page_title: William Windham
section_title: Early political career: 1778–1789
hierarchical_section_title: William Windham / Early political career: 1778–1789
caption_attribution_description: William Windham, by Sir Joshua Reynolds (died 1792). See source website for additional information. This set of images was gathered by User:Dcoetzee from the National Portrait Gallery, London website using a special tool. All images in this batch have been confirmed as author died before 1939 according to the official death date listed by the NPG.
context_page_description: William Windham PC PC 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 antiwar, pro-Revolution Foxite Whigs to form a small 'Third Party' that 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.
context_section_description: In early 1778 Windham first took part in political matters.  He felt strongly about the American War of Independence, writing to Richard Brinsley Sheridan on 5 January that "I never felt so much disposition to exert myself before". On 28 January Windham delivered in Norwich his first public speech, where he spoke against the war, and a few days later he wrote a remonstrance against it which was signed by 5,000 people and was presented to the House of Commons. His speech went down well and he was urged to stand for election. Windham stood unsuccessfully for Norwich in the election of September 1780.
  When in 1783 the Duke of Portland formed an administration, he appointed Lord Northington as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. Northington offered Windham the office of Chief Secretary for Ireland, which he accepted. However, after only four months in the post, Windham resigned under mysterious circumstances. His contemporaneous diary did record his distrust in his own powers, and disappointment at his limited achievements; he was also probably unwell at the time.
  On 5 April 1784 Windham was elected to Parliament for Norwich, a seat he would hold until 1802. He took part in the Impeachment of Warren Hastings and his speeches against him on 1 June 1787 and 22 March 1787 were admired. Though Windham opposed all proposals for parliamentary reform, to which most of the Whigs were committed, he remained in alliance with that party until after the outbreak of the French Revolution.
  During the Regency Crisis of 1788–89 he spoke in favour of granting George, Prince of Wales full regal powers as Regent. He wrote on 26 November 1788: "If the King of a country is completely out of his mind, whatever sorrow may be felt for that event, the extent of the evil is, however, known: It is, for the time it lasts, just as if the King were dead. The same person must, upon all principles of reason, and all views of the Constitution, carry on the Government, as if the King were actually dead—should he again be restored completely to his senses, the case is then equally clear: he must be restored completely to his government".
caption: William Windham by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
exif: {}