William Frederick Wyndham


Hon. William Frederick Wyndham was an English aristocrat and diplomat, who served in Italy during the Italian campaigns of the French Revolutionary Wars.

Early life

Wyndham was the fourth and youngest son of Charles Wyndham, 2nd Earl of Egremont and Hon. Alicia Maria Carpenter, daughter of George Carpenter, 2nd Baron Carpenter and Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Charlotte. He served briefly as a commissioned officer in the Coldstream Guards, but had resigned his commission by 1784.

Ambassador to Tuscany

From 1794 to 1814, Wyndham was the British ambassador to Tuscany. By the 1790s, he already had a reputation for being a difficult and radical character, and Lady Holland recorded surprise at his appointment as ambassador:
Wyndham arrived in Florence on 20 March 1794 with instructions from the British government to win the support of the traditionally neutral Grand Duchy against France. He soon after had a disagreement with a Florentine count, Carletti, owing to Wyndham's Jacobin principles, which damaged his reputation.
In anticipation of the French capture of Livorno in 1796, Wyndham advised British merchants to evacuate their goods from the territory. In August of that year he travelled to Naples in an attempt to win Neapolitan support for the war against France. In 1799 he monitored the armed counter-revolution in Tuscany against the French occupation, but in May 1800 the rebels were defeated by the French and Wyndham left Italy for Vienna with the exiled Tuscan government. He remained in Vienna until his retirement in 1807.

Marriage and issue

On 21 July 1784, Wyndham married Frances Mary Harford, the illegitimate daughter of Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore and Hester Whelan. They had five children:
  • George Francis Wyndham, succeeded his uncle as 4th Earl of Egremont
  • Frances Wyndham, married firstly in 1809 William Miller, of Ozleworth Park, co. Gloucester, and married secondly in 1847 as his second wife Augustin Denis Pinon-Duclos, 2nd Vicomte de Valmer
  • Laura Wyndham, married 1812 Rev. Charles Boultbee, and had issue
  • Julia Wyndham, died young; buried at Petworth
  • William Wyndham, died in infancy in Italy
She died 22 March 1822 in Florence.
Wyndham had three illegitimate children with his second wife, Polish noble Julia Konstancja Smorczewska, Countess Spytecka, widow of Count Ignacy Spytecki, Chamberlain of the King of Poland, from whom she inherited lands in Kydantsi, Ternopil, Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria.