Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wynne, Edward

by William Prideaux Courtney

WYNNE, EDWARD (1734–1784), law writer, born in 1734, was eldest son of William Wynne, serjeant-at-law (baptised at St. Margaret's, Westminster, on 7 July 1692, d 16 May 1765), who married, on 30 Sept. 1728, Grace (d. 20 Nov. 1779), daughter and coheiress of William Brydges, serjeant-at-law. His grandfather, Owen Wynne, LL.D., warden of the mint and under-secretary of state, married Dorothy, daughter of Francis Luttrell of Gray's Inn, and sister of Narcissus Luttrell [q. v.]

Wynne matriculated from Jesus College, Oxford, on 11 April 1753, and was called to the bar from the Middle Temple in 1758. Narcissus Luttrell purchased from the Earl of Shaftesbury in 1710 the estate of Little Chelsea, and at his death it passed first to his brother-in-law, Serjeant Wynne, and then to Edward Wynne. Wynne was a man of extensive reading, both legal and general, and an acute lawyer, but, through his wealth, without the necessity for close application to his profession. He died at his house, Little Chelsea, on 27 Dec. 1784, and was buried in the same grave with his father and mother in the north cloister, Westminster Abbey, on 3 Jan. 1785. Tablets in the cloister commemorate grandfather, father and mother, and son.

Wynne was the author of:

1. ‘A Miscellany containing several Law Tracts’ [anon.], 1765. It contained seven articles, the last two of which were by his father, the second of them being ‘Observations touching the Antiquity and Dignity of the Degree of Serjeant-at-Law.’ One of Wynne's tracts was ‘On the Trial of the Pix;’ it was printed separately in 1785, and reprinted in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ (1785, i. 127–8).
2. ‘An Analysis of the Law concerning Parochial Provisions for the Poor’ [anon.], 1767.
3. ‘Eunomus; or Dialogues concerning the Law and Constitution of England. With an Essay on Dialogue’ [anon.], 1767, 4 vols. (probably for private circulation only); 1774 [anon.], 4 vols., 2nd edit. by Edward Wynne, 1785. Later editions appeared at Dublin in 1791, and at London in 1809 and 1821. The fifth edition in 1822 contained notes by W. M. Bythewood and an index by John Winter Jones.

The sale by Leigh & Sotheby of Wynne's library, begun on 6 March 1786, lasted twelve days. It contained the collections of Narcissus Luttrell, including many old English romances and scarce pamphlets, the bulk of which are now in the British Museum. The auction catalogue was ‘wretchedly detailed to the public’ (Dibdin, Bibliomania, ed. 1876, pp. 323–4). Wynne was unmarried, and all his property went to his brother, the Rev. Luttrell Wynne (d. 1814).

[Chester's Westminster Abbey Reg. pp. 405–6, 429, 439, 488; Atterbury's Miscell. Works, iv. 460–3; Gent. Mag. 1785, i. 53–4, 77; Lysons's Environs, ii. 177, iii. 628; Boase's Collect. Cornub. p. 1305.]

W. P. C.