WINGFIELD, William (?1773-1858), of Lincoln’s Inn, Mdx.; Sherborne Castle, Dorset and Blythe Hall, Warws.

A barrister practising on the home circuit and an equity draftsman, Wingfield was connected by his sister’s marriage to Rev. John Basset with Lord de Dunstanville, who put him up at both Penryn and Bodmin in 1806. Defeated at Penryn, he had the satisfaction of seeing his petition against the return lead to prosecution of his successful opponent for bribery and was in the meantime returned for Bodmin unopposed. In Parliament no minority vote of his is known and only one appearance in debate, when he presented a petition from Penryn, 9 Jan. 1807. He did not seek re-election in 1807 and reverted to his legal career. When in November 1811 Lord de Dunstanville offered him another opportunity to sit for Bodmin, he declined.Sidmouth mss, De Dunstanville to Sidmouth, 5 Nov. 1811. In 1816 he obtained a Welsh judgeship, for which he had applied while in Parliament through Lady George Cavendish.Grey mss, Grenville to Howick, 14 Jan. 1807. As estate manager for the dowager Duchess of Norfolk he was encouraged by Lord Somers to offer for Hereford in 1818 and on a vacancy in August 1819, but nothing came of it.See HEREFORD. He died 20/21 Mar. 1858, ‘aged 84’. Thomas Creevey described him as ‘the most successful humbug simpleton I have known in all my life’.Gent. Mag. (1858), i. 455; Creevey’s Life and Times, 258.