![Christopher Wyvill](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/Christopher_Wyvill.jpg)
Christopher Wyvill (1740–1822) was an English cleric and landowner, a political
reformer who inspired the formation of the ''
Yorkshire Association
Christopher Wyvill (1740–1822) was an English cleric and landowner, a political reformer who inspired the formation of the '' Yorkshire Association'' movement in 1779.
The American Revolutionary War had forced the government of Lord North t ...
'' movement in 1779.
The
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
had forced the government of
Lord North
Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford (13 April 17325 August 1792), better known by his courtesy title Lord North, which he used from 1752 to 1790, was 12th Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1770 to 1782. He led Great Britain through most o ...
to increase taxation. Frustrated with government profligacy, Wyvill and the gentry of Yorkshire called for a package of 'economical reforms': cuts in government spending and
patronage, annual parliaments and an increase in the number of county seats in parliament.
Wyvill's cause was taken up by the
Rockingham Whig opposition, culminating in the carrying of
Dunning's motion in 1780. Some moderate reforms were implemented by the
Rockingham-led administration of 1782.
William Pitt the Younger
William Pitt the Younger (28 May 175923 January 1806) was a British statesman, the youngest and last prime minister of Great Britain (before the Acts of Union 1800) and then first prime minister of the United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Ire ...
raised a number of issues surrounding parliamentary reform in opposition to the
Fox-North Coalition in 1783, but his
proposal failed to gain the necessary support. In the wake of the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...
, Wyvill's platform came to be seen as moderate. Its influence can be detected in the later
Great Reform Act
The Representation of the People Act 1832 (also known as the 1832 Reform Act, Great Reform Act or First Reform Act) was an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom (indexed as 2 & 3 Will. IV c. 45) that introduced major changes to the electo ...
and
Chartist movement
Chartism was a working-class movement for political reform in the United Kingdom that erupted from 1838 to 1857 and was strongest in 1839, 1842 and 1848. It took its name from the People's Charter of 1838 and was a national protest movement, w ...
in the nineteenth century.
Early life
He was born in
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...
in 1740, the son of Edward Wyvill (died 1791), supervisor of excise there, by Christian Catherine, daughter of William Clifton of Edinburgh.
Sir Christopher Wyvill, 3rd Baronet
Sir Christopher Wyvill, 3rd Baronet (1614 – 8 February 1681) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons in 1659 and 1660.
Wyvill was the son of Sir Marmaduke Wyvill, 2nd Baronet of Constable Burton Hall and his wife Isabel Gas ...
, of
Constable Burton
Constable Burton is a village and civil parish in the Richmondshire district of North Yorkshire, England. It is east of Leyburn.
History
The village takes its name from ‘Burton’, meaning a fortified settlement in Old English, and ‘Con ...
, was his great-great-grandfather.
Wyvill matriculated at
Queens' College, Cambridge in 1756, obtaining an honorary degree of LL.B. in 1764. In 1774 he came in for the large landed estates of the family in
Yorkshire
Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other English counties, functions have ...
and elsewhere, and the mansion at Constable Burton, the building of which he completed from his cousin, Sir Marmaduke's, designs. He had some years previously taken orders and been presented through his cousin's influence to the rectory of
Black Notley
Black Notley is a village and civil parish in Essex, England. It is located approximately south of Braintree and is north-northeast from the county town of Chelmsford. According to the 2011 census including Young's End it had a population of ...
in
Essex
Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...
, which he continued to hold and administer by means of a
curate, down to 22 September 1806. Debarred from entering the House of Commons, Wyvill began to take a prominent part in county politics.
[
]
The Yorkshire Association
In 1779 Wyvill was appointed secretary of the Yorkshire Association, which had for its main objects to shorten the duration of parliaments, and to equalise the representation. He shortly became chairman of the association.[
Wyvill drew up a circular letter enunciating its political sentiments, and took a leading part in drawing up the Yorkshire petition presented to parliament on 8 February 1780. A number of moderate Whigs, including Horace Walpole, regarded Wyvill's manifesto as chimerical, Walpole writing that it was full of "obscurity, bombast, and futility". Sir Cecil Wray wrote in a similar vein, and Rockingham wanted to know if the Association had ever considered the practicability of the annual parliaments which they recommended. Wyvill's contention was that the long American war was due primarily, not to the wish of the people, but to the votes of the members of the close boroughs. The Association had the sympathy of politicians including Pitt and ]Charles James Fox
Charles James Fox (24 January 1749 – 13 September 1806), styled ''The Honourable'' from 1762, was a prominent British Whig statesman whose parliamentary career spanned 38 years of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He was the arch-riv ...
.[
A committee under Wyvill was appointed to continue the pressure by correspondence, and the example of Yorkshire was followed by other counties, 25 in all. In the period 1779 to 1781, when there was a delegate conference, the movement gained a broad base. Supporters included ]John Baynes
John Baynes (1758–1787) was an English lawyer and miscellaneous writer.
Life
Baynes was born at Middleham, Yorkshire, and educated at Richmond Grammar School in the same county, under Anthony Temple. Proceeding to Trinity College, Cambridg ...
, Newcome Cappe
Newcome Cappe (21 February 173324 December 1800), was an English unitarian divine. He served as the pastor of the York Unitarian Chapel, located in York, England. Cappe published various sermons and after his death his second wife, Catharine Cap ...
, John Fountayne
John Fountayne (1714–1802) was a Church of England clergyman and the longest serving Dean of York.
Life
Fountayne was the younger of two sons of John Fountayne. He was raised at Melton Hall], in High Melton, the family seat which he inherit ...
, Sir James Grant, 8th Baronet, Sir James Grant, Thomas Brand Hollis
Thomas Brand Hollis (1719 – 9 September 1804), born Thomas Brand, was a British political radical and dissenter.
Early life
Thomas Brand was born the only son of Timothy Brand, a mercer of Ingatestone, Essex, and his wife Sarah Michell of R ...
, Sir James Innes-Ker, John Lee John Lee may refer to:
Academia
* John Lee (astronomer) (1783–1866), president of the Royal Astronomical Society
* John Lee (university principal) (1779–1859), University of Edinburgh principal
* John Lee (pathologist) (born 1961), English ...
, Gamaliel Lloyd Gamaliel Lloyd (1744–1817) was an English merchant and political reformer, a supporter of the Yorkshire Association.
Life
He was the son of George Lloyd of Hulme Hall and his second wife Susanna(h) Horton, sister of Sir William Horton, 1st B ...
, George Montagu, 4th Duke of Manchester
George Montagu, 4th Duke of Manchester PC (6 April 17372 September 1788) was a British politician and diplomat.
Early life
He was the son of Robert Montagu, 3rd Duke of Manchester and the former Harriet Dunch. Among his siblings were Lord Cha ...
, John Smyth, Charles Stanhope, and William Johnson Temple
William Johnson Temple (also Johnstone) (1739–1796) was an English cleric and essayist, now remembered as a correspondent of James Boswell.
Early life
William Johnson Temple was the son of William Temple of Allerdean, near Berwick-on-Tweed, whe ...
.
Herbert Butterfield
Sir Herbert Butterfield (7 October 1900 – 20 July 1979) was an English historian and philosopher of history, who was Regius Professor of Modern History and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. He is remembered chiefly for a shor ...
argued that the Yorkshire Association was a quasi-revolutionary organisation and that "our “French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...
” is in fact that of 1780—the revolution that we escaped". This interpretation was adopted by Robert Roswell Palmer
Robert Roswell Palmer (January 11, 1909 – June 11, 2002) was an American historian at Princeton and Yale universities, who specialized in eighteenth-century France. His most influential work of scholarship, ''The Age of the Democratic Revolutio ...
but criticised by other historians such as Richard Pares
Richard Pares (25 August 1902 – 3 May 1958) was a British historian. He "was considered to be among the outstanding British historians of his time."
Family life and education
The eldest son of the five children of the historian Bernard Pares ...
and I. R. Christie.
With the end of the American Revolutionary War in 1783, however, and the fall of Lord North, the Association disintegrated. Wyvill's supporters dwindled, to a small group including Sir George Savile, and Sir Charles Turner, who spoke of the House of Commons as resembling a parcel of thieves that had stolen an estate and were afraid of letting any person look into their title-deeds for fear of losing it.[
Wyvill strongly disapproved of the subsequent war with France, to which he attributed industrial distress in Yorkshire, and this completed his alienation from Pitt. In 1793 Wyvill published in pamphlet form correspondence that had passed between them. Some supplementary letters appeared at Newcastle in a further brochure, and both had a large sale. Wyvill attached himself to the extreme Whig opposition, and he defended in a short pamphlet (early 1799) the secession of 1798. After Fox's death he gave his support to Samuel Whitbread and the peace-at-any-price party.][
]
Later life
Wyvill returned in later life to his early enthusiasm in the cause of universal toleration; in particular he published on Catholic emancipation
Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, and later the combined United Kingdom in the late 18th century and early 19th century, that involved reducing and removing many of the restricti ...
. He died at his seat, Burton Hall, near Bedale in the North Riding
The North Riding of Yorkshire is a subdivision of Yorkshire, England, alongside York, the East Riding and West Riding. The riding's highest point is at Mickle Fell with 2,585 ft (788 metres).
From the Restoration it was used as ...
, on 8 March 1822, at the age of 82, and was buried at Spennithorne
Spennithorne is a village and civil parish in lower Wensleydale in North Yorkshire, England. The village is situated 2 miles (3.2 km) south-east of the market town Leyburn, on a slight elevation above the River Ure, which forms the ...
. A portrait was in the possession of his great-grandson, Marmaduke D'Arcy Wyvill M.P., of Constable Burton.[
]
Works
Wyvill's correspondence with Pitt, and the political correspondence, are known as the "Wyvill Papers". Three volumes appeared in 1794–5 as ''Political Papers, chiefly respecting the Attempt of the County of York and other considerable Districts, commenced in 1779 … to effect a Reformation of the Parliament of Great Britain. Collected by the Rev. Christopher Wyvill, Chairman of the late Committee of Association'' (York). The preface is dated Burton Hall, 26 May 1794; in June 1802 Wyvill wrote the preface to a fourth volume, and the papers were eventually concluded in six. They show the proceedings of the Yorkshire Association, and the sympathy of others interested in the reform of Parliament. The correspondence includes letters between the chairman of the association and, among others, the Duke of Grafton
Duke of Grafton is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1675 by Charles II of England for Henry FitzRoy, his second illegitimate son by the Duchess of Cleveland. The most notable duke of Grafton was Augustus FitzRoy, 3rd Duke ...
, Lord Holland, Lansdowne Lansdowne or Lansdown may refer to:
People
* Lansdown Guilding (1797–1831), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines naturalist and engraver
*Fenwick Lansdowne (1937–2008), Canadian wildlife artist
* George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne (1666–1735) ...
, Lord Stanhope, Charles James Fox, Major John Cartwright
John Cartwright (17 September 1740 – 23 September 1824) was an English naval officer, Nottinghamshire militia major and prominent campaigner for parliamentary reform. He subsequently became known as the Father of Reform. His younger brother E ...
, Capel Lofft
Capel Lofft (sometimes spelled Capell; 14 November 1751 – 26 May 1824) was a British lawyer, writer and amateur astronomer.
Life
Born in London, he was educated at Eton College, Peterhouse, Cambridge. He trained as a lawyer at Lincoln's Inn, w ...
, William Mason, William Strickland, Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley (; 24 March 1733 – 6 February 1804) was an English chemist, natural philosopher, separatist theologian, grammarian, multi-subject educator, and liberal political theorist. He published over 150 works, and conducted exp ...
, Richard Price
Richard Price (23 February 1723 – 19 April 1791) was a British moral philosopher, Nonconformist minister and mathematician. He was also a political reformer, pamphleteer, active in radical, republican, and liberal causes such as the French ...
, Bishop Richard Watson, Tom Paine
Thomas Paine (born Thomas Pain; – In the contemporary record as noted by Conway, Paine's birth date is given as January 29, 1736–37. Common practice was to use a dash or a slash to separate the old-style year from the new-style year. In th ...
, Granville Sharp
Granville Sharp (10 November 1735 – 6 July 1813) was one of the first British campaigners for the abolition of the slave trade. He also involved himself in trying to correct other social injustices. Sharp formulated the plan to settle black ...
, John Jebb, Sir George Savile, and Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...
.[
Wyvill's writings were mostly shilling tracts, advocating radical reform. They include:][
* ''Thoughts on our Articles of Religion with respect to their Proposed Utility to the State'', London, 1771, several editions.
* ''Letters to the Committee of Belfast on the proposed Reformation of the Parliament of Ireland'', 1782.
* ''Summary Explanation of the Principles of Mr. Pitt's intended Bill for Amending the Representation of the People in Parliament'', 1785.
* ''A Defence of Dr. Price and the Reformers of England'', 1792, (a plea for reform, with some reflections on ]Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke (; 12 January NS.html"_;"title="New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">NS">New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">NS/nowiki>_1729_–_9_July_1797)_was_an_NS.html"_;"title="New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">N ...
).
* ''A State of the Representation of the People of England on the Principles of Mr. Pitt in 1785, with an Annexed Sketch of Additional Propositions'', York, 1793.
* ''Considerations on the Twofold Mode of Elections adopted in France'', 1804.
* ''A Serious Address to all the Independent Electors of the United Kingdom'', 1804.
* ''A more extended Discussion in Favour of Liberty of Conscience Recommended'', 1808.
* ''Intolerance, the Disgrace of Christians, not the Fault of their Religion'', 1808.
* ''An Apology for the Petitioners for Liberty of Conscience'', 1810.
* ''Papers on Toleration'', 1810 (several editions).
* ''Political and Historical Arguments proving the Necessity of Parliamentary Reform'', 2 vols. 1811.
Family
On 1 October 1773 Wyvill married his cousin Elizabeth, an heiress. She died in London on 22 July 1783, aged 68. He married, secondly, on 9 August 1787, Sarah, daughter of J. Codling, and by her had issue, with several daughters, three sons, all educated at Eton College
Eton College () is a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. intended as a sister institution to King's College, ...
: Marmaduke Wyvill (1791–1872), M.P. for York city from March 1820 to July 1830; Christopher Wyvill,[For more on Christopher Wyvill see: ] a naval officer; and Edward, rector of Fingal, Yorkshire
Finghall is a village and civil parish in the Richmondshire district of North Yorkshire, England.
History
The village is mentioned in the Domesday Book as ''Fingall'' when it belonged to Count Alan and had 13 villagers. The origin of the place- ...
, who died on 15 September 1869.[
]
References
*Ian R. Christie (1960) The Yorkshire Association, 1780-4: A Study in Political Organization, ''The Historical Journal'', Vol.3, No.2, pp. 144–16
Notes
Attribution
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wyvill, Christopher
1740 births
1822 deaths
Alumni of Queens' College, Cambridge