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Lot Essay
Sir Henry's father, Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn 4th Bt., had vast North Welsh estates and interests that stretched far beyond the borders of the principality. His mother was the daughter the Rt. Hon George Grenville and aunt of the 1st Duke of Buckingham Grenville. However as a third son, on whom little inheritance would be settled, it is not surprising that he entered the Foreign Office as a clerk in 1799, especially as it was his maternal uncle, William Wyndham, Baron Grenville (1759-1834) who was Foreign Secretary at the time. He worked for his uncle from 1801, at the end of his unmatched time as Foreign Secretary. Williams-Wynn's first diplomatic posting came in 1803 when he was sent as envoy to the court of the Elector of Saxony Friedrich August III (1763-1827). The posting of a little over three years earned him a pension of 1,500 a year. However with his family connections now in opposition his career stagnated and it would not be until 1822 that he would serve abroad once more. Lord Liverpool, most probably due to family alliance's, sent Willams-Wynnto Switzerland as envoy-axtraordinary in 1822. Due to opposition to the posting from both the Houses of Commons and Lords Williams-Wynn was transfered to the court of King Wilhelm I of Württemberg (1816-1864) the follwing year. He left the Kingdom of Württemberg in 1824 to served as envoy to the court of King Frederik VI of Denmark (1808-1839). He was to remain there into the reign of King Frederik's son, also Frederik, only returning to Britain in 1853, barely three years before his death in 1856. Through the patronage resulting from his marriage in 1813 to Hester (d.1854), daughter of Robert, 1st Baron Carrington (1752-1838), he served a M.P. for Midhurst, but was only for a few months. He was first and foremost a diplomat.