Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 63.djvu/303

 pher Wyvill (1651–1710), was dean of Ripon from 4 Nov. 1686.

The third baronet's elder son, Sir William Wyvill (d. 1684), fourth baronet, had a younger son, Darcy Wyvill (d. 3 Jan. 1734–5), collector in excise for Derby, who was grandfather of Christopher, the political reformer.

The fourth baronet's eldest son, Sir Marmaduke (d. 1722), M.P. for Richmond from October 1695 to July 1698, was father of (1) Sir Marmaduke (d. 1753), sixth baronet, who was appointed postmaster-general of Ireland in February 1736; and of (2) Christopher (d. 1752), a successful place-hunter, whose daughter Elizabeth (by his first wife) became an heiress on the death in 1753 of her uncle, Sir Marmaduke, sixth baronet, and married her cousin Christopher (see below); while his son (by his second wife), Sir Marmaduke Asty Wyvill (1740–1774), was seventh baronet, and high sheriff of Yorkshire in 1773, and on his death without issue on 23 Feb. 1774 the baronetcy became dormant—the eldest surviving male branch of the family being domiciled in America.

Christopher Wyvill was educated at Cambridge, obtaining the honorary degree of LL.D. from Queens' College in 1764. On 1 Oct. 1773 he married his cousin Elizabeth the heiress, and early next year came in for the large landed estates of the family in Yorkshire 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 in Essex, which he continued to hold and administer by means of a curate down to 22 Sept. 1806. Debarred though he was from entering the House of Commons, Wyvill soon began to take a prominent part in county politics. In 1779 he was appointed secretary of the Yorkshire Association, which had for its primary objects to shorten the duration of parliaments and to equalise the representation. He soon afterwards became chairman of the association, drew up a circular letter enunciating its political sentiments, and took a leading part in drawing up the great Yorkshire petition presented to parliament on 8 Feb. 1780. A number of moderate whigs, including Horace Walpole, regarded Wyvill's ‘manifesto’ as chimerical. ‘You told me,’ complained Walpole to Mason (22 March 1780), ‘that he was a sensible man. How could he set his name to such a performance? I never saw such a composition of obscurity, bombast, and futility, nor a piece so liable to be turned into ridicule. … In short my dear friend, we shall lose all the benefit of the present spirit by the whimsies of men that have not common-sense, nor can express even what they mean.’ Sir Cecil Wray wrote in a similar strain, and Rockingham himself complained of the zeal of the association leaders, and wanted to know if they had ever considered the practicability of the annual parliaments which they recommended. Wyvill's contention was that the unavailing protraction of the American war and the expenditure of seventy millions of money were due primarily, not to the wish of the people, but to the votes of the members of the close boroughs, and that such a dangerous defect in the representative system needed an instant remedy. The association, of which Wyvill became ‘the backbone,’ had the sympathy of many statesmen, including Pitt and Charles Fox, and with greater moderation Wyvill would undoubtedly have achieved more than he did. As it was, a committee, with Wyvill at its head, was appointed to continue the propaganda by correspondence, and the example of Yorkshire was rapidly followed by Middlesex, Chester, and other counties to the number of twenty-five. With the cessation of the war, however, and the fall of Lord North, the association soon became disintegrated, and Wyvill had the mortification of seeing one after another of his noble colleagues slacken in their zeal and finally drop off, only a few remaining true to the cause. Among the few who were staunch were Sir George Savile [q. v.] 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 (cf., Radical Pioneers of the Eighteenth Century, 1886, p. 118). Wyvill strongly disapproved of the war with France, to which he attributed the industrial distress in Yorkshire, and this completed his alienation from Pitt. In 1793, with a view of throwing into injurious relief Pitt's former elastic views on the subject of parliamentary reform and the policy of reaction induced by the events of 1789–92, he published in pamphlet form the 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 extremest section of the opposition led by Fox, and he defended in a short pamphlet (dated Burton Hall, 10 Jan. 1799) the secession of 1798; after Fox's death he gave his support to Whitbread and the peace-at-any-price party.

In the meantime he had found absorbing