Percy Wyndham (1835–1911)

The Honourable Percy Scawen Wyndham DL JP MP (30 January 1835 – 13 March 1911) was a British soldier, Conservative Party politician, collector and intellectual. He was one of the original members of The Souls, and was the father of George Wyndham and grandfather of Stephen Tennant.

Background and education

Wyndham was a younger son of George Wyndham, 1st Baron Leconfield, and his wife Mary Fanny Blunt, daughter of Reverend William Blunt, and was educated at Eton. He served in the Coldstream Guards and achieved the rank of Captain.

Political career

In 1860 Wyndham was returned to Parliament as one of two representatives for Cumberland West (succeeding his uncle Sir Henry Wyndham), a seat he held until 1885. He was also a Deputy Lieutenant and Justice of the Peace for Sussex. He owned the Wiltshire manor of Pertwood from 1877 until his death, and he became a member of Wiltshire County Council and was High Sheriff of Wiltshire for 1896.

Family

Wyndham married Madeline Caroline Frances Eden Campbell, daughter of Sir Guy Campbell, 1st Baronet, and his wife Pamela FitzGerald, daughter of Lord Edward FitzGerald. They were both prominent members of The Souls. They had two sons and three daughters who were also members of The Souls. George Wyndham was a politician and man of letters while Guy Wyndham was a soldier.

Their eldest daughter Mary married the Earl of Wemyss and March. Their second daughter Madeline married Charles Adeane while their third daughter Pamela married firstly Lord Glenconner and was the mother of among others Stephen Tennant. Her second husband was Sir Edward Grey. The three sisters are the subjects of a well-known painting by John Singer Sargent. Percy Wyndham died in March 1911, aged 76. His wife survived him by nine years and died in March 1920.

Wyndham was the builder of Clouds House at East Knoyle, Wiltshire.

Wyndham commissioned the now-famous painting of his daughters, The Wyndham Sisters, by John Singer Sargent.

Wyndham appears in the 2014 book Those Wild Wyndhams by Claudia Renton, about the lives of Wyndham's three daughters, Mary, Madeline, and Pamela.

Spiritualism

Wyndham was a spiritualist who took interest in parapsychology. He was a friend of the medium Stainton Moses and a member of the London Spiritualist Alliance.

Wyndham was an early member of the Society for Psychical Research. In 1884 he attended a séance with the medium William Eglinton and was impressed by his slate-writing phenomena. However, Eglinton was exposed as a fraud by other researchers.