Sir Hugh Wyndham

Sir Hugh Wyndham SL (1602 – 24 December 1684), of Silton, English judge, was born at Orchard Wyndham, Somerset, the eighth son of Sir John Wyndham (1558–1645) of Orchard Wyndham, and his wife, Joan, daughter of Sir Henry Portman. The judge Sir Wadham Wyndham was his younger brother.

Educated at Wadham College, Oxford, he was admitted to Lincoln's Inn on 19 March 1622, being called to the bar on 16 June 1629 and became a Bencher in 1648. On 2 January 1643 he was made MA of Oxford by Royal Warrant. In February 1654 he became a serjeant-at-law on the authority of parliament. He was appointed a judge of the court of common pleas on 30 May 1654 by Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, and he was appointed to the commission of oyer and terminer charged with dealing with the Penruddock uprising in 1655.

Despite his promotion under Oliver Cromwell, he was looked upon with some suspicion by the Commonwealth, and in 1651 Silton was searched by order of the Council of State, upon information that some design against the peace had lately been brewing in it. The search produced nothing incriminating.

He was deprived of his office on the Restoration and was at once called to account for having sat in judgment on Penruddock's men and was imprisoned in the Tower while his conduct was investigated. He declared that he had done so "only by the soliciting and earnest importunity of divers of His Majesty's party" and in order to save the accused if he could. His reasons were accepted and he was pardoned and allowed to resume practice as a serjeant-at-law in June 1660, this time by royal authority, but did not return to the bench until 20 June 1670 when he was appointed Baron of the Exchequer and was knighted by Charles II eight days later. On 22 January 1673 he became a judge of the court of common pleas once more.

After the Great Fire of London in 1666, Sir Hugh Wyndham, along with his brother Sir Wadham Wyndham, was a judge at the Fire Court set up in 1667 to hear cases relating to property destroyed in the fire. The Court sat at Clifford's Inn and focused primarily on deciding who would pay for a property to be rebuilt, and cases were heard and a verdict usually given within a day. The judges worked for free, three to four days a week and without the Fire Court legal wrangles could have dragged on for months seriously delaying the rebuilding which was so necessary if London was to recover. As a reward for their efforts, the artist John Michael Wright (c. 1617–1694), was commissioned to paint portraits of all 22 judges that had sat in the Fire Court. Wyndham's portrait is part of the Guildhall Art Gallery collection.

He married three times, first in c.1640 to Jane, daughter of Sir Thomas Wodehouse, second baronet, of Kimberley Norfolk, and by her had two sons and three daughters. Only two daughters survived to adulthood, Blanche who married Sir Nathaniel Napier, 2nd Baronet, and Rachel who married Lord Digby, later third and last earl of Bristol. As his second wife, he married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Minn of Woodcott, Surrey, the widow of Sir Henry Berkeley of Wimondham, Leicestershire. There was no issue. Thirdly, in 1675 he married Katherine, daughter of Thomas Fleming of North Stoneham, Hampshire, widow of Sir Edward Hooper of Beveridge, Dorset. They also had no issue.

Sir Hugh Wyndham died in his eighty-second year on 27 July 1684 while on circuit at Norwich. He was buried at the church of St Nicholas, Silton, Dorset, and is commemorated by a memorial sculpted by Jan van Nost. [Rupert Gunnis, "Dictionary of British Sculptors 1660-1851" (1968 revised edition), p.281, calls it "a very fine standing figure".] His will, covering estates in Dorset and Somerset, left his lands to his two daughters.

References

* Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004.
* Wyndham, the Hon H A, "A Family History, The Wyndhams of Somerset, Sussex and Wilstshire", 1950.

Notes

External links

* [http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/EventsExhibitions/Special/LondonsBurning/People/record.htm?type=person&id=150883 Museum of London.]
* [http://cityoflondon.gov.uk/Corporation/LGNL_Services/Leisure_and_culture/Museums_and_galleries/Guildhall_Art_Gallery/The_collection/fire_judges.htm City of London, Fire Judges]
* [http://holmesacourt.org/d8/i0000471.htm Holmes à Court Family Website.]
* [http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/images/conway/9bcb84f1.html Arts and Architecture]