The Rt. Hon. William Windham III MP (1750-1810)
Humphry Repton (1752 - 1818)
Category
Art / Drawings and watercolours
Date
1778
Materials
Pencil on paper
Measurements
363 mm (H)340 mm (W)310 mm (H)285 mm (W)168 mm (H)147 mm (W)
Order this imageCollection
Felbrigg, Norfolk
NT 1396311
Summary
Pencil on paper, The Rt. Hon. William Windham III MP (1750-1810) by Humphry Repton (Bury St Edmunds 1752 – Romford 1818). William Windham's first public appearance in Norwich 1778 at the meeting at which the Norfolk Petition was drawn up. In his left hand he holds a document labelled 'Norfolk Petition'. Inscription on reverse 'Sketch by my father of Windham's first appearance as MP, JAR'. 'Scotts Sale, Aylsham 1882'. Typewritten note by RWKC 'JAR's inscription is incorrect as Windham did not enter Parliament till 1784'. 'The drawing turned up in the shop of a furniture dealer at Cambridge in 1956 and I was able to buy it. The dealer thought it came from the Colman Sale at Crown Point but was not quite certain. I had the drawing cleaned and reframed at the British Museum January 1957'. Son of William Windham II and Sarah Hicks; married Cecilia Forrest. A Whig politician who rose to being Secretary of War under Pitt (1794-1801) and again in Grenville's ministry (1806-7), when he was associated with the reform of conditions in the Navy. According to the article in the Dictionary of National Biography, he was ,pious, chivalrous, and disinterested, and his brilliant social qualities made him one of the first gentlemen as well as one of the soundest sportsmen of his time'. The article refers to his diary, published in 1866, as showing him to have been vacillating and hypochrondriacal in private, but excuses his political inconsistency, which led him to his being nicknamed ,Weathercock Windham'. He was a good orator, and became the leader of his party in the Commons, so was much offended to be offered a peerage after Fox's death: "They want ordanance, and yet would begin by spiking one of their greatest guns!" (Earl of Ilchester, The Home of the Hollands, 1937, pp.241-42).
Provenance
Part of the Windham Collection. The hall and contents were bequeathed to the National Trust in 1969 by Robert Wyndham Ketton-Cremer (1906-1969).
Makers and roles
Humphry Repton (1752 - 1818)