The Rt. Hon. William Windham III MP (1750-1810) (after Sir Thomas Lawrence PRA)
John Alais (b. c.1778)
Category
Art / Prints
Date
1816
Materials
Paper
Measurements
375 mm (H)330 mm (W)245 mm (H)200 mm (W)80 mm (H)70 mm (W)
Order this imageCollection
Felbrigg, Norfolk
NT 1397875
Summary
Print, stipple engraving, The Rt. Hon. William Windham III MP (1750-1810) (after Sir Thomas Lawrence PRA) by John Alais (fl.early 19th century). The Late Rt Hon'ble Wm Windham, Proof copy. 1816. Published by Cribb, Tavistock St. 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
John Alais (b. c.1778), engraver (printmaker) after Sir Thomas Lawrence, PRA (Bristol 1769 – London 1830), artist