Christopher Wyvill (reformer)
English cleric, landowner and political reformer
Christopher Wyvill (1740–1822) was an English cleric and landowner, a political reformer who inspired the formation of the Yorkshire Association movement in 1779.
The American Revolutionary War had forced the government of Lord North to increase taxation. Frustrated with government profligacy, Wyvill and the gentry of Yorkshire called for a package of 'economical reforms': cuts in government spending and patronage, annual parliaments and an increase in the number of county seats in parliament.
Wyvill's cause was taken up by the Rockingham Whig opposition, culminating in the carrying of Dunning's motion in 1780. Some moderate reforms were implemented by the Rockingham-led administration of 1782. William Pitt the Younger raised a number of issues surrounding parliamentary reform in opposition to the Fox-North Coalition in 1783, but his proposal failed to gain the necessary support. In the wake of the French Revolution, Wyvill's platform came to be seen as moderate. Its influence can be detected in the later Great Reform Act and Chartist movement in the nineteenth century.
Early life
He was born in Edinburgh in 1740, the son of Edward Wyvill (died 1791), supervisor of excise there, by Christian Catherine, daughter of William Clifton of Edinburgh. Sir Christopher Wyvill, 3rd Baronet, of Constable Burton, was his great-great-grandfather.
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