William Wickham (civil servant)

The Right Honourable William Wickham
Portrait of William Wickham
Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department
In office 1798–1801
Monarch	George III
Prime Minister	William Pitt the Younger
Preceded by	Charles Greville
Succeeded by	Edward Finch Hatton
Chief Secretary for Ireland
In office 1802–1804
Monarch	George III
Prime Minister	Henry Addington
Preceded by	Charles Abbot
Succeeded by	Sir Evan Nepean, Bt
Personal details
Born	(1761-11-11)11 November 1761 Cottingley
Died	22 October 1840(1840-10-22)(aged 78)
Nationality	British
Alma mater	Christ Church, Oxford

William WickhamPCPC (Ire)(11 November 1761 – 22 October 1840) was a British spymaster and a director of internal security services during theFrench Revolutionary Wars.He was credited with disrupting radical conspiracies in England but, appointedChief Secretary for Ireland,failed in 1803 to anticipate arepublican insurrection in Dublin.He ended his career in government service in 1804, resigning his post in Ireland where, privately, he denounced government policy as "unjust" and "oppressive".

Early years

Born into wealth inCottingley,Yorkshire, England, he was the eldest son of Henry Wickham, Esq., of Cottingley, Lieutenant-Colonel in the 1st Regiment of Foot Guards, and a justice of the peace for the West Riding. His mother was Elizabeth, daughter of William Lamplugh, vicar of Cottingley. Wickham attendedHarrow SchoolandChrist Church, Oxford,where he was a protégé ofCyril Jackson.He took a law degree inGeneva,Switzerlandin 1786. He was alsocalled to the barin England, atLincoln's Inn.

In 1788 he married Eleonora Madeleine Bertrand (d. 1836), whose father was professor of mathematics in theUniversity of Geneva.They had one son,Henry Lewis Wickham(b. 1789); Henry's son,William,was a member of parliament forPetersfield.

Magistrate

From 1790 to 1794, Wickham was a commissioner ofbankrupts.Following the passing of the Middlesex Justices Act of 1792, Wickham was appointed in 1793 as one of the newstipendiary magistrates.In this position he began to undertake secret work for the Government, at the behest ofLord Grenville,the thenForeign Secretary.This was at a time when theFrench Revolutionwas causing great concern to the British political establishment, and powers were given to magistrates under the1793 Aliens Act.

An early action taken by Wickham in his new post was the infiltration of the radicalLondon Corresponding Society,leading to the arrest and trial fortreasonof its leaders. Despite the apparent failure of his spies to uncover anything incriminating amidst the society's meetings and papers or to entrap the members in sedition, treason, or other crimes, Wickham was made "superintendent of aliens" in 1794 by the thenHome Secretary,theDuke of Portland.

Intelligence activities

Because of his knowledge of Switzerland, Grenville sent Wickham to that country in 1794 as assistant to the British ambassador. A year later he was namedchargé d'affaireswhen the ambassador took extended leave, and then appointed ambassador in his own right. His unofficial duties were to liaise with French opponents of the Revolution. By 1795, England was openly combating the French revolutionaries who had usurped and beheaded KingLouis XVIand his Queen,Marie Antoinette.Wickham established a spy network in Switzerland, southern Germany and in France and negotiated with French Royalists and others, supporting amongst other initiatives the disastrousrising in la Vendée.

Wickham strengthened the British intelligence system by emphasising the centrality of the intelligence cycle – query, collection, collation, analysis and dissemination – and the need for an all-source centre of intelligence.

The government secretly funded Wickham with a substantial budget for his objects. A good deal of this was spent in a complex plot to bring French revolutionary generalCharles Pichegruover to the ranks ofLouis Joseph, Prince of Condé,who maintained an army on the Rhine. Wickham advanced £8,000 to feed and supply Pichegru's troops; however, Pichegru vacillated and the initiative failed. Wickham also reported on French troop positions, armaments and operations. French spies, however, learned of his network, and France pressured Swiss authorities to expel him.

Wickham resigned, returning to England in 1798, where he resumed, after some internal wrangling, his position asSuperintendent of Aliens,and was appointedUnder-Secretary of State for the Home Department.For a year and a half he was "the effective head of the secret service".In that capacity, in March 1798 he orchestrated the arrests in London of leading radicals in theLondon Corresponding Societyand theirUnited Irishcontacts, among themJames Coiglywho was executed in June for treasonable communication with the French, andEdward Desparddestined to follow Coigly to the gallows in 1802.

The following year, 1799, Wickham returned to Europe toSwabia,close to the Swiss border, in 1799 where his averred role was to liaise with the armies of Austria and Russia in Europe, which were supported by Britain againstNapoleon.Again he negotiated inconclusively with Pichegru, but his expensive intrigues were rendered useless by Napoleon's victory at theBattle of Marengo(June 1800); moreover he was accused in London of misuse of public funds, which brought him close to a nervous breakdown. He returned to London in 1801.

Sheryl Craig suggests that Wickham's notoriety in this period inspiredJane Austento name the duplicitous villain ofPride and Prejudice,George Wickham,after him.

William Wickham advocated preventive policing: using networks of informers to uncover and frustrate seditious conspiracies before they reached fruition. However while he considered such undercover surveillance to be necessary in the national interest, he also believed that the security services should conduct in a manner appropriate to the circumstances. Thus, when peace appeared on the horizon in 1801 he proposed winding back of the wartime intelligence apparatus to a level "which a Free People jealous of its Liberties may be supposed fairly and rightly to entertain."

Ireland

In 1802 Wickham was appointed to thePrivy Counciland namedChief Secretary for IrelandunderLord Hardwicke.

In July 1803, within days of Wickham having reassured the government in London that, in the wake of theActs of Union,Ireland was at peace, an accidental explosion at a rebel arms depot in Dublin precipitated adisorderly risingled byRobert Emmet.Wickham was tasked with investigating the conspiracy and with the capture and interrogation of Emmet and his lieutenants.

Emmet was arrested in August, convicted of treason, and executed in September. Before leaving his prison cell for the last time, Emmet wrote to the Chief Secretary giving an account of motives and thanking him for the fair treatment he had received. It was a letter Wickham was later to refer to as his "constant companion".

In December, Wickham resigned. To friends he declared that "no consideration upon earth" could induce him "to remain after having maturely reflected on the contents’ of Emmet's letter".Emmet had been attempting to save Ireland from "a state of depression and humiliation" and Wickham proposed that had he been an Irishman, he "should most unquestionably have joined him".(Wickham was also impressed by Emmet's lieutenantNicholas Stafford,who had refused to incriminate his companions: he was, he reported, "the finest looking man" he ever saw).

On the eve of his resignation he gaveJohn Petty, Earl Wycombe,written assurance that he was not under consideration for arrest.This was despite his spymaster, Francis Higgins,insisting that Wycombe had "entered deep into the virus" of Emmet's conspiracy ".

On the formation of Grenville's ministry in 1806, Wickham was appointed aLord of the Treasury,but he resigned again from his post the following year. He would not serve in an administration that refusedCatholic Emancipation.Wickham never again held government office.

In 1802, he had entered the newUnited Kingdom ParliamentasMPfor the Irish borough constituency ofCashel,serving until 1806. Wickham then sat for the English seat ofCallingtonin Cornwall until 1807.

Family papers

TheHampshireRecord Officeholds a number of Wickham's papers. The archive relates also to his grandson William Wickham, who was vice-chairman on the first County Council. The archive includes grants of full powers to Wickham in 1799 and 1801; also poll books for the election of members of parliament representing Oxford University in 1801 and 1809, a plan showing the arrangement of wine in the cellars, and papers about Wickham's success in growing fig trees, which continue to flourish at his home inBinsted.His other property wasLullebrook ManoratCookhamin Berkshire.

Poldark

As the historical spy-master William Wickham appeared in thePoldark novelsofWinston Graham,and in the 2015BBC historical drama seriesof the same name. His character was played byAnthony Calf.

Sources

• Durey, Michael (2006). "William Wickham, the Christ Church Connection and the Rise and Fall of the Security Service in Britain, 1793–1801",The English Historical Review121#492 (June 2006), pp. 714–745.
• Durey, Michael (2006). "When great men fall out: William Wickham's resignation as chief secretary for Ireland in January 1804."Parliamentary History25.3: 334–356.
• Geohegan, Patrick (2009)."Wickham, William",Dictionary of Irish Biography".
• Sparrow, Elizabeth (n.d.)."Wickham, William",Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
• Sparrow, Elizabeth (1990).The Alien Office, 1792–1806The Historical Journal,(June 1990), pp. 361–384. Cambridge University Press.

Other publications

• Durey, Michael (2009).William Wickham, Master Spy: The Secret War Against the French Revolution.Pickering & Chatto.ISBN9781851969838.
• Wickham, William (1870).The correspondence of..William Wickham from the year 1794. Ed., with notes, by W. WickhamFromInternet Archive.

External links

• Hansard1803–2005:contributions in Parliament by William Wickham