Select Wyatt Miscellany



Here are some Wyatt stories and accounts over the years:

Early Recorded Wyatts


Name
 Date
 County
Wiot de Acham
 1192
 Lincolnshire
Gwiot
 1203
 Gloucestershire
Wyot
 1219
 Yorkshire
William Wyot
 1274
 Shropshire
Robert Wiot
 1279
 Bedfordshire
Thomas Guyot
 1295
 Essex
Elias Wyete
 1296
 Sussex


Anne Wyatt and Anne Boleyn

Anne Wyatt accompanied Anne Boleyn to the scaffold in 1536 and received from her "her little prayer book, set in gold enamelled black, which she long preserved as a precious relic."  Anne Boleyn had sent a message to the King via Anne Wyatt prior to that fateful journey:

"Command me to his Majesty and tell him he has ever been constant in his career of advancing me. From a private gentlewoman he made me a marchioness, from a marchioness a Queen.  And now he has left me no higher degree of honor.  He gives to me my innocence the crown of martyrdom."  

She went to the block dressed in black damask and was said never to have looked more beautiful.

The Wyatt and Boleyn familes were close.  Their fathers had been apppointed joint constables of Norwich castle in 1512.  A later Wyatt, Sir George Wyatt, wrote and published his Life of Anne Boleyn. 


Edward Wyatt, The Virginia Settler

Edward Wyatt came to Virginia with his father, the Rev. Hawte Wyatt, on The George in 1621.  They returned to England after the death of his grandfather Sir George Wyatt two years later.  Edward then came for a second time to Virginia with his uncle, Governor Francis Wyatt, and this time he settled there permanently.

He obtained a patent for 1,230 acres along the Peankatak river.  His plantation there, near Williamsburg, was named Boxley after the parish in which he was born in Kent.  It was later divided into the old Upton estate, new Upton estate, and Oakley estate.


Richard Wyatt and the Family Coat of Arms

Richard Wyatt was born in Caroline county, Virginia in 1720 and lived through the Revolutionary War.  His view of England and his antecedents was recounted in Wingfield's History of Caroline County:

"Richard Wyatt, at his home in Caroline County, becoming incensed at the Mother Country (preceding the Revolution), tore the family coat of arms from the wall and, hacking it from the frame with his sword, threw it on the blazing logs in the fireplace.  It was rescued by his daughter Nancy who later became the second wife of Colonel Anthony New.  When they removed to Kentucky, the treasured painting went with them. 

In the year 1830 a descendant, seeing the old relic in their Kentucky home, made a little sketch of the design.  Though blackened by fire and smoke, there were still to be plainly seen bands of boars' heads on the shield similar to the arms of Sir Thomas Wyatt of England.  The painting was later totally destroyed by fire.  But the little sketch is still in the family."



The Wyatt Family of Architects

John Wyatt (1675-1742), of Weeford in Staffordshire
- John Wyatt (1700-1766), a mechanic who contributed to the development of power spinning
- William Wyatt (1701-1772)
- Benjamin Wyatt (1709-1772), a local builder

Benjamin Wyatt (1709-1772)
- William Wyatt (1734-1780), builder and architect
- Samuel Wyatt (1737-1807), a leading English architect of his time with his brother James
- Joseph Wyatt (1739-1785), builder and architect
- Benjamin Wyatt (1744-1818)
- James Wyatt (1746-1813), one of the premier architects of his age

William Wyatt (1734-1780)
- Benjamin Wyatt (1755-1813), builder
- Charles Wyatt (1758-1813), an architect who worked in India

Samuel Wyatt (1737-1807)
- Jeffry Wyatt (1766-1840), later Sir Jeffry Wyattville, an architect and garden designer

Benjamin Wyatt (1744-1818)
- Lewis Wyatt (1777-1853), an architect

James Wyatt (1746-1813)
- Edward Wyatt (1757-1833)
  - Richard Wyatt (1795-1850), a sculptor
- Benjamin Dean Wyatt (1775-1852), architect and pupil of his father James
- Matthew Cotes Wyatt (1777-1862), a painter and sculptor
  - Sir Matthew Wyatt (1805-1886), architect and builder
- Philip William Wyatt (c1780-1835), an architect

William Wyatt (1701-1772)
- grandson Matthew Wyatt (1773-1831), a police magistrate in London
   - Thomas Henry Wyatt (1807-1880), an architect
   - Sir Digby Wyatt (1820-1877), art historian who became first Slade Professor of Fine Art at Cambridge.


These family linkages come from J.M. Robinson's 1979 book, The Wyatts, an Architectural Dynasty.


Woodrow Wyatt Quotations

"A man falls in love with his eyes, a woman through her ears."

"We have children because we want immortality and this is the most reliable way of getting it."

"No country which has cricket as one of its national games has yet gone communist."

Oscar Wyatt and Dallas


Oscar Wyatt got his start in the energy business in 1950 when he mortgaged his Ford sedan to finance the Hardly Able Oil Company, the forerunner of his Coastal Oil and Gas Corporation.  He has since that time been a Texas oil-field legend.  Once described by Texas Monthly as "meaner than a junkyard dog," he has cultivated a tough-guy image over the years.

His career has been marked by scandal and, some say, scandalous behavior.   He played the gas market in the early 1970's, reneging on gas contracts in Texas and driving up the spot gas price.  Later, he cultivated a relationship with Saddam Hussein and got embroiled in "oil for food" kickbacks.

Some in Texas think that Wyatt was the inspiration for JR Ewing in the 1980's TV soap drama Dallas - but older, rounder, nastier, and with friends like Saddam Hussein.

 


Return to Top of Page
Return to Wyatt Main Page