# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wyndham, Henry Penruddocke

​WYNDHAM, HENRY PENRUDDOCKE (1736–1819), topographer, eldest son of Henry Wyndham (d. 1788, aged 79), of Compton Chamberlayne, Wiltshire, and St. Edmund's College, Salisbury who married Arundel (d. 1780), daughter of Thomas Penruddocke of Compton Chamberlayne, was born at Compton Chamberlayne on 4 June 1736. Sir Wadham Wyndham [q. v.] was his great-grandfather. Henry was educated at Eton and at Wadham College, Oxford, whence he matriculated as gentleman commoner on 21 Feb. 1755, aged 18. On 22 March 1759 he was created M.A.
Wyndham, in company with Joseph Wyndham and William Benson Earle of Salisbury, embarked from Dover on 4 Sept. 1765, and visited France, Italy, and Sicily. A letter from him was extant, written in Italian to his friend and correspondent Rev. John Bowle, describing his ascent of Mount Etna, and several papers on what they saw in their travels were written by Earle. Wyndham returned by way of Geneva to Holland, reaching England in September 1767. Next year he married Caroline, daughter and heiress of Edward Hearst of the Close in Salisbury.
The Wyndham family had great influence in Salisbury, and Henry, who resided for many years there at St. Edmund's College, the family residence, was elected a freeman of the city on 15 March 1761, and was nominated in 1765 as a candidate for its parliamentary representation, but declined the contest. He was mayor of Salisbury in 1770–1, and served as sheriff of Wiltshire in 1772. In 1794 he commanded a local troop of cavalry which had been raised in that city, and from 10 Jan. 1795 to the dissolution of 1812 he sat in parliament for his native county of Wiltshire. He was in the main a supporter of Pitt's administration, but he voted on 12 June 1805 for the impeachment of Lord Melville. He died at Salisbury on 3 May 1819, and was buried in the family vault in St. Edmund's Church, having had issue five sons and two daughters. The family is now represented by John Henry Campbell-Wyndham of Dunoon, Argyllshire.
Wyndham was elected F.S.A. on 6 Feb. 1777, and F.R.S. on 9 Jan. 1783. He published:
* ‘A Gentleman's Tour through Monmouthshire and Wales in June and July 1774’ [anon.], 1775. The edition of the work which came out in 1794 was also anonymous; but the enlarged ‘Tour through Monmouthshire and Wales in June and July 1774, and in June, July, and August 1777,’ which was published at Salisbury in 1781, had the name on the title-page. The views in the 1781 volume were by Grimm, who accompanied him on the second journey.
* ‘Diary of the late George Bubb Dodington, Baron of Melcombe Regis, 1749–61. With an Appendix of curious and interesting papers. Now first published,’ 1784. Several editions were issued, and it formed vol. xxii. of a ‘Collection of Lives,’ 1828, &c. Dodington left his property to his cousin, Thomas Wyndham of Hammersmith, who in 1777 left all to Henry Penruddocke Wyndham. It included ‘a vast collection of Dodington's private correspondence’ (Arthur Young, Autobiogr. p. 161).
* ‘Wiltshire, extracted from Domesday Book, with a Translation of the original Latin into English,’ 1788. He hoped that it might pave the way for a history of Wiltshire, under the patronage of the gentlemen of the county, and he offered 100l. towards the cost. His services are acknowledged by the Rev. W. H. Jones in his ‘Domesday for Wiltshire,’ 1865, pp. ix–x.
* ‘A Picture of the Isle of Wight, delineated upon the spot in 1793. By H. P. W.,’ 1794.
Wyndham contributed ‘Observations on an ancient Building at Warnford, Hampshire,’ to the ‘Archæologia,’ v. 357–66, and ‘On a Roman Pavement at Caerwent’ (ib. vii. 410–11). He helped Archdeacon Coxe in his ‘Historical Tour of Monmouthshire’ (vol. i. p. iv), and allowed him to use the private letters of Dodington, in his ‘Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole’ (vol. i. p. xxix). A letter from him is in Gough MS. 17582 at the Bodleian Library, and he corresponded with William Cunnington [q. v.]
W. P. C.