Wynn
also Wyn, Winn
Wynn of Gwydir, dominant North Wales gentry.
- Origin
- Gwynedd, Wales
- Famous bearer
- Sir John Wynn, 1st Baronet of Gwydir (1553-1627), author of The History of the Gwydir Family
- Register
- Welsh family
Ranked of all time
The 10 Most Powerful Welsh Houses of All Time
CoreHistoric reach
The seat of Wynn
Seat vacantChief
No one leads the Wynn community yet. When the movement opens, you can stand for its leadership, or help elect whoever does.
Current mission
No shared goal set yet. Once Wynn has leadership, it sets the public focus: a restoration, a gathering, a real-world project that helps its own.
The Wynn clan is being rebuilt. Join the waiting list for the movement today, and you help decide who leads it and what it does.
Help rebuild the Wynn clan →What does the Wynn name mean?
From the Welsh 'gwyn', fair or white, originally a personal byname (Owain Wyn, Owain the Fair) that crystallised into a hereditary surname through the Tudor period. The Wynn family of Gwydir Castle in the Conwy Valley emerged in the 15th century as the dominant gentry house of North Wales.
The history of Wynn
The Wynns of Gwydir traced their descent from Owain Gwynedd, the 12th-century Aberffraw prince, through a series of north-Welsh patronymic lines that consolidated under the Wynn surname in the Tudor period. The family seat at Gwydir Castle in the Conwy Valley was rebuilt in the 16th century by Maurice Wynn and remained the centre of their estates across Caernarfonshire, Denbighshire and Merionethshire for the next two centuries.
The consolidating figure was Sir John Wynn, 1st Baronet of Gwydir (1553-1627), High Sheriff of Caernarfonshire and member of the Council in the Marches of Wales. Sir John was the author of *The History of the Gwydir Family*, a 17th-century manuscript that set the template for Welsh genealogical writing and remains a primary source for North Welsh gentry history. Under Sir John and his son Sir Richard, 2nd Baronet, the Wynn estates ran the political life of North Wales through the late Tudor and early Stuart period.
The senior Wynn line passed by marriage into the Williams family of Llanforda in Shropshire in 1719, producing the Williams-Wynn baronetcy of Wynnstay, which became the most powerful political house in Welsh-speaking Wales through the 18th and 19th centuries. The Wynn name continues through several cadet branches, the Williams-Wynn line, and the Wynn baronets of Glynllifon.
Notable bearers of the Wynn name
- Sir John Wynn, 1st Baronet of Gwydir (1553-1627), author of The History of the Gwydir Family
- Sir Richard Wynn, 2nd Baronet of Gwydir (1588-1649), Treasurer to Henrietta Maria
- Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, 4th Baronet (1748-1789), 'Prince in Wales', patron of Welsh culture