John Max Henry Scawen Wyndham, 7th Baron Leconfield, 2nd Baron Egremont, FRSL, DL (born 21 April 1948), [1] generally known as Max Egremont, is a British biographer and novelist. Egremont is the eldest son of John Wyndham, 6th Baron Leconfield and 1st Baron Egremont, and Pamela Wyndham-Quin, and succeeded his father in 1972. He is a direct descendant of Sir John Wyndham. He married Caroline Nelson, a garden designer, granddaughter of Almeric Paget, 1st Baron Queenborough, in 1978 and they have four children, three daughters and a son. He lives at the family seat of Petworth House in Sussex, which his family gave to the National Trust in 1947.
Egremont grew up in Petworth in West Sussex. He was educated first at Heatherdown School near Ascot, then at Eton College and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he read modern history.
He has worked for the American publishing firm Crowell Collier Macmillan and on the staff of U.S. Senator Hugh Scott in Washington. After his father's death in 1972, Egremont moved to Petworth and became the 2nd Baron Egremont and 7th Baron Leconfield.
Egremont's first book The Cousins: The Friendship, Opinions and Activities of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt and George Wyndham was published in 1977 and won the Yorkshire Post Prize for the best first book of that year. His next work was Balfour: A Life of Arthur James Balfour , published in 1980. He then wrote four novels, The Ladies' Man (1983), Dear Shadows (1986), Painted Lives (1989) and Second Spring (1993). His biography of Major General Sir Edward Spears, Under Two Flags, was published in 1997 and was short listed for the Westminster Medal for Military History. He was appointed to be the official biographer of Siegfried Sassoon by Sassoon's son George. Egremont's Siegfried Sassoon came out in 2005 and was short listed for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. In 2011 he published Forgotten Land, Journeys Among the Ghosts of East Prussia. In 2014, he published Some Desperate Glory, the First World War the Poets Knew. In 2017 Egremont was joint author with Frances Carey of Käthe Kollwitz, Portrait of the Artist, the catalogue that accompanied a travelling exhibition of Kollwitz's work. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2001. [2] Egremont's short book The Connel Guide to World War 1 was published in 2017.
He was a trustee of the Wallace Collection from 1988 to 2000, of the British Museum from 1990 to 2000, and a member of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts from 1989 to 2001. He has been chairman of the Friends of the National Libraries since 1985 and of the National Manuscripts Conservation Trust since 1995. He is President of the Sussex Heritage Trust and of the Sussex branch of the Council for the Protection of Rural England.
Charles Wyndham, 2nd Earl of Egremont, PC, of Orchard Wyndham in Somerset, Petworth House in Sussex, and of Egremont House in Mayfair, London, was a British statesman who served as Secretary of State for the Southern Department from 1761 to 1763.
Baron Leconfield, of Leconfield, in the East Riding of the County of York, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1859 for Col. George Wyndham (1787–1869). He was the eldest illegitimate son and adopted heir of George Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont (1751–1837), by Elizabeth Ilive, his future wife, from whom he inherited Petworth House in Sussex, Egremont Castle and Cockermouth Castle in Cumbria and Leconfield Castle in Yorkshire, all formerly lands of Josceline Percy, 11th Earl of Northumberland (1644–1670), inherited by Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset (1662–1748), on his marriage to the Percy heiress Elizabeth Percy (1667–1722) and inherited as one of the co-heirs of his son Algernon Seymour, 7th Duke of Somerset, 1st Earl of Egremont (1684–1750), by the latter's nephew Sir Charles Wyndham, 4th Baronet (1710–1763), of Orchard Wyndham in Somerset, who inherited by special remainder the earldom of Egremont. The 1st Baron's eldest son, the second Baron, represented West Sussex in the House of Commons as a Conservative. He was succeeded by his eldest son, the third Baron, who served as Lord Lieutenant of Sussex from 1917 to 1949. The latter's nephew, the sixth Baron, served as Private Secretary to Prime Minister Harold Macmillan from 1957 to 1963. In 1963, four years before he succeeded his father in the barony of Leconfield, the Egremont title held by his ancestors was revived when he was raised to the peerage as Baron Egremont, of Petworth in the County of Sussex. As of 2017 the titles are held by his son, the seventh Baron. Known as Max Egremont, he is a biographer and novelist.
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, sometimes spelt Wilfred, was an English poet and writer. He and his wife Lady Anne Blunt travelled in the Middle East and were instrumental in preserving the Arabian horse bloodlines through their farm, the Crabbet Arabian Stud. He was best known for his poetry, which appeared in a collected edition in 1914, and also wrote political essays and polemics. He became additionally known for strongly anti-imperialist views that were still uncommon in his time.
Petworth House is a late 17th-century Grade I listed country house in the parish of Petworth, West Sussex, England. It was built in 1688 by Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, and altered in the 1870s to the design of the architect Anthony Salvin. It contains intricate wood-carvings by Grinling Gibbons. It is the manor house of the manor of Petworth. For centuries it was the southern home for the Percy family, earls of Northumberland.
Sir William Wyndham, 3rd Baronet, of Orchard Wyndham in Somerset, was an English Tory politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1710 to 1740. He served as Secretary at War in 1712 and Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1713 during the reign of the last Stuart monarch, Queen Anne (1702–1714). He was a Jacobite leader firmly opposed to the Hanoverian succession and was leader of the Tory opposition in the House of Commons during the reign of King George I (1714–1727) and during the early years of King George II (1727–1760).
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.
George O'Brien Wyndham, 3rd Earl of EgremontFRS of Petworth House in Sussex and Orchard Wyndham in Somerset, was a British peer, a major landowner and a great art collector. He was interested in the latest scientific advances. He was an agriculturist and a friend of the agricultural writer Arthur Young, and was an enthusiastic canal builder who invested in many commercial ventures for the improvement of his estates. He played a limited role in politics.
George Wyndham, 1st Baron Leconfield, was a British soldier and peer.
Henry Wyndham, 2nd Baron Leconfield,, was a British peer and Conservative Member of Parliament.
Charles Henry Wyndham, 3rd Baron Leconfield, was a British peer, army officer and political figure. He succeeded his father as third Baron Leconfield in 1901.
John Edward Reginald Wyndham, 6th Baron Leconfield, 1st Baron Egremont MBE was a British peer, art collector and author.
John Wyndham (1903–1969) was a British science fiction writer.
JoscelinePercy, 11th Earl of Northumberland, 5th Baron Percy, of Alnwick Castle, Northumberland and Petworth House, Sussex, was an English peer.
Percy Wyndham-O'Brien, 1st Earl of Thomond was a British Member of Parliament and an Irish peer.
George Francis Wyndham, 4th Earl of Egremont of Orchard Wyndham, Somerset and Silverton Park, Devon, was an English nobleman and naval officer.
Wyndham is an English surname and a given name. Notable people with the name include:
Hugh Archibald Wyndham, 4th Baron Leconfield was a British peer, politician and author. He succeeded his elder brother as fourth Baron Leconfield in 1952. He was the historian of the Wyndham family.
Pamela Wyndham, Baroness Egremont, was a British society hostess and traveller, who worked at Bletchley Park during the Second World War, before marrying her cousin John Wyndham, 1st Baron Egremont.
Elizabeth Ilive was an English polymath. She was the mistress and later wife of George Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont. She was the mother of eight of his children.
Leconfield Hall, formerly Petworth Town Hall, is a municipal building in the Market Square in Petworth, West Sussex, England. The building, which is now used as a cinema, is a Grade II* listed building.