Windham, WILLIAM, statesman, was born of an ancient Norfolk family at London, May 3, 1750. He was educated at Eton, at Glasgow University, and University College, Oxford. After the usual course of travel he began to acquire notoriety as an opponent of the administration of Lord North, and in 1784 was returned to parliament for Norwich. In 1783, on the formation of the Portland ministry, remarkable for the coalition of Lord North and Mr Fox, he had become principal secretary to Lord Northington, then Lord-lieutenant of Ireland, but ill-health soon obliged him to resign. He followed Burke in his view of the French Revolution, and in 1794 he became secretary-at-war under Pitt. He went out with Pitt in 1801, and denounced Addington's peace of Amiens (1801) in a speech of splendid eloquence. This lost him his seat for Norwich, but he was elected for St Mawes in Cornwall, and on the return of the Grenville party to power (January 1806) he became war and colonial secretary. He helped Cobbett (q.v.) to start his Political Register (January 1802), carried a scheme for limited service in the army (1806), and at the general election in October 1806 found a seat in New Romney, and next year at Higham Ferrers. He went out of office in 1807, when the Portland administration was formed, having previously declined the offer of a peerage, and strongly denounced the expedition against Copenhagen, and afterwards the disastrous Walcheren Expedition. In 1808 a clause was introduced by his successor Lord Castlereagh into the Mutiny Act, permitting men to enlist for life, contrary to Windham's scheme of limited service, which was, however, re-adopted in 1847. Windham died June 4, 1810.
Windham was a brilliant talker, an excellent speaker, and in the field of letters Dr Johnson, who loved him much, called him inter stellas luna minores. He was a member of the famous Literary Club, and he was one of the group around Johnson at his death. All his qualities and talents were neutralised by an intellectual timidity, a morbid self-consciousness, and a fondness for paradox. In his lifetime he was nicknamed the 'weather-cock.' In 1802 he opposed the abolition of bear-baiting 'as the first result of a conspiracy between the Jacobins and Methodists to render the people serious;' and we are told that he had a passion for pugilism, and was a regular attendant upon prize-fights.
His speeches were collected in 3 vols. in 1806, with a Life by his secretary, Thomas Amyot; his Diary from 1784 to 1810 was edited by Mrs Henry Baring (1866).