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KNATCHBULL WYNDHAM, Sir Wyndham, 6th Bt. (1737-63), of Mersham Hatch, Kent
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b. 16 Feb. 1737, o.s. of Sir Wyndham Knatchbull Wyndham, 5th Bt., by Catherine, da. of James Harris of Salisbury, niece of Lady Hardwicke. educ. Wadham, Oxf. 1754; Grand Tour 1757-60. unm. suc. fa. 23 July 1749.
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When in March 1760 a vacancy was expected in the county Sir Wyndham, still on his Grand Tour, was suggested by the Kent Whigs as a possible candidate against Sir Edward Dering. ‘His not being acquainted with the gentlemen ought not to deter him,’ wrote Sir George Oxenden, one of the most zealous of the Kentish Whigs, ‘though we don’t yet know him, we all know Sir Edward Dering ... If the latter steps in now there will be an end of Sir Wyndham.’ Hardwicke had written to Newcastle on 26 Mar. that Sir Wyndham had gone out of England ‘as zealous for the King and his Administration as a boy could be’, and he had him brought back to England for the election.1 Dering withdrew and Knatchbull Wyndham was returned unopposed. At the general election of 1761 he stood jointly with Robert Fairfax and was again returned without a contest.
On his first return Hardwicke wrote to Lord Royston: ‘It is ... a good thing for you and your fraternity’;2 and in 1761 Newcastle sent him the whip through Hardwicke, while Bute classed him with the Yorkes. He voted against the peace preliminaries on 9 Dec. 1762, but for them on the next day, which Newcastle attributed to the influence of the Yorkes.3 Yet when at the county meeting in July 1763 Fairfax moved an address approving of the Treaty of Paris, Sir Wyndham was prominent in opposing it. He died suddenly 26 Sept. 1763.
