William Watkin Edward Wynne

William Watkin Edward Wynne (23 December 1801 – 9 June 1880) was a Welsh Conservative Party politician and antiquarian.

Wynne was born on 23 December 1801 in Denbighshire, Wales, and educated at Westminster School and Jesus College, Oxford.

The collection had been assembled by the 17th-century antiquarian Robert Vaughan and it contained an early version of the Canterbury Tales, mystery plays in Cornish and many early Welsh manuscripts, including twelve manuscripts of the Welsh laws of Hywel Dda.

Wynne catalogued the manuscripts, publishing the result in Archaeologia Cambrensis between 1869 and 1871, and allowed scholars to examine and copy them.

[2] Wynne had considerable knowledge about the history and genealogy of north Wales, assisting other writers and contributing articles on Merionethshire to Archaeologia Cambrensis and elsewhere.

Portrait of William Watkin Edward Wynne