Sir Thomas Wyse
(1791-1862)
17 December 1860

Volume 2, page 119, sitting number 1774.

Thomas Wyse was educated at Stonyhurst College and at Trinity College, Dublin, where he distinguished himself as a scholar. He spent some years after 1815 in travel, visiting Greece, Egypt and Palestine, and residing for some time at Viterbo in Italy. He returned to Ireland in 1825, having by this time inherited the family estates. He served as Member of Parliament for Tipperary from 1830 to 1832, and for Waterford fom 1835 to 1841 and again from 1842 to 1847. A Roman Catholic himself, he was a leader in the movement for Catholic emancipation.

On 4 March 1821, at the palace of Canino near Rome, he married Laetitia, daughter of Lucien Bonaparte, prince of Canino, brother of Napoléon I. They separated in 1828 and she died at the Palazzo Bonaparte, Viterbo, near Rome, on 13 March 1871 at the age of 70.

In 1849, Sir Thomas Wyse was sent as British minister to Athens, a post he held until his death, apart from a brief period in 1850 when diplomatic relations between Greece and the United Kingdom were suspended.

Sir Thomas Wyse was created K.C.B. in 1857. He died at the British legation in Athens on 15 October 1862. The King of Greece ordered a public funeral for him.

[From an album compiled by either Captain Henry Langton or his brother Francis Langton.]