Family and Schooling

The imperative demands of secrecy that constituted a notable feature of William Wickham's extraordinary public-service career – hiding in the shadows, destroying compromising documents, using the duplicitous phrases of the diplomat or the cryptic words of the spy – seemingly extended into his private life. Despite the survival of a huge archive of correspondence relating to his public life, almost nothing is left to throw light on Wickham's early years. In the 1860s even his grandson, as editor of Wickham's Continental correspondence, was bemused by the complete absence of personal letters addressed to Wickham before the age of thirty-three, that is, before the time Wickham first travelled to the Continent as a secret agent under diplomatic cover. It is possible that these early papers may have been lost by mischance, either by their being entrusted to someone who subsequently mislaid them, or by an accident of war in Europe (if he took them with him). Such an explanation, however, is weakened by the fact that Wick-ham also appears to have kept very little personal correspondence dated between 1794 and 1804. At some point, probably during his long retirement, Wickham must have systematically purged his pre-retirement archive of almost everything remotely personal, either to keep it separate from his public work, in which case it has mostly disappeared, or with the intention of destroying it.

Such drastic action as burning one's papers is by no means unknown among the prominent, even in Wickham's own age. John Horne Tooke, the celebrated radical and probable traitor, burnt his papers before his death in 1812. Cyril Jackson, the Dean of Christ Church, who was the friend and confidant of so many public figures, including Wickham himself, instructed in his will that all his papers should be destroyed. Tooke's purpose was clearly to ensure no compromising documents remained and Jackson's, too, no doubt was to eradicate all evidence of the many confidences he had received, both political and personal.