WYLIE, ROBERT (1839–1877), American artist, was born in the Isle of Man in 1839. He was taken to the United States when a child, and studied in the schools of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, the directors of which sent him to France in 1863 to study. He won a medal of the second class at the Paris Salon of 1872. He went to Pont Avon, Brittany, in the early sixties, where he remained until his death on the 4th of February 1877. He painted Breton peasants and scenes in the history of Brittany; among his important works was a large canvas, "The Death of a Vendean Chief," now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
WYMONDHAM (pronounced Windham), a market town in the mid-parliamentary division of Norfolk, England, 10 m. S.W. of Norwich by the Great Eastern railway. Pop. (1901) 4764. The church of St Mary the Virgin rises on an eminence on the outskirts of the town. It was attached to a Benedictine priory, founded about the beginning of the 12th century as a cell of St Albans abbey by William de Albini. In 1448 this foundation
became an abbey. The nave is of ornate Norman work, with a massive triforium, surmounted by a Perpendicular clerestory and a beautiful wooden roof. The broad N. aisle is Perpendicular,
and has also a very fine rood screen. At the W. end there is a
lofty and graceful Perpendicular tower. The choir, which was
used as the conventual church, has left only slight traces, and one
arch is standing of a large chapel which adjoined it on the S. In the centre of the town is a picturesque half-timbered market cross (1616), with an octagonal upper chamber raised on massive pillars of wood. A chapel, dedicated to St Thomas of Canterbury, is used as a grammar school. At Wymondham on the 7th of July a festival was formerly held in honour of the saint. It was at this festival in 1549 that the rebellion of Robert Ket or Kett came to a head.
WYNAAD, or Wainad, a highland tract in S. India, forming
part of Malabar district, Madras. It consists of a table-land
amid the W. Ghats, 60 m. long by 30 m. broad, with an average
elevation of 3000 ft.; pop. (1901) 75,149. It is best known as
the district where a large amount of British capital was sunk
during the decade 1876–1886 in gold mines. It had yet earlier
been a coffee-planting district, but this industry has recently
declined. Tea, pepper and cardamoms are produced in increasing
quantities. There are also valuable forest reserves.
WYNDHAM, SIR CHARLES (1837–), English actor, was
born in Liverpool on the 23rd of March 1837, the son of a doctor.
He was educated abroad, at King's College, London and at the
College of Surgeons and the Peter Street Anatomical School,
Dublin, but his taste for the stage was too strong for him to
take up either the clerical or the medical career, suggested for him,
and early in 1862 he made a first appearance in London as an
actor. Later in the year, being in America, he volunteered
during the Civil War, and became brigade surgeon in the Federal
army, resigning in 1864 to appear on the stage in New York
with John Wilkes Booth. Returning to England, he played at
Manchester and Dublin in Her Ladyship's Guardian, his own
adaptation of Edward B. Hamley's novel Lady Lee's Widowhood.
He reappeared in London in 1866 as Sir Arthur Lascelles in
Morton's All that Glitters is not Gold, but his great success at
that time was in F. C. Burnand's, burlesque of Black-eyed Susan,
as Hatchett, “with dance.” This brought him to the St James's
theatre, where he played with Henry Irving in Idalia; then with
Ellen Terry in Charles Reade's Double Marriage, and Tom
Taylor's Still Waters Run Deep. As Charles Surface, his best
part for many years, and in a breezy three-act farce.
Pink Dominoes, by James Albery, and in Brighton, an anglicized
version of Saratoga by Bronson Howard (1842–1908), who
married his sister, he added greatly to his popularity both at
home and abroad. In 1876 he took control of the Criterion
theatre. Here he produced a long succession of plays, in which
he took the leading part, notably a number of old English
comedies, and in such modern plays as The Liars,
The Case of Rebellious Susan and others by Henry Arthur Jones, and he
became famous for his acting in David Garrick. In 1899 he
opened his new theatre, called Wyndham's. In 1902 he was
knighted. From 1885 onwards his leading actress was Miss
Mary Moore (Mrs Albery), who became his partner in the
proprietorship of the Criterion and Wyndham's theatres, and of
his New Theatre, opened in 1903; and her delightful acting in
comedy made their long association memorable on the London
stage.
WYNDHAM, SIR WILLIAM, Bart. (1687–1740), English
politician, was the only son of Sir Edward Wyndham, Bart., and
a grandson of William Wyndham (d. 1683) of Orchard Wyndham,
Somerset, who was created a baronet in 1661. Educated
at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, he entered parliament
in 1710 and became secretary-at-war in the Tory ministry in
1712 and chancellor of the exchequer in 1713. He was closely
associated with Lord Bolingbroke, and he was privy to the
attempts made to bring about a Jacobite restoration on the death
of Queen Anne; when these failed he was dismissed from office.
In 1715 the failure of a Jacobite movement led to his imprisonment,
but he was soon set at liberty. Under George I. Wyndham
was the leader of the opposition in the House of Commons,
fighting for his High Church and Tory principles against Sir
Robert Walpole. He was in constant communication with the
exiled Bolingbroke, and after 1723 the two were actively associated
in abortive plans for the overthrow of Walpole. He died
at Wells on the 17th of June 1740. Wyndham's first wife was
Catherine, daughter of Charles Seymour, 6th duke of Somerset.
By her he had two sons, Charles, who became 2nd earl of Egremont
in 1750, and Percy, who took the name of O'Brien and was
created earl of Thomond in 1756.
The Wyndham Family. Sir John Wyndham, a Norfolk man, was knighted after the battle of Stoke in 1487 and beheaded for high treason on the 2nd of May 1502. He married Margaret, daughter of John Howard, duke of Norfolk, and his son Sir Thomas Wyndham (d. 1521), of Felbrigg, Norfolk, was vice admiral of England under Henry VIII. By his first wife Sir Thomas was the father of Sir John Wyndham, who married Elizabeth, daughter of John Sydenham of Orchard, Somerset, and founded the Somerset branch of the family, and also of Sir Edmund Wyndham of Felbrigg, who was sheriff of Norfolk at the time of Robert Ket's rebellion. By his second wife Sir Thomas was the father of the seaman Thomas Wyndham (c. 1510–1553), an account of whose voyage to Morocco in 1552 is printed in Hakluyt's Voyages.
From Sir John Wyndham of Orchard Wyndham was descended Thomas Wyndham (1681–1745), lord chancellor of Ireland from 1726 to 1739, who in 1731 was created Baron Wyndham of Finglass, a title which became extinct on his death. His nephew, Henry Penruddocke Wyndham, (1736–1819), the topographer, wrote A Gentleman's Tour through Monmouthshire and Wales in June and July 1774 (1775); and Wiltshire from Domesday Book, with a Translation of the Original Latin into English (Salisbury, 1788).
Sir John Wyndham of Orchard Wyndham was also the ancestor of the Windhams of Felbrigg, who adopted this form of spelling the family name, the most noteworthy members of which were the statesman William Windham (q.v.), and Sir Charles Ash Windham (1810–1870), a soldier who commanded in the Crimea and in the Indian Mutiny.
The Wyndhams are also connected through a female line with the family of Wyndham-Quin, which holds the earldom of Dunraven. Valentine Richard Quin (1752–1824), of Adare, county Limerick, was created Baron Adare on the union with England in 1800, and earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl in 1822. His son, the 2nd earl (1782–1850), married Caroline (d. 1870), daughter and heiress of Thomas Wyndham of Dunraven Castle, Glamorganshire, and took the name of Wyndham-Quin. Their son, the 3rd earl (1812–1871), who was created a peer of the United Kingdom as Baron Kenry in 1866, was a well-known man of science, especially interested in archaeology. His son, Windham Thomas Wyndham-Quin (b. 1841), the 4th earl, was under-secretary for the colonics in 1885–1887, and became later a prominent figure in Irish politics, as chairman of the Irish Land Conference and president of the Irish Reform Association;
