William Wickham

William Wickham PC PC (Ire) (11 November 1761 – 22 October 1840) was a British spymaster and a director of internal security services during the French Revolutionary Wars. He was credited with disrupting radical conspiracies in England but, appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland, failed in 1803 to anticipate a republican 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 in Cottingley, 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 attended Harrow School and Christ Church, Oxford, where he was a protégé of Cyril Jackson. He took a law degree in Geneva, Switzerland in 1786. He was also called to the bar in England, at Lincoln's Inn. In 1788 he married Eleonora Madeleine Bertrand (d. 1836), whose father was professor of mathematics in the University of Geneva. They had one son, Henry Lewis Wickham (b. 1789); Henry's son, William, was a member of parliament for Petersfield. Magistrate From 1790 to 1794, Wickham was a commissioner of bankrupts. Following the passing of the Middlesex Justices Act of 1792, Wickham was appointed in 1793 as one of the new stipendiary magistrates. In this position he began to undertake secret work for the Government, at the behest of Lord Grenville, the then Foreign Secretary. This was at a time when the French Revolution was causing great concern to the British political establishment, and powers were given to magistrates under the 1793 Aliens Act.