mss 8419.
As most petitions indicated that the Welsh were satisfied with their courts, he colluded with the barrister William Owen to procure a petition favouring their abolition from Montgomeryshire, but he declined attendance at the county meeting, 27 Apr., on account of Madras business and the debate on the ‘bungled’ Terceira affair, 28 Apr., when he divided with the opposition.
Williams Wynn made his customary plea for early consideration of election petitions in the new Parliament, pointing out that the reduction he had achieved in committee size made it possible to consider four daily instead of two, 3 Nov. 1830. He later intervened with limited success when those from Calne, Carrickfergus, Perth Burghs, Queenborough, St. Mawes, Rye and Wigan were considered.
At present I cannot flatter myself that my acceptance of a department of mere detail of which I am wholly ignorant can be of advantage to the government or afford me opportunity of rendering myself more useful than in my private capacity as a Member ... actively supporting it.
NLW ms 4815 D, Williams Wynn to Southey, 8 Feb. 1830; 4817 D, same to H. Williams Wynn, 19, 26 Nov. 1830; Brougham mss, same to Brougham, 25 Nov.; Coedymaen mss 258, 756; Harrowby mss, Sandon to Harrowby, 25 Nov.; Powis mss, Holmes to Powis [Nov]; Hatherton mss, Littleton to R. Wellesley, 26 Nov. 1830.
To ensure the arrangement was ‘clearly understood’, Grey, who believed he might refuse and held Lord Sandon* in reserve, wrote to Williams Wynn, 24 Nov., acknowledging his ‘qualification’ to be Speaker, but refusing to commit his government to supporting him. He also warned that on reform, ‘I probably may feel it necessary to go to a greater extent than you would approve in the suppression of what are called the rotten boroughs ... You can be under no obligation to resign your office’. Lord Anglesey thought ministers would find Williams Wynn ‘eminently useful in all reform discussions’, and Grey promised him ‘an opportunity hereafter of fully considering the measure before it is finally determined upon and brought forward’.
I am disappointed that in the formation of a new administration in direct opposition to the last you should find yourself in the same situation, that of being between two stools. Independence is the most desirable line, in the same manner that being a gentleman is the best profession, but this is a sacrifice which such as you and I with large families must in some degree make.
NLW ms 2803 D, H. Williams Wynn to Williams Wynn, 27 Nov. 1830.
The ailing Grenville, who had not been consulted until a late stage in negotiations, shared his dismay at seeing ministers disposed to favour Littleton for the Speakership during Manners Sutton’s illness that winter.
In office, Williams Wynn laboured to master the army estimates, which he moved successfully, 21 Feb., 14 Mar. 1831, despite increases in colonial expenditure and voluble opposition from Hume and Davies, who failed to restrict payments to a single quarter.
The measure proposed goes so much further than anything I could have anticipated that I shall tonight declare my utter inability to support it without great and essential modification, more than I can reasonably expect will now be consented to by its authors. I regret this extremely, not so much as it must be followed by going out of office, for I think that there is no probability of the bill passing or the administration remaining in office, as because it will again leave me isolated and unconnected and because [of] the excitement and ferment and party violence which I must look forward to encounter. Still, after much consideration I thought I had no other course to adopt, and have just notified it to ... Grey.
NLW ms 4817 D, Williams Wynn to H. Williams Wynn, 5 Mar. 1831.
In a widely reported speech expected to damage government, he drew parallels between the importance of reform and Catholic emancipation and stressed his readiness to disfranchise boroughs found guilty of corruption and transfer Helston’s franchise to Yorkshire in 1813. He endorsed the ministry’s policy on peace and retrenchment. He explained that as he had not been in the cabinet, he had had no opportunity to discuss the bill’s details at an early stage and learnt of its contents only a week before it was published. He endorsed its proposals to restrict the borough franchise to resident freemen and replace non-residents with £10 householders, and approved the proposed extension of the county franchise and all regulatory provisions except that ‘authorizing the crown to appoint a committee of privy councillors to divide counties into districts and determine what adjoining parishes shall be added to such boroughs as shall not contain a sufficient number of £10 householders’. This he considered a task for Parliament. Concluding, he upheld Parliament’s right to legislate for reform and expressed approval of it in principle, but added that the bill proposed greater change than he could agree to and would have to be altered before he could support it.
I see our Member has drawn in his horns. He has done wisely. He would otherwise have had an opposition at the next election. His transfiguration will probably save him.
Glansevern mss 2421.
Buckingham thought any prospect of an accommodation between Grenville and Wellington was over and wrote to the duke: ‘As to Mr. Wynn’s conduct it is too disgusting to allow of a thought. It would be contamination again to come near him’.
You are of all men in the House, the most unfit to put yourself forward in the very first (or indeed in any) discussion of the bill as the leader of any mode or plan of resistance and it is quite clear to me that unless you mean to make yourself responsible to the House or country for the whole cause, details and consequences of any modified plan of reform, you have in common prudence (I had almost said with reference to your particular situation in common decorum) nothing else to do in any part of this discussion but to await the proposals and motions of others for or against the bill and to speak for or against them as you shall honestly judge them beneficial or harmful to the country ... It is well worth your observance how strongly Peel, though not under half your difficulties of situation, evidently feels the impolicy of taking this sort of lead. He plainly waits, and so undoubtedly should you to follow, or oppose, as the case may be, the proposals or motions of country gentlemen and others, not avowed and seasoned politicians, like himself and you, both men in the line of office whether at this moment in or out.
Coedymaen mss 476, 477.
Apparently heeding this advice, Williams Wynn confined his remarks to procedures until the debate on Gascoyne’s wrecking amendment, 19 Apr., when he reiterated his reasons for voting for the second reading, confirmed his support for the bill’s committal and mentioned among its anomalies the incorporation of population totals for enfranchised towns in county figures, awarding Glamorganshire (population, 101,000) two borough and two county Members, but leaving Carmarthenshire (population, 90,000) with two single Member constituencies, and the enfranchisement as £10 householders of the ‘delinquent’ electors of Aylesbury, Cricklade, East Retford and New Shoreham. He suggested withdrawing the bill for redrafting and resubmission, making the 1831 census the criterion for determining borough representation, classifying the disfranchised boroughs, and, as Spring Rice observed, ‘nearly, though not explicitly promised his vote for Gascoyne’ by declaring against a proportionate increase in Irish representation. Countering, the Irish secretary Smith Stanley, who, with Sir Edward Pryce Lloyd had been requisitioned to oppose him in Montgomeryshire, referred to Williams Wynn’s early briefing on the bill’s details and constituency pressure to support it. Williams Wynn conceded this and claimed to be confident of electoral success. He divided for the amendment, 19 Apr. 1831.
Williams Wynn nominated the Speaker in the new Parliament and was complemented on his own expertise, ‘constant attendance’ and ‘unwearied attention to all questions affecting or connected with the privileges, orders, and proceedings of the House’, 14 June 1831. He raised his usual points on election petitions, 22 June, and on 20 July carried his oaths before the lord steward bill, which received royal assent on the 30th. As a member of the East India committee, he joined Goulburn in opposing a reduction from £5,000 to £3,500 in the salary of the president of the India board, arguing that the attendant patronage, which was expected to supply the deficit, was no substitute for emolument, 28 June. He declined to present an Oxford University anti-reform petition, and, as he had warned a disappointed Grenville, but to the king’s surprise, he and his brother divided for the reintroduced reform bill at its second reading, 6 July.
To my great surprise, Althorp showed a disposition in some degree at least to concede. Personally, I rather wish that he would not, as I think that the alteration may produce more frequent contests in the counties than we have hitherto been exposed to.
Coedymaen mss 217.
He is not known to have voted on Chandos’s clause enfranchising £50 tenants-at-will, 18 Aug., but, encouraged by this sign of government’s vulnerability, he exploited errors and anomalies in the provisions for returning officers as signs that ‘the bill was brought forward in a hurried and undigested form’, 19, 20 Aug., but refused to endorse Hume’s criticism of the government’s scheduling policy, 27 Aug. He repeatedly criticized the householder franchise, 24-27 Aug., suggesting that a universal £10 qualification would prove as easy to manipulate as scot and lot, and calling for a qualification period of six months instead of six weeks after rates were paid, to limit landlord influence.
I have repeatedly been in the minority when motions have been made to direct prosecutions in cases of bribery. I voted for the second reading of the bill and for its being committed that it might be fairly considered, and so improved and amended as to render it a proper and beneficial measure ... It is still calculated to effect too great a change, and I therefore feel bound to oppose it.
He repeated his objections to its unnecessary disfranchisements and uniform £10 franchise, defended small boroughs for affording opportunities to men of talent and direct representation for East and West Indian interests, and ended with a pledge ‘to be healthily negative to this bill, but ready as ever to support a moderate measure’. Writing to Thomas Grenville, 22 Sept., he welcomed the recent damage inflicted on the bill and praised Croker, Peel and Thomas Pemberton’s speeches.
While he was in Wales on yeomanry duty, Frankland Lewis briefed him as arranged on the Dorset by-election and the reform bill’s progress in the Lords, where he had anticipated its defeat.
The late division in the Lords has had the effect of awakening many of those who, conceiving their position past remedy, had like the Indians folded their arms and lain down in the canoe, but what is wanted to afford us a hope of deliverance is the inspiriting voice of some man of courage and eloquence fitted to seize the command of the vessel, such as providence has in like emergencies frequently raised up, but such as we have now nothing approaching to. There are many who have done their duty morally and honestly and with great effect, but there is no head that commands public confidence. Peel is decidedly the best, but he is too cautious, too rich and too much at his ease for active ambition to excite him and he is too cold, reserved and unconfiding ever to attach warm and zealous friends.
NLW ms 4815 D, Williams Wynn to Southey, 27 Oct. 1831.
Sturges Bourne wrote that day asking ‘what course’ he ‘and the few others with whom I have acted in and out of office’ would now take. Williams Wynn was expected back in London for the round of pre-session dinners and meetings, but politics now depressed him, and after prevaricating he ‘determined to remain in Wales till after the recess unless something more pressing should arrive’.
I should have little hope of being of service in communicating with Ld. P[almerston]. In truth he is a person in whom I have no kind of confidence and I had much rather discuss any subject of the kind with Brougham, Graham or Ld. John [Russell] rather than any of my ci-devant colleagues except perhaps Ld. Lansdowne, and he has voluntarily shelved himself.
Coedymaen mss 223.
Like the Clives, Barings, Frankland Lewis and others associated with Harrowby, he hoped for an alliance of moderates from both sides without an immediate change of government, and deliberately avoided voting on the revised reform bill at its second reading, 17 Dec. 1831, but he subsequently regretted this division on ‘diminished [reduced] numbers’.
as at present advised, I am disposed to follow the same course in the committee on this bill as I did on the last, and point out all the mistakes and blunders which seem to me nearly as numerous though different. The great objection to the £10 qualification in large towns and to the suburban Members continue and the number of Members from the sinks of radicalism and sedition such as Oldham, Bradford, Blackburn and Stockport are increased. The provisions for the registration of county votes are rendered still more impracticable than ever.
Coedymaen mss 224.
He remained ‘most anxious to act in concert’ with Harrowby, Baring and Clive, but without the ‘previous engagement to government’ they had offered, and he perceived correctly that there was little prospect of Grey compromising.
He returned to London after the Christmas festivities at Wynnstay, and opposing the bill’s committal, 20 Jan., he condemned it as vague and full of faults, and advised the House to ‘keep the power of altering the number of boroughs in its own hands’, 21 Jan. 1832. He complained that the designation of returning officers was flawed, 24 Jan., and criticized the proposed county divisions, 27 Jan., and methods of determining county copyhold, freehold and leasehold franchises, 1 Feb. Co-operating with opposition, he helped to delay the bill’s progress, 2, 3, 16, 21 Feb., 2 Mar. On 28 Feb. he successfully proposed the high constable as returning officer for Greenwich and voted against enfranchising Tower Hamlets. He kept aloof from the debate on Merthyr, 5 Mar.; but on the 14th he exposed irregularities in the disfranchisement in 1728 of Montgomery’s former contributories and protested at the bill’s failure to restore fully their ‘ancient rights’ prior to re-enfranchisement. He presented supportive petitions prepared by Powis Castle retainers, 19 Mar., but to no purpose.
The ministry exists by the [reform] bill ... In short we are still in the situation in which the breaking up of Lord Liverpool’s government in 1827 left us: split, subdivided into parties which the course of events inevitably unites upon some question to beat the minister.
NLW ms 4815 D, Williams Wynn to Southey, 31 Jan. 1832.
Ever the champion of procedures and precedents, on 17 Feb. 1832 he defended Beresford’s conduct of the Portuguese campaigns and upheld his own decision, as secretary at war, not to means test the pensions of army widows. He made further points on army matters, 6, 28 Mar., breach of privilege, 7 May, 1 June, petitions and procedures 8, 30 May; but his opinion was of insufficient weight to procure amendment of the London-Birmingham railway bill for the Clives, 18 June. His interventions on the coroners bill achieved little, 20 June, and he failed to impede the progress of Kenyon’s labourers’ employment bill, 27 June. He presented Montgomeryshire’s petition for changes in the highways bill, 13 June. Although he was for amending the laws on slavery and capital punishment, in neither case was he a true abolitionist, and the high profile and popular appeal of both issues as the dissolution approached troubled him.
It had been a difficult period in Williams Wynn’s personal life. His mother’s illness and death in October 1832 followed closely on those of his wife’s brother, the reformer Foster Cunliffe Offley*, his mother-in-law and his elder son Watkin, who, as he had been warned in March, failed to recover from an inflammation of the lungs.