William Windham | |
|---|---|
 Windham in the 1780s by Gainsborough Dupont | |
| Secretary of State for War and the Colonies | |
| In office 5 February 1806 – 25 March 1807 | |
| Monarch | George III |
| Prime Minister | The Lord Grenville |
| Preceded by | Viscount Castlereagh |
| Succeeded by | Viscount Castlereagh |
| Secretary at War | |
| In office 1794–1801 | |
| Monarch | George III |
| Prime Minister | William Pitt |
| Preceded by | Sir George Yonge, 5th Baronet |
| Succeeded by | Charles Philip Yorke |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 14 May 1750 London |
| Died | 4 June 1810 (aged 60) Pall Mall, London |
| Nationality | English |
| Political party | Whig |
William Windham PC PC (Ire) (14 May [O.S. 3 May] 1750 – 4 June 1810) of Felbrigg Hall in Norfolk, was a British Whig statesman. Elected to Parliament in 1784, Windham was attached to the remnants of the Rockinghamite faction of Whigs, whose members included his friends Charles James Fox and Edmund Burke. Windham soon became noted for his oratory in the House of Commons.
An early supporter of the French Revolution, by late 1791 he shared Burke's hostility to it and became a leading anti-Jacobin. After war was declared on France in early 1793, he broke with the anti-war, pro-Revolution Foxite Whigs to form a small 'Third Party' which was independent of Pitt's government but supportive of the war effort. Like Burke, Windham supported the war as an ideological crusade against Jacobinism and was an enthusiastic supporter of the French émigrés and a Bourbon restoration. In July 1794 he finally joined Pitt's government as Secretary at War but did not control war policy. He discovered that Pitt did not share his enthusiasm for the Bourbon cause and he argued in Cabinet against a peace agreement with the French Republic.
In February 1801 Windham followed Pitt in resigning from the government over the King's rejection of Catholic Emancipation. He was the leading opponent of the new prime minister Henry Addington's Treaty of Amiens peace with France in late 1801 and early 1802. In the Ministry of All the Talents in 1806–7, Windham became Secretary for War and the Colonies, having reconciled with the Foxites. Together with them he resigned from the government, again over Catholic Emancipation. He spent the rest of his life in opposition, dying in 1810.[1]
- ^ David Wilkinson, 'Windham, William(1750–1810)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2008, accessed 14 December 2009.