The Rt. Hon. William Windham III MP (1750-1810)
after Sir Joshua Reynolds PRA (Plympton 1723 - London 1792)
Category
Art / Prints
Date
1770 - 1792
Materials
Paper
Measurements
28 cm (H)21 cm (W)13 cm (H)10 cm (W)
Place of origin
London
Order this imageCollection
Felbrigg, Norfolk
NT 1396638
Summary
Print, copper engraving, The Rt. Hon. William Windham III MP (1750-1810) after Sir Joshua Reynolds PRA (Plympton 1723 - London 1792). The Right Honourable William Windham. From the original portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds in The National Gallery. Published by Jones and Co, Temple of the Muse, Finsbury Square, London. 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).
Makers and roles
after Sir Joshua Reynolds PRA (Plympton 1723 - London 1792), artist Jones & Co., engraver and publisher