Family and Education

b. ?1723, 2nd s. of Sir William Wyndham, 3rd Bt., and yr. bro. of Charles Wyndham, 2nd Earl of Egremont. educ. Winchester 1737-40; St. Mary Hall, Oxf. 17 Nov. 1740, aged 17; Grand Tour. unm. suc. to estates of Henry O’Brien, 7th Earl of Thomond [I], husband of his mother’s sister, assuming add. name of O’Brien 1741; cr. Earl of Thomond [I] 11 Dec. 1756.

Offices Held

Ld. of Treasury Dec. 1755-Nov. 1756, P.C. 8 July 1757; treasurer of the Household July 1757-Nov. 1761, cofferer Nov. 1761-5; ld. lt. Som. 1764-73; recorder, Taunton 1765.

Biography

Succeeding as a minor to the name and estates of the Earls of Thomond, O’Brien was returned for Taunton on the Wyndham interest at a by-election in 1745 soon after he came of age. Voting for the Hanoverians in 1746, he was put down by the Government as a ‘New Ally’. In 1747, when his Taunton seat was required for his elder brother, Sir Charles Wyndham, he ‘forced himself’ into Minehead as a courtier, getting ‘everything that money could buy’, without consulting the lord of the manor, who had a ‘natural interest’ there.1 In the new Parliament he was classed, with his brother, as a government supporter. He died 21 July 1774.

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: Romney R. Sedgwick

Notes

• 1. H. C. Maxwell-Lyte, Dunster Castle, i. 232-3.