Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, 3rd Baronet

Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn
Sir Watkin Williams Wynn; the blue waistcoat was a sign used by Tory Jacobite sympathisers
MP for Denbighshire
In office 30 June 1716 – 1741
MP for Montgomeryshire
In office 1741 – 23 February 1742
MP for Denbighshire
In office 23 February 1742 – 20 September 1749
Personal details
Born	1692 Llanforda, near Oswestry
Died	20 September 1749(1749-09-20) (aged 57) Ruabon
Resting place	St Mary's, Ruabon
Political party	Tory
Spouse(s)	Married first Anne Vaughan, 20 November 1715 to 14 March 1748 Second, Frances Shakerley, 19 July 1748
Children	John Williams Wynn (1716-died young) Mary Williams (1717-1735) Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, 4th Baronet (1748-1789)
Parents	Sir William Williams, 2nd Baronet Jane Thelwall

Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, 3rd Baronet (ca 1692 – 26 September 1749) was a leading Welsh landowner, Tory and prominent Jacobite sympathiser. An opponent of Robert Walpole, he helped engineer his downfall in 1742 and engaged in negotiations with the exiled Stuarts prior to the 1745 Jacobite Rising but did not participate himself. He died in 1749 in a hunting accident.

Life

Williams-Wynn was the eldest son of Sir William Williams, 2nd Baronet, of Llanforda near Oswestry in Shropshire and Jane Thelwall. His grandfather, also Sir William Williams was Solicitor General under James II and led the prosecution of the Seven Bishops in 1688.^[1]

Wynnstay, ca 1793

Through his first wife, Ann Vaughan (ca 1695-1748), Williams-Wynn acquired extensive estates in Montgomeryshire and Denbighshire and over time became the pre-eminent landowner in North Wales. In 1719, he inherited the Wynnstay estates on condition he add 'Wynn' to his name, followed by his father's title and lands on his death in 1740. When Anne died in March 1748, he married another heiress, his god-daughter Frances Shackerley (1721-1803); his son and heir, Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, 4th Baronet (1749–1789) was born a few months before his death in a hunting accident in September 1749.

Political career

Sir Watkin William-Wynn ca 1740

Sir John Hynde Cotton (1686-1752), Williams-Wynn's Tory colleague in ousting Walpole in 1742

After graduating from Jesus College, Oxford, Williams-Wynn became Member of Parliament or MP for Denbighshire in 1716. His first recorded speech in Parliament did not occur until 1727 but he was an active member of the Tory Jacobite faction. As a leader of the Cycle of the White Rose, a Welsh Jacobite society, he ‘audaciously burnt the King’s picture’ during the 1722 General Election and opposed a 'loyal address' to George I following the Atterbury Plot. He also served as Mayor of Oswestry in 1728 and of Chester in 1732.^[2]

Money and family connections made Williams-Wynn a formidable political power; in 1722, nine out of eleven Parliamentary seats in North Wales returned Tory candidates.^[3] While fiercely contested, the election confirmed the dominance of Robert Walpole and the Whig party; their exclusion from government resulted in the continuing expression of Jacobite sympathies among the more extreme Tories. Williams-Wynn employed Welsh colliers to threaten Whig supporters in the 1733 Chester mayoral election but overtly 'Jacobite' displays were rare and often rooted in Tory opposition to Welsh religious Nonconformists.^[4]

The complexity of English and Welsh Jacobite support was demonstrated in 1736 when Williams-Wynn and other Tory 'Jacobites' voted against the repeal of the Test Act. This would have removed legal restrictions on those who were not members of the Church of England, such as Nonconformists and Catholics like the exiled Stuarts. While anti-Catholicism was the main motivation, in Wales it was also driven by opposition to the Welsh Methodist revival.^[5] This hostility was fuelled by memories of the bitter religious divisions that led to the 1639-1651 Wars of the Three Kingdoms.

When the Tory leader Sir William Wyndham died in 1740, Williams-Wynn led the campaign against Walpole, in partnership with Sir John Hynde Cotton, allegedly one of 'the most zealous Jacobites in England.'^[6] In contrast to Williams-Wynn, Cotton was a gifted orator who organised the Parliamentary campaign against Walpole.^[7]

In the 1741 General Election, Walpole targeted Williams-Wynn's Denbighshire seat; although he won the popular vote by 1352 votes to 933, 594 of these were disallowed, returning his rival. He sat instead for Montgomeryshire and after Walpole's resignation in 1742, regained his seat of Denbighshire on appeal. However, the chief beneficiaries of Walpole's fall were the so-called Patriot Whigs and a Tory faction led by Lord Gower who became Lord Privy Seal in 1742. This led 'Jacobites' like Williams-Wynn and the 4th Duke of Beaufort to re-open negotiations with Stuart agents.^[8]

In early 1744, Cotton accepted a government position in Henry Pelham's so-called Broad Bottom Ministry and Williams-Wynn voted with the government for the first time in his career.^[9] Although Britain and France were then engaged in the War of the Austrian Succession, in October 1744 he secretly travelled to Versailles where Louis XV assured him of French support for a Jacobite rising.

Robert Walpole, Whig Prime Minister 1721-1742

In common with many other Jacobites, Williams-Wynn's support was conditional on a substantial French military landing in England. When Charles Stuart invaded England during the 1745 Rising, Williams-Wynn remained in London to attend Parliament, only sending an oral message promising help when a French army arrived. After the Rebellion ended, the testimony of Prince Charles' former secretary Murray of Broughton led to the execution of Lord Lovat; he also implicated a number of Tories, including Williams-Wynn and Cotton but the government decided against further prosecutions. ^[10]

Lord Gower (1694-1754); in 1742, he became the first Tory to take office under the Hanoverians

The Tories were now split into a 'Jacobite' faction led by Williams-Wynn and those who followed Lord Gower; in an effort to stir up support and differentiate themselves, Williams-Wynn and others participated in Jacobite demonstrations at the 1747 Lichfield Races.^[11] Nevertheless, the 1747 General Election reduced the 'Jacobite' Tories to a largely irrelevant rump.

Despite failing to participate in the 1745 Rising, in December 1747 Williams-Wynn wrote to Prince Charles, assuring him his supporters wished 'for nothing more than another happy opportunity wherein they may exert themselves more in deeds than in words, in the support of your Royal Highness’s dignity and interest and the cause of liberty.'^[12] He sent a final message of support to Charles shortly before his death in December 1748. Williams-Wynn's actions were not uncommon; for example, Cotton urged Louis XV to invade in August 1745, despite being a government minister at the time.^[13]

The demonstration at Lichfield was one of the last significant displays of Jacobite sentiment, although his son the 4th Baronet re-established the White Rose Cycle in 1770, where it served as a club for a range of independent opinions.^[14]

Legacy

Monument to Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn at Ruabon, by Michael Rysbrack.

He was buried at Ruabon in the parish church of St Mary's. His widow, Dame Frances, commissioned a monument from the sculptor Michael Rysbrack completed in 1755; it was too large for the existing chancel and a new south-east chapel was built to house it.

At his death, his estates stretched over five Welsh counties and into the English county of Shropshire, that produced an estimated rental income of £20,000, a very substantial sum at the time. However, it was also rumoured his political activities left debts of over £120,000.^[3]

He commissioned the building of a new mansion at Wynnstay to replace the original by William Eyton in 1616; destroyed by fire in 1858 and then rebuilt, it was later converted into private apartments.

Although there is still a Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn's Hunt based in Ruabon, the existing pack was re-founded in 1843.^[15] The name "Watkin Williams-Wynn" was common to several of the later baronets, including his grandson and there is a Welsh folk song named after the best-known of these.^[16]

Despite a record of 'idleness and extravagance,'^[3] Williams-Wynn left a number of items to Jesus College, including a massive silver-gilt punch bowl weighing more than 200 ounces (5.7 kg) and holding 10 imperial gallons (45 l).^[17] This was most famously used at a dinner celebrating the defeat of Napoleon in 1814; attendees included the Tsar of Russia, Frederick of Prussia, General Blücher, Metternich, the Prince Regent, the Duke of York and the Duke of Wellington.^[17][18]

A portrait of Williams-Wynn by Thomas Hudson was acquired by Jesus College in 1997; it is not on public display as it hangs in the Senior Common Room of the college. It shows him wearing a sky-blue waistcoat, a symbol used by Tory Jacobite sympathisers.^[19]

References

Sources

• Cruickshanks, Eveline; 'Political Untouchables: The Tories and the '45;' (Holmes & Meier, 1979);
• Cruickshanks, Eveline; 'Williams (afterwards Williams-Wynn), Watkin (?1693-1749), of Wynnstay, Denb;' in 'The History of Parliament; the House of Commons, 1715-1754,' ed. R Sedwick (Boydell and Brewer, 1970);
• Monod, Paul Kleber; 'Jacobitism and the English People, 1688-1788;' (CUP, 1993);
• Riding, Jacqueline; Jacobites; A New History of the 45 Rebellion; (Bloomsbury 2016);
• Thomas, Peter D. G. (2004). "Wynn, Sir Watkin Williams, third baronet (1693?–1749)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/30155. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

Further reading

Wikisource has the text of the 1885–1900 Dictionary of National Biography's article about Wynn, Watkin Williams.

• Leigh Rayment's list of baronets