1775-1850. Politician and Grenvillite MP. Brother of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn of the Wynnstay estate near Ruabon. 

Charles "the very opposite of his gladabout brother, Sir Watkin, was a sober, diligent, scholarly, and somewhat vulnerable individual." He was a leading parliamentary expert on the precedents and privileges of the House of Commons. His lifelong desire was to become Speaker; in this he failed. He was often ridiculed for his high pitched voice: 

He often falls into so screeching a tone as to impair the articulation of the word altogether; for he does not pitch his voice at a very high key. He has, besides, an indescribable sort of lisp by which he mars the correct pronunciation of almost every word. (Grant's Recollections; full text of his portrait of Wynn)

He was also not liked by Percy Grace who describes an encounter at Wotton to Anna Eliza:

I was so unlucky to encounter the other morning that very formidable personage Mistress [sic] Charles Williams Wynn. He was looking as bilious & as ill humoured as can well be imagined. (HEH STG Correspondence Box 7 (04))

• Educated at Oxford and became a barrister
• His parents wanted him to court Elizabeth Acland but "he left the field to his rival, Lord Porchester":

To be sure your weakness & helplessness does exceed all imagination & appears to me, to extend full as much to the suffering yourself to be the Tool & Dupe of Lord Porchester as Miss A... Your Uncle says he will do more with the Toe of his lame leg than you with all the faculties of ypur mind & body united. (1795, Leighton, p19ff)

• MP in 1797 for Old Sarum 
• 1799 won the seat for Montgomeryshire which he held until his death in 1850. 
• A friend and patron of the poet Southey and an antiquarian
• He commanded the Montgomeryshire Yeomanry Cavalry from 1803 to 1844
• 1822-1828: President of the Board of Control
• 1827: Member of 1827 Select Committee of the House of Commons on Middlesex Pauper Lunatics
• 1828: Metropolitan Lunacy Commissioner
• 1830: Secretary at War 
• 1831: Resigned over Reform Bill
• 1834-35: Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
• 1850: Died while still MP.

A member of Brooks's Club.

Further Information

• Charlotte Grenville's Children
• Biographies of Honorary (Unpaid) Lunacy Commissioners 1828-1912 (a useful biography of Wynn, not just his work in Lunacy)
• Grant's Recollections