Alexander Wynch
English businessman
Alexander Wynch (1721 – 1781) was an English merchant, a career civil servant of the East India Company who became Governor of Madras.
Life
He travelled to India at a young age and began to work, unpaid, for the East India Company at 13.
Wynch became governor of Madras in 1773. He was removed as governor in 1775, in the wake of his handling of the affair of Thuljaji, the Rajah of Thanjavur (Tanjore), who in fighting in south India had been dispossessed by Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah, the Nawab of Arcot. The company disapproved of the change in the previous policy of ensuring the Rajah and Nawab were bound by treaty. Wynch was replaced in 1775 by George Pigot, 1st Baron Pigot, governor some years before, who was sent out from England.
In England, Wynch lived in Upper Harley Street in London, and then Gifford Lodge in Twickenham. He died at Westhorpe House in Little Marlow, Buckinghamshire.
Family
Wynch was twice married, and had children by both marriages. His first wife was Sophia, daughter of Edward Croke and sister of Begum Johnson.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4720427. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1721, 1781, 1773 and 1775.
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This entry incorporates text from “Alexander Wynch” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.