Henry Thynne

Who was Henry Thynne?

Henry Thynne was an English gentleman and Tory Member of Parliament.

Thynne was the eldest of the three sons of Thomas Thynne, 1st Viscount Weymouth, of Longleat, a substantial landowner in Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, by his marriage to Lady Frances Finch, a daughter of Heneage Finch, 3rd Earl of Winchilsea. He was christened on 16 February 1674/75 at Drayton Bassett.

Thynne was educated at home and was very interested in literature. In 1692 he visited the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy. As a young man, he taught French and Italian to his contemporary Elizabeth Singer, in whom Bishop Thomas Ken, then living at Longleat, had taken an interest when she was twelve. In To the Painter of an Ill-Drawn Picture of Cleone, the Honorable Mrs Thynne, a poem by Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, Thynne appears under the name of "Theanor", while "Cleone" was his wife Grace, to whom Lady Winchilsea addressed several of her poems.

At the election of 1695 Thynne stood unsuccessfully for parliament at Weobley. He later sat as a Member of Parliament for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis in 1701, then briefly for Tamworth before representing Weymouth and Melcombe Regis again until his death in 1708.