Sir Hugh Wyndham SL (1602 – 24 December 1684), of Silton, near Gillingham, Dorset, was an English Judge of the Common Pleas and a Baron of the Exchequer.
Sir Hugh Wyndham SL (1602 – 24 December 1684), of Silton, near Gillingham, Dorset, was an English Judge of the Common Pleas and a Baron of the Exchequer.
He was born at Orchard Wyndham, Somerset, the eighth son of Sir John Wyndham (1558–1645) of Orchard Wyndham, by his wife Joan Portman, daughter of Sir Henry Portman (d.1590) of Orchard Portman, Somerset. His younger brother was the judge Sir Wadham Wyndham (d.1668).
He was educated at Wadham College, Oxford: [1] the college had been founded by his paternal grandmother's brother, Nicholas Wadham (d.1609). He was admitted to Lincoln's Inn on 19 March 1622, and was called to the bar on 16 June 1629, becoming a Bencher in 1648. On 2 January 1643 he was made MA of Oxford University 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 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 his home at Silton was searched by order of the Council of State, upon information that some design against the peace had lately been planned there. 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 the men of John Penruddock and was imprisoned in the Tower of London 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 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. He did not however return to the bench until 20 June 1670 when he was appointed Baron of the Exchequer, eight days after which he was knighted by King Charles II. 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, served as 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 should pay for a property to be rebuilt, and cases were heard and a verdict usually given within a day. The judges worked gratis, three to four days a week. Had it not been for the operation of the Fire Court legal wrangles might have dragged on for months, which would have delayed the rebuilding which was so necessary for London to recover. In recognition of their services the artist John Michael Wright (c. 1617–1694), was commissioned to paint portraits of all 22 judges who had sat in the Fire Court. Wyndham's portrait is held today by the Guildhall Art Gallery, in the City of London.
He married three times:
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 white marble memorial, "a very fine standing figure", sculpted by Jan van Nost. [3] His will, covering estates in Dorset and Somerset, left his lands to his two daughters.
Wyndham's Oak, an historic tree named after Wyndham, in whose shade he used to sit, stands near Silton. [4]
Earl of Egremont was a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1749, along with the subsidiary title Baron of Cockermouth, in Cumberland, for Algernon Seymour, 7th Duke of Somerset, with remainder to his nephews Sir Charles Wyndham, 4th Baronet, of Orchard Wyndham, and Percy Wyndham-O'Brien. The Duke had previously inherited the Percy estates, including the lands of Egremont in Cumberland, from his mother Lady Elizabeth Percy, daughter and heiress of Joceline Percy, 11th Earl of Northumberland. In 1750 Sir Charles Wyndham succeeded according to the special remainder as second Earl of Egremont on the death of his uncle. His younger brother Percy Wyndham-O'Brien was created Earl of Thomond in 1756.
Nicholas Wadham (1531–1609) of Merryfield in the parish of Ilton, Somerset, and Edge in the parish of Branscombe, Devon, was a posthumous co-founder of Wadham College, Oxford, with his wife Dorothy Wadham who, outliving him, saw the project through to completion in her late old age. He was Sheriff of Somerset in 1585.
Sir Wadham Wyndham, of Ilton, Somerset and St. Edmund’s College, Salisbury, was a Justice of the King's Bench from 1660 to 1668.
Sir John Wyndham, JP, of Orchard Wyndham in the parish of Watchet in Somerset, was an English landowner who played an important role in the establishment of defence organisation in the West Country against the threat of Spanish invasion.
There have been three Wyndham Baronetcies, all created in the Baronetage of England. All were created for descendants of Sir John Wyndham (d.1573) of Orchard Wyndham in the parish of Watchet, Somerset, by his wife Elizabeth Sydenham, daughter and co-heiress of Sir John Sydenham of Orchard Sydenham. He was a grandson of Sir John Wyndham of Felbrigg, Norfolk, by his first wife Lady Margaret Howard, the fourth daughter of John Howard, 1st Duke of Norfolk.
Sir William Portman was an English judge, politician and Chief Justice of the King's Bench. He was MP for Taunton in 1529 and 1536, and an associate of Thomas Cromwell.
Florence Wyndham (1538-1596), wife of Sir John Wyndham of Orchard Wyndham in Somerset, was a daughter of John Wadham of Merryfield, Ilton in Somerset and Edge, Branscombe in Devon and was a sister and co-heiress of Nicholas Wadham, co-founder of Wadham College, Oxford.
Henry William Portman was an 18th-century housing developer, the ancestor of the Viscounts Portman.
The Portman baronetcy, of Orchard Portman in the County of Somerset, was a title in the Baronetage of England. It was created on 25 November 1611 for John Portman, son of Sir Henry Portman, knight, of Orchard Portman, Somerset, by Jane Mitchell. Orchard Portman is two miles southeast of Taunton. Sir Henry was the son of Sir William Portman, Lord Chief Justice of England between 1555 and 1557.
Sir Edward Seymour, 3rd Baronet of Berry Pomeroy Castle was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1640 and 1688. He fought for the Royalist cause in the English Civil War.
John Digby, 3rd Earl of Bristol was an English landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1675 to 1677 when he inherited the peerage as Earl of Bristol. He was styled Lord Digby from 1653 to 1677.
Sir William Portman, 6th Baronet FRS was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1661 and 1690.
Sir Nicholas Wadham was an English landowner, courtier, politician, and civil and military administrator from Somerset. His inherited landholdings over three counties included Merryfield in Ilton in Somerset, Catherston Leweston in Dorset, and Edge in Branscombe in Devon.
Sir George Speke (c.1530-1584) of Whitelackington in Somerset was Sheriff of Somerset in 1562–63 and was Member of Parliament for Somerset 1572–83.
Sir Nathaniel Napier, 2nd Baronet (1636–1709) was an English politician, known also as a traveller and dilettante.
Merryfield is a historic estate in the parish of Ilton, near Ilminster in Somerset, England. It was the principal seat of the Wadham family, and was called by Prince their "noble moated seat of Meryfeild" (sic). The mansion house was demolished in 1618 by Sir John Wyndham (1558–1645), of Orchard Wyndham, a nephew and co-heir of Nicholas II Wadham (1531–1609), co-founder of Wadham College, Oxford, the last in the senior male line of the Wadham family. It bears no relation to the present large 19th-century grade II listed mansion known as Merryfield House, formerly the vicarage, immediately south of St Peter's Church, Ilton.
The manor of Wadham in the parish of Knowstone in north Devon and the nearby manors of Chenudestane and Chenuestan are listed in the Domesday Book of 1086:
Sir Nathaniel Napier, 3rd Baronet, of Moor Crichel, Dorset, was an English landowner and politician who sat in the English House of Commons from 1695 to 1708 and in the British House of Commons from 1710 to 1722.
Sir John Wadham (c.1344–1412) was a Justice of the Common Pleas from 1389 to 1398, during the reign of King Richard II (1377–1399), selected by the King as an assertion of his right to rule by the advice of men appointed of his own choice, and one of the many Devonians of the period described by Thomas Fuller in his Worthies of England, as seemingly "innated with a genius to study law".
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